InDesign does not support pixels as a unit. All InDesign files use physical measurements for sizes, such as inches, centimetres, or points. InDesign CS5 introduced a measurement called “pixels”, but it is not pixels, it is points (1/72 inch). When a raster image is imported, InDesign determines the physical size on the page by dividing the resolution (in pixels) by the ppi setting on the image (ppi for Pixels Per Inch). If your image has a resolution of 72 ppi, then each pixel is 1/72 of an inch, which is the same size as InDesign’s wrongly named pixel. If your image has a resolution of 300 ppi, then each pixels will be imported at 1/300 of an inch, completely ignoring the pixel unit of measure you are using. The pixels in that image will be much smaller than 1/72 inch, so the image imports smaller. Adobe made the same mistake years ago with Illustrator and nothing but confusion  has been the result. You can either scale the image up so that it’s effective resolution is 72 ppi (416.67%) or open the image in Photoshop and go to Image > Image Size and change the resolution to 72 ppi. If you do the latter, be sure you set Resample to None. Resave, then import that image and the size will be what you expect. ... View more

If you import the file, any spot colours used in the Illustrator file will show up in the Swatches panel in InDesign. ... View more

As far as I know QuarkXPress, (soft of) like InDesign, can only backsave to the last previous version. Your client using QuarkXPress 8 should be able to save QuarkXPress 7 files which will work with your version of Q2ID. ... View more

Expand is used to nail down live effects like Warp and Envelope Distort. Before you use Expand the effect is live and can be edited anytime, as can the object the effect is applied to, letting you edit text or modify the objects affected. Expand nails down the effect, making the path match the object’s appearance. After Expand the effect is not longer editable and text is converted to paths. Expand Appearance is only available is the selection has multiple fills or strokes applied using the Appearance panel. If no multiple fills or strokes have been applied, the command is unavailable and Expand should be available. If multiple fills or strokes have been applied then Expand should be unavailable. I have not kept track to see if there is ever a time one can use either command on a single selection. The commands really should be combined into one command, since they do the same thing, but depend on whether the Appearance panel has been used. This is example number 879 in the ongoing story of why Illustrator is such a mess. New features have been crammed in with old code and the program needs to be able to support the multiple ways users can do things. I’d bet as experience programmer, asked to document the raw source code for Illustrator, would contemplate suicide. The program is ancient (24 years old) and an excellent example of how not to update your software. 11 years ago Adobe released InDesign, knowing that continuing to update PageMaker to compete with QuarkXPress was a dead end and that a new program written from scratch was the better way to proceed. Sadly, there is no cross-platform professional vector application directly competing with Illustrator, so Adobe has no incentive to start from scratch and eventually let Illustrator die with dignity. So it stays on life support and we all suffer with a slow, buggy, unintuitive, confusing program. ... View more

Group the text items. Now, in the Appearance panel, select Add New Fill and apply the  gradient. ... View more

You might have confused Illustrator with InDesign. Illustrator can save .ai files for many previous versions, including CS3. InDesign can only save InDesign files for the current version but can export a file readable by the last previous version only; so InDesign CS5 can export only as far back as InDesign CS4. ... View more

You can’t do that with one click. Illustrator only shows the control points, or handles, appropriate for the selected point or path. Click on a point and that point’s handles show. Click on the path between points and the handles straddling that segment show. Shift-click on each segment, but never on a point, and you will get all the control points to show. But that’s overkill. You can only manipulate one handle at a time, so there’s no purpose in showing other handles. ... View more

Get in the habit of using keyboard shortcuts. P = Pen tool. A = Direct Select tool. AP = Penn tool, with Direct Select waiting under the Control/Command key. So press AP when using the Pen tool, not just P. Or, just always use the Direct Select tool. Shortcuts available when using the Direct Select tool are: Hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) for Object select, which selects an entire path; and Command/Control which always switches to the black arrow Move tool when your current tool is Direct Select. The difference between the Move tool and the Object Select tool is the Move tool will only select groups, while Object Select will select individual paths within a group. ... View more

Hold the Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) key. This will temporarily switch you to your last used arrow tool. If you want to move just one anchor point, not the entire path, then that tool had best be the Direst Select tool, shortcut=A. To move the current point as you draw it, press and hold Space while still holding the mouse button down. ... View more

You certainly can select a bright royal blue, so long as it is in the CMYK gamut for the printing conditions you are using. The problem is you are selecting colours based on how they look on your screen: projected by light using glowing red, green, and blue pixels. Printed images produce colour by using inks that absorb bright light, reflecting only the spectrum to produce the desired colour. In an ideal world you could use any ink you want to get whatever colour you want. But in the CMYK process world you can only produce colours that those inks will let you, and it is a smaller gamut than screen. You should invest in a process colour guide, such as Pantone’s, although any thorough selection of process colour swatches printed on a press will do. If you can’t find the colour there, you need to use a spot colour, in which case your best option is Pantone solid colours, since they are as close to an industry standard as there is. ... View more

What is your Document Color Mode (File menu)? If it’s CMYK, then all colours you choose must be CMYK. You can select from the RGB panel, but the resulting colour will be CMYK, so out of gamut colours simply cannot be used. If your file is meant for print you should stay in CMYK mode to avoid having all your process blacks converted to RGB rich blacks. ... View more

Claudio González wrote: , but my question is: do the points and the cherries really matter? Sure do! I just got a free They Might Be Giants CD. I already have it, though, and I think it’s used. It wasn’t shrinkwrapped and there’s a correction to the lyrics in white out and ball point. I have it on good authority that the reward for the fourth cherry is a VHS tape of Red Scorpion. ... View more

There it is. Maybe it’s for over 2,000. Anyway, here’s 20 for you all. What-the-F-ever, eh. ... View more

newToAS3 wrote: Well, if you want another oppinion, I think you should go with indents. Why? Because you can change them latter (make them bigger, smaller or even get rid of them in seconds). In the end, yes, it's up to you but I don't see why someone whould chose to "skip" lines in this case. Excellent example. ... View more

It is entirely up to you. Use one or the other, but not both. If you are using paragraph Styles it is easy to make a global change and see which reads better. Generally, I prefer spaces to indents. The space should be either one line of lead (i.e. equal to the paragraph’s leading value) or half a line of lead if one full line looks to large. ... View more

No. You will need to retype the text and reformat. Now you know not to do that in the future and to tell all your designers not to. ... View more

That certainly is a tremendous file. Did you make sure to keep Include Illustrator Editing Capability UNchecked? Let’s learn what we can about the file. What are the physical dimensions of the artboard(s)? Are there many imported raster images, either linked or embedded? Did any of the vector art come from another application, like CAD or 3D? ... View more

You can’t have a live reflection as you are drawing or editing the object’s path. You can apply Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform and have a near-live reflection to any object. As you edit, you don’t see the reflection, but when you release the mouse button, say after a rotation or after changing a curve, the reflection will update. ... View more

You can drag any layer into another layer, making it a “child” of that “parent” layer. This is close to folders for layers, except that a layer can contain both objects and child layers. This means expanding that layer in the Layers panel to view the child layers means also seeing all that  layer’s object in the layers panel. Fortunately you can turn that feature off by changing the Panel Options via the Layers panel’s flyout menu. Unfortunately that activates a bug that prevents you from dragging an object into a child layer. Ah, Illustrator. Will you ever not suck? ... View more

You can save Illustrator files, then open them in Acrobat Pro (since they are also PDF files) and resave as PDF. ... View more

sharpo wrote: Thanks guys. Not the answer I was looking for… It seems ridiculous to me that, as part of a supposedly fully-integrated suite… That’s the problem. The Creative Suite is not a fully integrated suite of programs. It is not integrated at all. The Creative Suite, as it is known, is one of Adobe’s most successful rip-offs of all time. By packaging all the programs together they make you upgrade all the programs in the suite, regardless of which programs you wish to upgrade. They also force their programmers to meet unrealistic shipping deadlines, thereby guaranteeing that the programs will ship before they are fully tested and with more bugs than if they shipped separately, with their own realistic development schedules. ... View more

I believe links in Illustrator files should remain as links and that those linked files should be included in the package. Unfortunately, there is no Collect feature in Illustrator, as it is only at version 15 and a mere 25 years old. If you are sending a packaged file, rather than a press-ready PDF, then you are sending a file you expect the next user (printer, prepress service bureau [do those still exist], production artist) to need full access to the source material. This could be for preflighting or file preparation for the press. Why send only some of the job? Either send a PDF or send the complete job. ... View more

Assume we’re all from Missouri. Show us. Post a screen shot of the current logo. ... View more