Tip 1

Centering a Page in QuarkXPress
In QuarkXPress you can quickly center a page on the screen by double clicking that page’s icon in the Document Layout palette. This can be helpful when working with small pages such as business cards and invitations.


Tip 2

Recall Forgotten Passwords
Using the Keychain Access utility in Mac OS X (in Applications/Utilities), you can retrieve any password you’ve used on a Web form, email account, online banking service, AirPort base station or network, or any other place. Just launch Keychain
Access to see a list of the locations of passwords you’ve created. Select one of the items and enable the Show Password checkbox in the lower left corner of the Keychain Access window. It will prompt you for your administrator’s password,
and when you provide it, the password you selected will appear at the bottom
of the window.
Chris Breen
Macworld 09/04, pg.64


Tip 3
 
Epson Hygiene
Epson inkjet printers run an initialization cycle when you turn them on. The duration
of the cycle is determined by how long the printer has been turned off — 30–90 seconds is normal. However, be sure to power the printer on and off using the power button on the printer, not a switch on a power strip; otherwise the printer gets confused about how long it’s been off. Also, be sure to turn it off when not using it for
extended periods of time. That way, the print head will be capped (saving ink and print head life) and the printer will be prepared properly for its next use.


Tip 4
 
Better Searches
When using your favorite Web search engine, you can tell the engine that words belong together by putting quotation marks around them. That way, “Design Tools Monthly” brings up only pages that have those three words together in that order. Also, you can place a minus before a term to tell the engine “but not if it has this
term” as so: “Beatle mania” –Broadway. This will show pages about Beatle mania
the phenomenon, but not the Broadway musical. To make this sort of thing easier, most search engines have an Advanced Search button that lets you enter exact phrases, words to exclude, preferred language, the oldest age of the page results,
and a file format.


Tip 5

Control First-Line Baselines in InDesign
Adobe InDesign positions the first line of text so that the top of the text touches
the top of the frame; tall type therefore falls on a lower baseline than short type. To control this positioning, select the frame and press Command-B to display the Text Frame Options dialog box. Choose Leading from the First Baseline pop-up menu and
InDesign will place the baseline at a position below the top of the frame equal to the amount of leading applied to the text.
Olav Martin Kvern


Tip 6

Paste Images Onto PDFs
Acrobat 6 has a way to add an image to an existing PDF, but the steps are are unbelievably convoluted. Here’s how: Copy an image to the clipboard. Open a PDF document in Acrobat (Standard or Pro). Choose Tools> Advanced Commenting> Attach> Paste Clipboard Image. Move your cursor to the center of where you
want your image to be and then click to paste. The toolbar then indicates that
you have the Hand tool, but since your cursor is on top of the pasted image, it looks like an arrowhead. Click the cursor on the image to select it, then drag it into position. You may also resize the image by dragging one of its resizing handles.
Donna Baker


Tip 7

Using Sections in QuarkXPress
Working with Sections in a long QuarkXPress document can be tricky. Here are some helpful tips: Changing the page numbering scheme is probably the best reason to use Sections. To begin a new Section using the current page, choose Page> Section.
This lets you begin page numbering with any number (for example, 256 instead of 1, or 1 instead of xvii), and in your choice of number styles — Arabic, Roman, etc.
Always keep the Document Layout or Page Layout window open (View> Show Document Layout). This will show you each page’s page number as assigned
by its Section. To print a page in a Section, you must enter its Section page number in
the Print dialog (256 in the above example). When you want to print a page
using its absolute page number instead of the page number assigned by its Section (1 in the above example), add a Plus (+) symbol before the page number in the Print dialog box. For example, to print the fifth page of the document, type +5 instead of
whatever number it has in the Section. To find out a page’s absolute page number,
Option-click its page icon in the Document Layout or Page Layout palette. The page’s absolute page number will appear at the bottom of the palette. For example, the fifth page of the document will appear as “+5”. To display the total page count of a multi-sectioned document, click outside a page icon in the Document Layout or Page Layout
palette. The total page count will appear at the bottom of the palette.


Tip 8

Use a Monitor Hood
You can increase the apparent contrast of CRT monitors significantly by using a hood to shield the face of the monitor from ambient light. High-end CRTs often include a
hood, but if yours didn’t, you can easily fashion one for a few dollars from black matte board and adhesive tape — it’s one of those investments whose bang for the buck is simply massive. It’s also a good idea to wear dark clothing when you’re evaluating
color on a monitor, because light clothing causes reflections on the screen that reduce the apparent contrast.
Chris Murphy
Real World Color Management,
Peachpit Press



Tip 9

Scanner Drivers Explained
Mac OS X accepts scanner drivers in four ways: as a TWAIN module, as an Image
Capture Module, as a Photoshop-compatible plug-in, and as a standalone application.

• TWAIN is a standard built into the operating system that lets applications access a scanner driver through the operating system. Its advantage is that you won’t need to reinstall the scanner driver if you install a new version of an application.

• Image Capture is an application in Mac OS X that functions as a simple, common interface for all scanners and cameras. Generally, an Image Capture Module doesn’t include all the advanced features of an equivalent TWAIN module, but you can set Image Capture to adopt all the functionality of a scanner’s TWAIN module by selecting the “Use TWAIN Software Whenever Possible” preference.

• A Photoshop plug-in requires you to scan from inside an application that accepts Photoshop compatible plug-ins.

• A stand-alone application drives the scanner directly, and saves an image as a file.


Tips and Tricks Archive

July 2004

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