This document includes information that was not available when the printed documentation and online help screens were finalized. It consists of the following sections:
-- System requirements and memory allocation
-- Undocumented features
-- Documentation corrections and additions
-- Known issues
For information about installation or about the contents of the InDesign CD-ROM disc, refer to the "Read Me First!" document available on the CD-ROM disc.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND MEMORY ALLOCATION
To use Adobe InDesign for Mac OS, you need the following hardware and software:
- PowerPC 604 processor or greater.
- Mac OS 8.5 or later.
- A hard disk with at least 130 MB of free space at time you install InDesign onto it. Installation also requires free disk space on the startup drive for temporary files and for items added to the System folder, even if you install InDesign on a different drive.
- At least 48 MB of random-access memory (RAM) with virtual memory on, or
96 MB with virtual memory off.
- A CD-ROM drive.
- Monitor resolution of 832x624 pixels.
- Adobe PostScript Level 2 (or higher) printer.
NOTE: When printing from InDesign, be sure to specify "PostScript 2 Only" or "PostScript 3 Only" in the printer driver's PostScript Settings dialog box. The driver's "PostScript 1, 2, and 3 Compatible" option amounts to support for Level 1, which does not meet InDesign's PostScript Level 2 requirement.
For the best performance, Adobe Systems recommends the following hardware
and software:
- PowerPC G3 processor.
- 128 MB or more of physical RAM.
- High-resolution 24-bit screen display.
- An Internet connection.
InDesign is initially set to use 20 MB of RAM. To optimize performance, you can reset the amount of memory allocated to InDesign. First, select the InDesign application icon from the Finder (do not start InDesign, however), and choose File > Get Info. In the dialog box that appears, choose Memory from the Show pop-up menu, and, depending on the amount of physical RAM in your system, type the following value in the Preferred field:
- Type 30 if you have 128 MB of RAM
- Type 50 if you have 256 MB of RAM
(On systems with less than 128 MB, there is not necessarily a noticeable improvement in performance when you adjust the Preferred setting.)
To launch InDesign, the amount of RAM specified in the Preferred field must be available, plus an additional one MB of system heap memory (with Virtual Memory turned on), or an additional 20 MB of system heap memory (with Virtual Memory turned off). If InDesign reports that there is insufficient memory to start up, decrease the value in the Preferred field such that enough memory becomes available. (If you have reset the Preferred field correctly and InDesign still reports that there is insufficient memory to start up, try restarting your Macintosh to reset system memory.)
For detailed information on optimizing InDesign performance, refer to the "In Depth-Performance.pdf" document available in the More About Adobe InDesign folder within the Learning Adobe InDesign folder on the CD-ROM disc.
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
- To restore a document's Print dialog box settings to the default set, press Cmd + Shift as you choose File > Print.
- To save the current settings in the File > Page Setup dialog box as the new defaults, press Option and click the OK button.
- In the Tabs palette, you can press Shift as you drag the left indent marker to move it independently of the first-line indent marker. Also, InDesign displays a vertical line as you position a tab stop, so that you can visually compare the tab position to the placement of characters within the active text frame.
- When a publication uses missing fonts, the missing font names are listed in a special "Missing" section of the InDesign font menus (such as in the Type > Font menu, and in the Character palette). There can be cases where one or more font menus may not be updated in response to font changes in the document, such as after pasting or placing text with missing fonts. To ensure these menus are up-to-date, you can press Cmd + Option + Shift + /.
- The autoflow feature adds pages to the document if the amount of text being autoflowed exceeds the space available in the document. To autoflow text into the existing document pages only (that is, without creating additional pages) press Option + Shift as you click the loaded text icon over a text frame or column.
- When you open an InDesign document that includes objects or information from a plug-in that is not available on your system, InDesign displays a dialog box alerting you to this fact. An undocumented option in the alert dialog box, "Delete missing plug-in data from document," lets you delete the plug-in data from the document, so that you can work on the document without encountering problems caused by the missing plug-in's object or data. (Whenever a plug-in is missing, and regardless of the options you choose in the alert dialog box, InDesign always opens a copy of the original document. Therefore the missing plug-in's object or data is always available provided you retain the original version of the document.)
- Most cursor icons in InDesign (for example, the drawing tool cursors and the "loaded" cursors that appear when you place text or graphic files) change appearance to indicate when InDesign's "snap to" features will determine the exact positioning of objects. These snap to icons remove the guesswork of knowing when the cursor is within the snap to zone relative to a guide or grid increment. (The snap to zone distance is specified in the File > Preferences > Guides dialog box.)
DOCUMENTATION CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS
• Chapter 1: A Quick Tour of Adobe InDesign
Correction to page 25: The second sentence in the "Threading text" section states that you can hold down Shift to thread text one frame at a time without having to reload the text icon. The correct key to press is the Option key rather than the Shift key.
• Chapter 5: Setting Type
When you use the "clear manual kerning" shortcut (Cmd + Shift + Q), the manual kerning values are cleared but note that the "Metrics" kerning option is applied to the characters, regardless of which automatic kerning option had been applied originally.
• Chapter 6: Drawing
Correction to page 185: In the "About stroke weights" section, the caption stating that "character stroke weight always grows outward from character outline" is true when the text has a fill. If the text doesn't have a fill, the stroke is centered as it is with other objects.
• Chapter 7: Importing and Exporting and Managing Graphics
Correction to page 205: The section on Photoshop implies that you must save a Photoshop image in the TIFF or EPS format before InDesign can recognize its clipping path. In fact, InDesign can recognize a clipping path in a native Photoshop file, so saving in TIFF or EPS format is unnecessary.
• Chapter 8: Arranging, Combining, and Transforming Objects
Correction to pages 230-232: The Object > Clipping Path command can generate a clipping path from vector graphics (such as a placed PDF file, for example) as well as from bitmap images. The clipping path section of this chapter refers only to bitmap images.
• Chapter 9: Applying and Trapping Color
Correction to page 278: The following sentence in the "Manually overprinting strokes or fills" section doesn't apply to text: "In the Stroke palette, make sure the stroke weight is twice the required trap width." For text with a fill, the stroke weight exactly equals the required trap width. This only applies when creating a spread; you cannot choke the text in this fashion.
• Chapter 13: Printing
Clarification on the "Changing default print settings" section on page 358: When you print an InDesign document, each print option you set that is specific to InDesign (i.e, settings not deriving from the printer driver) will be preserved the next time you choose File > Print with that document active. Printer driver settings are also preserved, unless you have clicked the Save Settings button. After you click Save Settings, any subsequent overrides to the most-recently saved settings are discarded after you complete a print job.
KNOWN ISSUES
This section describes undocumented technical problems you might encounter in InDesign, as well as incompatibilities between InDesign and other applications. In addition to these notes, documents on the Adobe Systems web site cover the following special topics:
- Converting QuarkXPress and PageMaker documents, with details on preparing documents for conversion.
- Prepress applications and InDesign, with details on fitting InDesign into prepress workflows.
To view or download these documents, follow the links to the InDesign section of the Adobe Systems website (www.adobe.com) and then to the sections devoted to conversion and prepress issues.
• PRINTING
-- ABOUT POSTSCRIPT LEVELS
InDesign is tested for full compatibility with PostScript level 2 and 3 environments. The "PostScript Level" setting in the PostScript Settings Print dialog box includes three options to choose from. Of these, the "Level 1, 2, and 3 Compatible" option is the least compatible with InDesign. Choose it only if you are certain that you are printing to a PostScript Level 1 device. (When exporting EPS or PDF files, the Level 1-2-3 option may be the best choice if the exported file will be opened with or placed into Photoshop or Illustrator.)
Because InDesign offers a number of features exclusive to PostScript Level 2 and 3 RIPs, some post-processing applications that rely on Adobe PostScript Level 1 (or software or hardware products that emulate Level 1 PostScript) may not image InDesign files correctly. TrapWise 2.3.6, from ScenicSoft, Inc., relies on non-Adobe PostScript emulation of PS Level 1, and may have difficulty in properly imaging InDesign files. For more information on TrapWise and for future updates of this software, please refer to the ScenicSoft website (http://www.scenicsoft.com).
-- GENERAL PRINTING ISSUES
Blank pages print by default in InDesign. Be sure to use the Page Ranges setting in the Print dialog box to ensure that the pages you are outputting are only those pages that include content or intentionally want to print as blank pages.
Remember that fonts on your system may include more glyphs than equivalent fonts on your printer. In particular, upper ASCII characters (such as the Euro currency symbol) may not be available in printer-resident fonts. The Download PPD Fonts option, when checked, ensures that the characters in your document print with the correct version of the font. You can uncheck this option to improve printing performance, but make sure your printer-resident fonts are identical to your system fonts, or make sure your document uses lower ASCII characters exclusively.
If you want to output using a custom paper size, you must choose a PPD that supports custom page sizes, and you must specify a name for the custom page size. To do this, choose File > Page Setup, then choose Custom from the Paper Size pop-up, and then choose Custom Page Default from the Page Setup dialog box pop-up menu. Once the custom page name is listed in the Paper Size pop-up menu, select the name from the list and click OK.
If using an OPI workflow, remember that the Omit EPS, TIFF, and PDF options apply only to linked items, and not to items embedded in the InDesign document. OPI comments within imported graphics become unavailable to InDesign once you embed the graphics.
Gradients which include the Black swatch as part of its definition will disregard the Overprint Black preference setting and knockout objects below it. You can overprint type or objects which have such a gradient applied by choosing the Overprint Fill or Overprint Stroke setting from the Attributes palette with the type or object selected.
When printing In-RIP separations, leave the Pages Per Sheet setting in the Layout print dialog box set to one sheet only. Otherwise, blank pages are produced.
Printing reader spreads can result in truncated output on an imagesetter. To correct the problem, choose File > Page Setup, and change the current orientation setting (from Landscape to Portrait, or vice versa).
-- SEPARATING IMPORTED EPS AND PDF FILES
A placed PDF file will always generate Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black plates for the page containing the PDF, even if the objects in the PDF do not contain all those process colors.
The All to Process option doesn't convert LAB and RGB colors in a placed PDF unless you create In-RIP separations.
A duotone EPS placed into InDesign does not separate correctly if the All to Process printing option is selected and you are not creating In-RIP separations. You can either deselect the All to Process option, or check the In-RIP separations option. Note that some duotone EPS files produce a limitcheck error on some In-RIP devices, however.
A native Illustrator file or Illustrator EPS which includes a spot-to-process gradient will not separate correctly from InDesign. Use spot-to-spot or process-to-process gradients to avoid separation problems.
A placed PDF file which includes a gradient fill or a duotone EPS will only separate correctly from InDesign if you create In-RIP separations.
Unless you are creating In-RIP separations, a placed PDF file which contains non-CMYK objects (including spot colors, raster images, and mesh shading) could have unexpected separation results. Be sure to create PDFs in CMYK color mode if the PDF is intended for printing purposes.
-- USING SCENICSOFT PREPS
For optimal compatibility with ScenicSoft's Preps trapping software, choose File > Export, and select Prepress Files from InDesign. In the Prepress Options panel specify the following:
- For PostScript, choose Level 1, 2, and 3 Compatible.
- For Embedded Fonts drop down menu, select Complete.
- If you do not have an OPI server, leave the Omit settings unchecked.
In the Pages and Page Marks panel, turn off all marks, and, if the document has no bleeds, set bleed to zero. If the InDesign document does have bleeds, you may need to adjust your page positioning in Preps by the amount of the bleed. For example, if you set a 25-point bleed in InDesign, offset the page in Preps by -25 points in the horizontal and vertical. Refer to the Preps documentation for more information on page positioning adjustments. Also, before importing InDesign Prepress files that have bleeds, select the "Ignore bounding box" option in Preps' user preferences.
In some cases, if Preps resolves InDesign OPI links and you print on-host separations, some objects may not separate correctly. Instead use an OPI server to resolve the OPI links or print In-RIP separations from Preps.
• COLOR and COLOR MANAGEMENT
A grayscale Tiff with a tint applied does not display subsequent changes to the tint value, either on screen or when output.
If you use ColorSync, make sure you use version 2.6.1 or later. Apple updated version 2.6 due to problems related to memory.
The Kodak CMM version 2.6.3, which is included within ColorSync version 2.6.1, may cause pages within a document to fail to display. Later versions of the Kodak CMM solve the problem. Please download a newer version of ColorSync from Apple's web site, or (if Apple has not yet made an update available) download an updated Kodak CMM from Kodak's web site. The URLs are as follows:
-- for Apple: http://www.apple.com/colorsync
-- for Kodak: http://www.kodak.com/go/getKodakColorProcessor
The Kodak CMM is not available in the File > Color Settings > Application Color Settings dialog box until you install the Kodak CMM module. To install the Kodak CMM, visit the Apple Computer Inc. web site and use the ColorSync custom installation option. Or visit the Kodak website (specify the URL noted above) and follow the instructions for downloading the Kodak CMM.
The Agfa ColorSync CMM version 3.0.9 distributed with ColorSync version 2.6.1 is being updated to correct problems with memory handling. Visit the Agfa website for the updated component.
• WORKING WITH ILLUSTRATOR
Text cut or copied from Illustrator and pasted into InDesign cannot be reformatted in InDesign. If the text includes Multiple Master fonts, spacing and other aspects of the font appear (and output) incorrectly.
PDFs from InDesign which include text do not display or print correctly in Illustrator 8.0.1 or earlier.
• KEYBOARDING AND SHORTCUT EDITING
Numpad keys + modifier key combinations are reserved for character and paragraph style shortcuts. You cannot use them to change the zoom level or to perform any other action. The keyboard shortcut editor does not accept numpad key input for this reason.
Although fonts are listed in the Type menu product area within the Edit Shortcuts dialog box, any shortcut you assign to a font will become mapped to another font if your font environment changes (that is, if you install or deactivate fonts, or if you encounter missing fonts).
-- Notes on using the QuarkXPress keyboard shortcut set
The QuarkXPress set of shortcuts (and the shortcut editor feature in general) applies strictly to keyboard-driven actions, rather than to mouse actions (so if the task involves a click or a drag it cannot be modified). As a general rule, if the task you want to carry out is related to specifying type, or corresponds to a menu command in QuarkXPress (and InDesign supports the feature), you can probably use the same shortcut you always used in QuarkXPress.
For a list of the QuarkXPress shortcuts, choose File > Edit Shortcuts, select "QuarkXPress 4.0," and click "Show Set."
Not all QuarkXPress features are supported in InDesign and vice versa. Since the QuarkXPress set retains shortcuts for features in InDesign that are not in QuarkXPress, it's important not to press a shortcut for an unsupported action and thereby make a change you didn't intend. For example, Cmd + Shift + Q inserts a Symbol font character in QuarkXPress. Pressing the same sequence in InDesign (even with the QuarkXPress set active) will remove kerning or tracking from the selection.
InDesign makes special use of the tab, space bar, arrows keys, the page up/down keys, and the Home and End keys. The QuarkXPress set could not override these, and so QuarkXPress shortcuts involving those keys are not supported in InDesign's QuarkXPress set.
Settings in the Preferences > Unit and Increments dialog box determine the increments InDesign uses for changing type size and leading, baseline shift, and kerning. The QuarkXPress set lets you use the QuarkXPress key combinations to increase and decrease these attributes by a small factor and a larger factor, but you'll need to use the Preferences feature if you want those shortcuts to use the exact increments Quark uses.
• IMPORTING
InDesign imports 1-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit, and 24-bit .BMP images. Other bit-depths are not supported for the .BMP file format.
When you import text that has had bold or italics applied to it through an application's user interface (e.g, through a keyboard shortcut), the font face may not convert properly. InDesign will report the bold or italics in the font face field, but other parts of the font face name may be missing as a result. Expert, Ornament, and Symbol fonts are the most likely to be affected. For example, if you applied bold to a symbol font like Mathematical Pi 2, InDesign will convert the font as Mathematical Pi [Bold], and consider it a missing font. If you applied italics to a font like Christiana Small Caps, the text will be converted as Christiana Italics. To resolve the problem, select the text and reapply the desired font from the Type menu.
SimpleText read-only files are not recognized by the InDesign Text-only filter. Open the file you want to place from within SimpleText, and save it with the default save format setting. InDesign can then recognize the file and let you place it.
For additional information on importing text and spreadsheet files into InDesign, refer to the "Filters readme" document installed in the InDesign folder.
• EXPORTING PDF, EPS, and HTML FILES
Due to Acrobat 4.0 default settings, printers marks (including crop marks and color bars) do not appear on pages exported as PDF files from InDesign. To view the printers marks, choose Document > Crop Pages in Acrobat, and then choose None for Margins.
A placed PDF page which does not have all its required fonts embedded, will not export into PDF format with the fonts it requires. (The note in InDesign's Export PDF dialog box on font embedding does not refer to fonts excluded from placed PDF files.)
You should only check the Omit PDF checkbox in the Export EPS Options if the EPS file you creating is part of a workflow that supports omit PDF.
Mac OS versions of Netscape 4.0-4.5.1 display the default font (specified in Netscape preferences) rather than the fonts specified in the HTML file exported from InDesign. Updated versions of Netscape may or may not address the problem.
Grouped objects are converted to .GIF or JPEG objects in exported HTML. Ungroup items for which those image formats are inappropriate. (Text frames, for example, should not be in groups if you want the text to be searchable and editable in the exported HTML file.)
The pink and yellow colors used to highlight instances of missing fonts, keep violations and H&J violations, can appear in exported HTML files in cases where text frames are converted to GIF files (as when the text frame is rotated or otherwise transformed). Resolve problems or disable the highlighting features before exporting to HTML.
To avoid problems with browsers, use paragraph and character style names that consist solely of the characters a-z or A-Z. Characters outside of this range (such as a bullet point, for example) are not recognized by all browsers, and if the style name is not recognized then the default style is applied rather than the correct style.
An image that spans multiple pages but is cropped such that it appears on only one page is incorrectly set to display on all the pages it touches in an exported HTML file. One workaround is to crop the image in Photoshop so that only the part of the image to be visible to the reader can be placed onto one page into InDesign.
• WORKING WITH TYPE
You can apply type attributes within an empty text frame (provided the insertion point is active in the text frame). However, if you copy and paste the empty text frame, the pasted copy loses the applied type attributes and instead uses the document defaults for type.
When defining or editing a character or paragraph style, or when defining Find/Change formatting criteria, the Language setting lists only those languages which have been applied to characters within the current document.
If you apply a character style which specifies a font family variant (such as bold or italic) to text formatted with a Multiple Master font, the Character palette loses track of the available instances of the Multiple Master font. The instances are still listed, however, in the Type > Font menu.
When exporting in the InDesign Tagged Text format, any color specified as part of a paragraph or character style is incorrectly defined after style itself. Therefore the text will import into InDesign as Black text. (Contrary to an alert message that appears when you place the file, the correct style is applied to the text.) To correct the problem, open the exported text file and place the color definition before the style definition.
• MISCELLANEOUS
-- Problems with ATI graphics card
You may experience a system lock-up when panning with the InDesign grabber hand (or otherwise causing the InDesign window to redraw) due to a problem with the ATI RAGE graphics card or ATI RAGE PRO chip from ATI Technologies Inc. (The ATI card or chip is a built-in component on certain Apple models; the card can also be installed optionally on other Apple computers.)
To solve this problem, install the updated driver software: double-click the ATI Universal Installer available in the Third Party Goodies folder on the Adobe InDesign CD-ROM disc, and follow the on-screen instructions. When prompted for an installation choice, choose the Custom Install option and continue until installation is complete.
NOTE: If the ATI installer opens a message window which states that you don't have the ATI hardware, please ignore this message and click OK in the message window. The message is in error, and continuing the install process fixes the compatibility problem.
For more information on the ATI installer, go to the Software Updates section of the Apple website and follow links to the ATI Video software information.
-- Protective shutdowns and limited disk space
InDesign verifies that a certain amount of disk space is available before carrying out certain transactions such as saving or exporting a document, and will warn you if there is not enough disk space to proceed. However, if InDesign determines that the minimal amount of disk space is available, but runs out of disk space while performing the transaction, a message appears which begins "Adobe InDesign is shutting down. A serious error was detected." Although other conditions can result in the same error message appearing, it's possible that you can simply make more disk space available, restart InDesign, and complete the transaction.
-- AdobePS 8.6 driver and File > Page Setup options
Pressing Option and clicking OK in the Page Setup dialog box fails to make the current settings the new defaults for newly-created documents.
Adobe, Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and PostScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Apple and MacOS are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
