InDesign CS3: Mastering the Design-Editorial Collaboration

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 12: “Collaboration” from Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production by Pariah S. Burke (Sybex, 2007).

 
Design–graphic designers, production artists, compositors, and typesetters–and editorial–copywriters, journalists, editors, and authors–have, since time immemorial, often been pitted against one another by the secular and incompatible tools and technologies on which they each depend. Editorial passes its text to design for copyfitting and layout, taking the copy out of the sight and control of its creators. Editorial must then wait for proofs to be returned from design. Changes–and there are often changes–have to be passed incrementally to designers to effect; after the first handoff, editorial must rely completely on design to update and correct what is editorial’s own work. That could be frustrating for anyone. Equally frustrating is the other side of the process where design personnel frequently must interrupt work on current pages to go back and edit text on previously completed pages. Frustration could lead to resentment and to conflict between the two departments. At the heart of all of it is the software.

The sky is blue, water is wet, editorial uses Microsoft Word. This undisputable fact of life is not because Microsoft Word is perfectly suited for copywriting and editing. Far from it. It has numerous flaws and quirks that increase the difficulty of day-in, day-out writing and editing. It’s the only choice for editorial for one simple reason: nothing better has come along. Or, maybe that should read, “nothing better has been presented to editorial.” There is competition to Microsoft Word, but writers aren’t using it for one of three reasons: they don’t know what other options are out there; the other word processors don’t integrate better than, or even as well as, Word with other applications in the workflow; or their employers, who suffer under one or both of the first two reasons, don’t give editorial a choice.

When it comes to Word competitors like Corel WordPerfect, WordStar, OpenOffice.org Writer, the Mac-only Pages, and others, switching from Word offers no advantage to the design-editorial collaboration. None of these applications integrates into InDesign (or its competitors) any better or worse than Word. Not one of them addresses the potential frustrations and slowdowns in the design-editorial collaboration.

Solving the Design-Editorial Collaboration Problems

In Chapter 8, “Stories,” you were introduced to InDesign’s editorial companion, InCopy, and given an explanation of the basics for using it as a stand-alone word processor. I won’t rehash that introduction here. This section is about how the designer or production person handles the InDesign side of the InDesign-InCopy collaboration. It’s not about you writing and editing stories in InDesign this time. It’s about you enabling editorial staff to write and edit stories in your InDesign documents. Before we get into the mechanics of that, however, I want to briefly explain why your design and editorial collaboration workflow needs InCopy.

InCopy addresses the largest and most common problems on both sides of the design-editorial collaboration.

• Editorial’s Biggest Problem Editorial must hand off its work to design and loses control of the copy at that point. Editors will not have direct interaction with the copy again before it goes to press, and changes must be sent to design to effect. Seeing the results of those changes means waiting on design to make them and then return a new proof. If multiple editors are involved in a story, proofs make the rounds before going back to design, meaning even more time is spent waiting to see the results of the copy edits.
• Design’s Biggest Problem Once designers receive original Word document copy, they place it into the layout, advise editorial of any overset or underset text, and often generate a printed or PDF proof for editorial. After the proof has been sent, designers move on to other tasks. From that point forward and until the document goes to press, designers typically can expect to be yanked out of whatever else they’re doing to make changes to the copy as directed by editorial. Such changes are communicated through various mediums: new versions of the Word documents that must be placed and styled again; emailed editorial directives and fragments of new or updated copy; marked-up paper proofs that must be painstakingly re-created in the document; or over-the-shoulder edits made during a personal visit from the editor. If multiple editors are involved a story, the designer may receive redundant or conflicting change orders. Moreover, change requests from multiple well-meaning editors can create a constant stream of copy changes that prevent the designer from doing anything but editing one or a few stories for significant periods of time.
• The InCopy Solution InCopy stories maintain live links to the InDesign layout. Editors using InCopy do not hand off their copy; it never leaves their hands. Instead, the InDesign user places it into the INDD document as a linked asset, applies the initial styling (if it wasn’t done already within InCopy), and saves the InCopy story from within InDesign. Designers can work with the text as needed, but it actually lives in an InCopy document that may be modified by the editor at any time without waiting for proofs, without sending change orders to design. Through InCopy, editors no longer have to blindly imagine how changes will affect the layout of the story; they will see the changes live, as they write. In fact, they can write and edit directly in the layout page! For editors, InCopy is control–control over their copy, control they should never be made to give up–wrapped up in a purpose-built word processor that isn’t littered with buttons and menu commands for envelope printing, electronic forms creation, Web design, and dozens of other features that have no relevance to writing and editing.
• For designers, InCopy represents freedom. It frees them from having to be both designer and editor. By putting total control over the content of stories back into its rightful hands–the editors’–designers can focus entirely on designing. There will be no more complete replacement and restyling of text stories after the initial import, no more red-marked paper proofs, a dramatic reduction in email, and fewer instances of looking up to see editors’ faces reflected in your monitor.

Assignments

The basis for this remarkable collaboration is assignments. Assignments are another type of container. Rather than images or text, however, assignments contain frames (other containers) that themselves contain text or graphics. More accurately, assignments are like book files. They’re effectively an index of other files. Whereas INBK book files index INDD InDesign documents, assignments index INCX InCopy documents, which you, the designer, generate from the frames in your InDesign layout. Assignments and their indexed INCX documents are delivered to editorial and opened in InCopy. As opening a book file in InDesign gives you access to the individual layouts connected by the book file, opening an assignment in InCopy puts all the stories and frames it connects in front of the editor.

Before we get too much further, allow me to introduce the dramatis personae in Table 12.1.

Adobe calls assignments and the InCopy documents managed files. At least, that’s the term in CS3; it changes with each version. “Managing files,” in my experience, is something all together different and more comprehensive than exporting a story from one application and editing it in another. Therefore, I don’t–and won’t in this chapter–refer to them as “managed files,” but I wanted you to know Adobe’s term.

Let’s go hands-on, and I’ll explain creating and using assignments to set up a collaborative workflow as we actually build an assignment.

1. Open or create a suitable InDesign document. Choose one containing a page with one or more graphic frames and two or more unthreaded text frames. The text frames may be threaded or stand-alone, but you want at least two frames that are not connected to each other.

In setting up assignments in a real project, you can use any page containing any number and type of frames. However, to complete this particular exercise and learn what you should, we’ll need to work with a page containing specific elements.

Figure 12.5 shows a page suitable for this exercise. It has several independent text frames, including the three-part title, the byline, the pullquote in the outside rail, and then the main story, which threads through the horizontal frame, the two-column frame beneath, and on to later pages. There are also two image frames in case we want to let editors fill in their own photos in InCopy. (Maybe the interview subject’s headshot, but I would probably leave the ghosted background art for the designers to handle.)

Figure 12.5 A page containing multiple frames ready for assignment to editorial personnel

2. Choose File > User to open the User dialog (see Figure 12.6). Here, you’ll set options that identify you within the collaborative workflow. When you check out stories and frames for editing, anyone else who tries to check them out will be alerted that you, whatever user name you enter, already have the content checked out. Any notes you add to the stories will also bear your user name and be bracketed by rectangles in the color you select from the drop-down menu. By entering a unique user name and choosing a unique color, you let your collaborators know who to come to with questions or comments. Everyone in the workflow–in InDesign and InCopy–must fill in a name before the InCopy LiveEdit workflow will function, and they should coordinate to choose unique colors for ease of reference.

My user name field says Pariah Burke (InD) because InCopy has an identical User dialog, and I differentiate between work done in InDesign and InCopy with the parenthetic suffix.

Figure 12.6 The User dialog identifies you in the collaborative workflow.

When you’ve entered your user name and chosen a color, click OK.

3. Open the Assignments panel from Window > Assignments (see Figure 12.7). Here’s where all the magic happens. As I said before, it’s a lot like a Book panel. Instead of external documents, however, the Assignments panel manages stories and image frames within a document. At the top of the panel is your document. Beneath it, you’ll see an empty entry for unassigned InCopy content. As long as the document contains any frame not part of an InCopy assignment, the Unassigned InCopy Content entry will be there. In other words, get used to it.

Figure 12.7 The Assignments panel

Let’s get a real assignment onto the list and begin the process of handing some of editorial’s content back to them.

4. In the bottom of the Assignments panel, click the New button. Up will pop the New Assignment dialog (see Figure 12.8).

First, give your assignment a name. Both you and the editor will see the assignment name, and it will be used as the basis for exported filenames, which you can see reflected as you type the assignment name in the INCA file path in the Location for Assignment File section. So, give the assignment a meaningful name like Let’s Talk Page. As you type, you’ll see the proposed path to the file in the Location for Assignment File section update to include the assignment name. You can change the location if needed (see two paragraphs hence).

The Assigned To field is optional but lets you specify who will take on the assignment. If you name the assignee, set that person’s particular user color as well. Note that InDesign and InCopy do not communicate about assignee names and colors, so it’s a good idea to let the InCopy user choose his color first. Then he’ll need to inform you of his color choice by phone, e‑mail, or carrier pigeon so that you may set the same color within the assignment–or not. The Color field is entirely optional and exists solely to give you, the InDesign user, a visual cue in the Assignments panel of who owns what content. Assignments in the panel will be tinted to the assignee’s color, but that’s where the utility of this field ends.

Figure 12.8 The New Assignment dialog

When you create an assignment file, an INCA document will be written to disk. Each story added to the assignment will be exported as an INCX. The Location for Assignment File section tells you where on your computer (or the network) these files will be saved. Clicking the Change button enables you to browse your system for a new place to save the documents. If your editorial department collaborators are on the same network, set the Location for Assignment Files to a shared folder on the network, one to which you, your fellow designers, and the editors have both read and write access. If your editors work remotely from other locations, you’ll need to make use of packaged assignments, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter; for now, choose a convenient location on the network or your computer.

The Include section is extremely important. Here is where you determine how much of the layout InCopy users see when they open the assignment and work with it in InCopy’s InDesign-like Layout view. Story and Galley view, which do not show the layout, are unaffected by the Include options. Your choices are as follows:

• Placeholder Frames: If chosen, this option makes solid gray boxes of all frames not directly a part of the assignment. Any content within those frames will be hidden from InCopy users’ view. Any frames that are in the assignment–including graphic frames–will be visible and editable in InCopy’s Layout view.

Recommendation: Choosing Placeholder Frames is very much like setting InDesign’s display performance to Fast Display, with the same benefits: less distraction, and pages draw to the screen very quickly. If editors find themselves distracted by page elements that are not theirs, or if they report that InCopy moves sluggishly while they edit, consider using the Placeholder Frames option.

• Assigned Spreads: Assignments may consist of multipage threaded stories as well as multiple disconnected stories spread across several pages. Therefore, with the Assigned Spreads option, an InCopy user has the ability to see in InCopy’s Layout view all the assigned and unassigned content from those pages (in spreads). Any pages or spreads that are not part of the assignment will be excluded. Of course, although visible, unassigned content will not be editable in InCopy. Like InDesign’s Typical Display display performance mode, images included in the assignment to InCopy users are low-resolution proxies ideal for onscreen viewing and suitable for output on a desktop printer. The images and graphical elements are not, however, of a high enough quality that editors should rely on them for fine detail.

Recommendation: Assigned Spreads is already the default option, and I recommend that you consider using it most often. One of the key benefits to the tight integration between InDesign and InCopy is the ability for editors to see and write in the real WYSIWYG layout page within InCopy. Sending full views of assigned spreads gives editorial a window on the layout that, in most cases, helps them better visualize the impact of, and limitations on, their copy. Usually it benefits the publication overall; however, in some cases it can be a hindrance. Some editorial staffers find that looking at an in-progress or finished page is confusing (even though they don’t have to look at it; InCopy has two other views that hide the layout).

• All Spreads: With this option, the entire document, not only the spreads containing assigned frames, will be sent and viewable in InCopy’s Layout view. The InCopy user will only be able to edit the content assigned to him, however. Choosing this option generates larger files and may cause sluggish InCopy performance on computers with less RAM and hard drive space.

Recommendation: I only recommend using the All Spreads option in assignments for those who absolutely must see the entire document–namely, top of the chain editors. For most lower-level editors, it’s overkill and can slow down InCopy running on low-spec computers.

Let’s leave discussion of the Linked Image Files when Packaging check box option to the section “Collaborating with Remote Editors” coming up.

When you have all the options for your first assignment set, click the OK button.

5. Although you now have a new assignment in the Assignments panel, it’s still empty, devoid of assigned content. On the document page, select one frame and go to Edit > InCopy > Add Selection to Assignment. You’ll see the assignment you just created on that list; choose it as the destination for the selected content. If you haven’t recently saved the document, InDesign will kindly prompt you to do so, and then it will export the content to an INCX file, which is indexed by the INCA assignment file. The INCX InCopy document will be created in a Content folder beneath the location you chose for the INCA. For instance, if you chose to save the assignment to your desktop in a folder titled MyDocument Assignments, the INCX will be saved to MyDocument Assignments\Content.

6. In the Assignments panel, your assignment will now list the assigned frame. It will also show a yellow, out-of-date caution sign beside the assignment name. InDesign does not automatically update assignments as it does INBK book files. Select the assignment in the panel’s list and choose Update Selected Assignments from the panel flyout menu, which will write the change (the new INCX to index) to the INCA file.

If you and your editors are on the same network, call up an editor and tell her where to find the assignment. When she opens the assignment file (the INCA, not the INCX story file) in InCopy, she can edit the frame content all she wants. She can be editing in InCopy while you work on the layout in InDesign–even while you make changes to the frame size and positioning! When one of you saves your respective documents, the other will be notified and given the opportunity to update the view onto the other’s content.

Congratulations! You’ve just assigned content to an editor. You were a good foster parent for the story, but it was time. You just returned the copy to the custody of its rightful parent. Now the editor will take care of raising the story to maturity while you focus on your baby, the layout.

Assigned Content in InDesign

When you added the frame to the assignment above, the INCX file was created on disk and the assignment on the Assignments panel was updated. Something else happened, too.

As I worked through the steps above in my document, I created an assignment for Samuel John Klein, my frequent collaborator (and technical editor of this very book). Sam’s first assignment is the pullquote frame in the interview layout’s right rail (see Figure 12.9). Incidentally, in that figure, although the photo is in a separate graphic frame atop the assigned frame, the pullquote frame and blue gradient background is one object, not a text frame laid over an empty, colored graphic frame (this is the efficient way to do it). Insets in the text frame push text in from the four sides, and the Color blending mode applied only to the fill blends it with the butterfly in the background. Being that the frame is one object, you might fear that someone working in InCopy could change the insets, background color, or other attributes of the frame. (Nothing personal, Sam.) No need to fear, however; InCopy doesn’t have any frame modification functions. They just aren’t in there. InCopy users can edit the content and its attributes, but they can’t touch the attributes of the container, the frame. No matter what he tries in InCopy, Sam won’t be able to move, resize, or change any attribute of the frame itself. That just isn’t what InCopy does; that’s what InDesign alone does.

Figure 12.9 An assigned frame

You should notice something different about the assigned frame. It’s subtle, but you should see it. Yes, the icon. The little icon (it looks like a blue-green ball with a page in front of it) at the top-left corner of the frame indicates that it’s assigned material. It also denotes that the content–text in this case–no longer lives within InDesign. It’s been exported to the InCopy INCX story file and converted from content that lives only in the layout to content that lives in the linked asset INCX. The content of that frame is now a wholly separate document, and working with it now entails a rather significant change.

InDesign and InCopy communicate with one another via the LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins installed in both applications. Those plug-ins, the heart of assignments, prevent double-modification when both InDesign and InCopy users are working from files saved to a shared location. If Sam opens the INCA and begins editing the INCX story it contains, I won’t be able to edit the sidebar copy until Sam is done. The reverse is also true–if I begin editing the text, Sam will have to wait for me to finish. I can still edit the frame and its attributes, however, even if the content is in use by someone else. I can change the frame insets, number of columns, blending mode, background color. I can move the frame on the page or to another page in the same document. I can even rearrange or resize the pages of the document, all while Sam is actively editing the content of that frame because I’ll be working with the frame itself, not its content directly. It works with a simple checkout/check-in system. Whoever wishes to edit assigned content must check out the story (or graphic frame), which thereby prevents others from checking out and editing the same content.

There are several ways to check out an assigned frame (or series of threaded frames). After selecting the frame, there are several ways to check out an assigned frame (or series of threaded frames):

• Go to Edit > InCopy > Check Out;

• Right-click (Ctrl-click on a single-button Mac mouse) on the frame and choose InCopy > Check Out from the context sensitive menu;

• Highlight the story in the Assignments panel; and choose Check Out from the panel flyout menu, or;

• Highlight the story in the Assignments panel and click the Check Out button at the bottom.

Yeah, Adobe really wanted you to be able to work with InCopy assignments easily.

I don’t use any of those methods myself, not unless I want to check out several stories at once. Instead, when checking out only a single story or frame, I just begin editing. For instance, if I wanted to fix a typo in the pullquote, I’d switch to the Type tool and click inside the assigned frame. As soon as I type or delete something, InDesign will inform me that I “must check out the contents of this frame in order to make changes.” It will present me with Yes and No buttons, asking if I’d like to go ahead and check out the story. When I click Yes, the story checks out to me, locks to everyone else, and my change occurs. The icon at the top of the frame will also change to a pencil indicating that I’ve checked out and am able to edit the content of the frame (see Figure 12.10).

Figure 12.10 The Pencil icon identifies the frame as being checked out to you.

If Sam had checked out the frame, I would see a different icon denoting that the content is checked out to someone else (see Figure 12.11; the Pencil icon now has a diagonal line through it). At the same time, none of those Check Out commands would be available. The change is instantaneous when InDesign and InCopy are used in a network environment, with users opening files from the same location. Within seconds of Sam checking out the story for editing in InCopy, I’ll see the unavailable, checked-out-by-someone-else icon appear on the frame as well as on the Assignments panel. If I want to know who has the story checked out, hovering my mouse cursor over the icon will tell me by whom and in which application, InDesign or InCopy, the story is being edited.

Figure 12.11 When content is checked out to someone else, this icon appears on the frame.

When you’re finished editing content, be sure to check it back in so that others may access it. Few things steam collaborators more than needing to edit a story someone else has left checked out behind a password-protected screensaver when he went to lunch or home for the weekend. Checking in content is done through all the same means as checking it out–from the Check In menu command on the Assignments panel flyout menu, the context sensitive right-click menu, and Edit > InCopy. There isn’t a button for Check In on the Assignments panel, which would have been nice to have. Adobe made up for this inconvenience by also giving you the Check In All command, which at once returns all the document’s checked-out content to an available state.

As you work, you’ll probably also notice a Cancel Check Out command. The difference between Check In or Check In All and Cancel Check Out is whether changes you’ve wrought are written back to the INCX and INCA files or discarded, respectively.

When one person in the workflow changes content and checks it back in, the Assignments panel will inform everyone else with connected documents opened. The assigned content status icon will update to display two icons stacked (side by side in the Assignments panel; see Figure 12.12). First will be the available-for-checkout ball and page; beside it is a yellow caution sign indicating that the content has been updated outside the current application and is out-of-date as you see it. Select the assignment or assigned story entry in the Assignments panel, and then click the Update Content button at the bottom of the panel or choose Update Selected Assignments, Update All Assignments, or Update Content from the panel flyout menu.

Figure 12.12 Two icons indicate that content has been updated by someone else and the assigned frame is now available for check out.

Managing Assignments

Assignments would be pointless if you could only give one frame to a single collaborator.

 
Adding Content to Assignments

A document can contain numerous assignments, one for every person in your workgroup or organization. The Assignments panel will manage them all. I recommend that, when it is feasible and you know which InCopy users will work on a particular document, you create all your assignments at once and as early as possible in the document construction phase. Begin by creating a new assignment for each person. For instance, if I wanted this book’s team to assist with the interview feature layout with which I’ve been working, I’d leave the previously built assignment for Sam and create a new one so Karen could check facts, readability, style usage, grammar, and spelling. If I was waiting for the production department to finish color correction of the interview subject’s headshot, I might assign the photo frame to them as an InCopy story, too. The other editors–copyeditor Judy, production editor Deb, and managing editor Pete–would also need a pass at the copy, but they’ll need to see the same copy that goes to Sam or Karen. Therefore, I wouldn’t create assignments for them. Instead, Sam and Karen would send their assignments on to the next person in the chain from within InCopy. As the InDesign layout artist, my concern with the copy ends with the assignment and delivery to the first step in the chain and doesn’t pick up again until just before going to press, when I perform my final proof of all pages.

Once you have all your empty assignments created, they’ll appear on the InCopy > Add to Assignment menu available from the Edit menu and all those other places. You can add each story or graphic frame one at a time to the correct assignment. That’s a lot of clicking, though. Why not just drag? You can drag any frame from the layout and drop it onto an assignment in the Assignments panel to add the content to that assignment. When all content that must be assigned has been added to the correct assignment, choose Update All Assignments from the panel flyout menu to write changes into the INCA documents.

 
Assigning Photos

InCopy users can, if you let them, place and replace images in graphic frames. Reporters, for example, can supply their own story photos. Many designers use this ability to get the photo from the InCopy user but later tweak the cropping, scaling, and other attributes of images in InDesign. In other words, assigning a graphic frame to an InCopy user can lighten your workload a little bit more without sacrificing any control.

Graphic frames are assigned just like story frames–through the same menus and methods. Then, in InCopy, editors can use the File > Place command and a Place dialog and options identical to InDesign’s to insert imagery into the checked-out frame. Once the image is inserted, they can perform basic manipulation tasks like scaling and repositioning the image, but, again, they cannot edit the frame size, shape, position, or visual attributes.

 
Rearrange Assigned Content

If you inadvertently add a story to the wrong assignment, or priorities change and you need to move content from one person’s assignment to another’s, just drag the content entry in the Assignment panel’s list from one assignment to another and update all assignments. The INCX won’t change or be overwritten. Only the INCA assignment files will change, removing the reference to the INCX from one and adding it to another.

From the Edit > InCopy menu,  you can quickly add all story frames, all graphics, or all story and graphic frames on the current layer to a particular assignment in one step. This is a handy way to get all content onto the Assignments panel quickly. Once they are there, you can drag and drop individual frames to other assignments.

 
Unassigning Content

To pull content out of an assignment altogether, highlight its entry in the Assignments panel and click the trashcan icon at the bottom and update the assignment. The content will then re-embed in the InDesign document. Note that this action does not delete the INCX file; it only breaks the link between the content in the layout and the external INCX document.

 
Renaming Assigned Files

INCX files are named by combining the filename of the originating InDesign document with the first few words of the content in the INCX and exported frame. The INCX files can be renamed, but there’s very little point in doing so because their names on the Assignments panel can not be altered from the first name InDesign gives them. Yeah, I know: Whose brilliant idea was that? If you’d still like to change the name of the INCX file, follow this procedure:

1. Open the InDesign file containing the assigned INCX file in question.

2. Rename the INCX file on disk.

3. In the InDesign Links panel, the linked INCX file will suddenly go missing because it was renamed (indicated by the red circle beside its name). Select the missing link in the list and click the Relink button.

4. In the Relink dialog, choose the newly renamed INCX and click Open. The missing link status will disappear, and the Links panel entry will change to reflect the new filename.

5. Switch to the Assignments panel, where the assignment containing the INCX story will show the yellow caution sign to indicate that the assignment is out-of-date. Select the assignment and choose Update Selected Assignments from the panel flyout menu.

 
Overriding Checkouts

In any team effort, someone must be in charge of the overall project. This is a matter of practicality, operational security, and workflow integrity. Indeed, if the LiveEdit Workflow afforded everyone equal power, if no one could override anyone else, one forgotten check-in the night before deadline could bring the entire project to a grinding halt. Fortunately, power is not shared equally between InDesign and InCopy. Although most publications are captained by someone who uses InCopy–a managing editor, editor in chief, or publisher–in the LiveEdit Workflow, it’s the InDesign side of the collaboration that holds final technological authority.

It happens. Someone goes home sick or leaves for the night forgetting to check in stories on which they’d been working. In the InDesign document, you’ll see content checked out, and you can’t fix that typo on line seven. Do you call the missing editor at home? Should you call IT to come hack into the editor’s computer? Nah. Start editing the story in InDesign. It will prompt you to check out the story, which will then generate a warning that someone else already has it checked out. At that point you’ll be offered the option to re-embed the story, overriding the checkout and any unsaved changes the editor may have made. Once embedded back into the InDesign document, it’s native, editable text (or a picture) again. Exercise caution in overriding a checkout because what gets embedded is the version already on the InDesign page–the version from the last read of the assigned INCX. If the absent writer made any changes to the checked-out content, those will be lost.

To give the assignment to another InCopy user, add the frame to an assignment again just as you did the first time.

 
Recovering from Broken Assignment Files

When you create assignments and generate story files, INCX documents are added to the Links panel (Window > Links) as linked assets. Thus, even though a story is part of an assignment managed via the Assignments panel, it is also a linked external asset and is therefore under the dominion of the Links panel. I would say that better than 99% of the time, you won’t need to even think about the fact that assigned stories are also managed through the Links panel. The only time you will care is if something goes wrong with the assignment.

If the INCA assignment file was lost, accidentally deleted, or somehow became corrupted, you could ostensibly be in a serious pickle. On a couple of occasions I’ve had clients call me in a panic because something happened to the INCA and they could no longer update stories in InDesign or even work on them in InCopy. Of course, as is the order of the universe, such catastrophes never happen earlier than mere hours before a deadline. There’s no need to panic, though, because the Links panel rides to the rescue.

Remember, an assignment INCA is like a book file INBK. The assignment file contains nothing more than its own name, the name and color of the assignee, and a list of INCX documents; the actual content of stories is within INCX files. As long as they survive, your assignment file can be re-created.

Collaborating with Remote Editors

Up until now we’ve been talking mostly about collaborating with network peers who have read/write access to the same shared folders as you. What about remote or mobile workers on either the InDesign or InCopy side of the assignment? Are you out of luck? If you were using InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2, then, yeah, you’d be out of luck. You could generate and send assignment and story files, but there would be no check-in/checkout control and double-modification would always be a risk. This was a huge complaint from those who discovered Adobe’s best-kept secret (InCopy).

In my experience migrating many workflows, many writers and editors, to collaborative InCopy-InDesign workflows, those that include at least one remote or mobile worker outnumber those that have all design and editorial personnel in-house. The fact that Adobe’s LiveEdit Workflow was built entirely around the belief that everyone would have read/write access to the same central file location handicapped workflows that wanted collaborative efficiency, control, and freedom with InCopy and InDesign. Worse, because InCopy shows all stories in the assignment in a continuous interface, many editorial department recipients of INCA and INCX documents had difficulty with the idea that they needed to return multiple email attachments to the designer (see Figure 12.13). It looks like one document, so why do I have to send several documents? That confusion often led to only INCA assignment files being sent back to layout artists; of course, INCA files alone are useless to anyone. Additionally, using File > Open in InCopy showed both the INCA and INCX files to the InCopy user. Given the fact that Mac and Windows applications may hide many document filename extensions by default, the editors’ confusion was further compounded by having several similarly named files and no clear indicator of which they needed to select in the File Open dialog.

Figure 12.13 Opening an assignment file in InCopy presents a Story Editor view of all assigned stories inline for easy editing.

While building CS3, Adobe got hip to the fact that what it had wasn’t working for a great many people. Its response was assignment packages, single files that, like a ZIP or StuffIt archive, include multiple files compressed into one. In this case, the contents of the package are assignment files, INCX stories, and, optionally, linked image assets used by the layout in the assignment. As I alluded to above, assignment packages are ideal for remote workers, but they aren’t solely for remote workers. They also address the very real, very large problem of too many files confusing users and paralyzing the InCopy side of the workflow. Both InCopy and InDesign can open and work with assignment packages and send them to each other. InCopy users only have to deal with a single package file–InCopy will extract the INCA and INCX on-the-fly as part of the file-opening process and will recompress the files again after closing the INCP package. And, the act of sending a package to InDesign or InCopy users automatically checks out content to the recipient, preventing accidental double-modification by the sender or anyone else.

To create a package from within InDesign, begin by creating an assignment as usual and adding content. In the Assignment Options dialog, decide whether to check that option we skipped earlier, include Linked Image Files when Packaging. Including them allows InCopy users to see high-resolution images but increases the size of the package. Excluding them causes InDesign to generate and include low-resolution proxies that are fine for onscreen viewing and printing to desktop laser and ink-jet printers. I recommend the latter, especially if you intend to email the package. With the assignment and content created, choose Package for InCopy from the Assignments panel flyout menu. You’ll be prompted to name the new package. After you save the package, a cute gift box in InCopy-purple will appear beside the assignment name in the Assignments panel (see Figure 12.14). At the same time, the content in the packaged assignment will be checked out.

Figure 12.14 Packaged assignments are denoted by special icons.

You can send the package to your editorial colleague by FTP, email, or even pocket flash drive. If your plan is to email the package, save a couple of steps. Instead of choosing Package for InCopy from the Assignments panel flyout menu, choose Package for InCopy and Email. In one fell swoop InDesign will package up the assignment, pop open an email, and attach the package to the email. Fill in the recipient’s email address and maybe a friendlier message than “your assignment is attached,” and click Send. Now get to work on the next project while editorial takes care of writing, editing, and polishing the copy without burdening you.

On the other side, your editorial collaborator will receive the package by email. She should then save it to disk and open it InCopy. When she’s finished editing and it’s time to send the content back to the layout, she should choose File > Package > Return for InDesign and Email to generate and send an IN_D_P package back to you (see Figure 12.15). Her InCopy package will lock down the content as checked out to someone else (you).

Figure 12.15 InCopy’s Package menu

When it arrives, you can either double-click the INDP or choose Open Package from the flyout menu on the Assignments panel. The package will marry up with the INDD layout, updating and checking in the assigned frames in that publication.

Instead of sending the package back to you, the InCopy user can send it to other InCopy users. That’s what the Forward for InCopy and Forward for InCopy and Email commands in the Package menu do. Either will create a new INCP InCopy package, lock and check out the content, and send it on to the next editor who needs to review the same content. That next editor will either send it back to you or on to the next editor in the chain for review and markup

Copy Before Layout

Up to this point, the way we’ve been talking, it may seem that everything, including the copy, begins in InDesign. That’s not necessarily true. Often that’s the case exactly–you design a frame-first layout or template and then build InCopy assignments from empty frames or frames filled with placeholder text. Just as common, however, are workflows that begin with editorial personnel writing first drafts and then you laying out those first drafts to build a document. How does collaboration and the LiveEdit Workflow fit into a workflow wherein copy is written before layout begins? Not too dissimilarly, as it turns out.

Here’s one common scenario:

1. A freelance writer writes his first draft in Microsoft Word and submits the DOC file to his editor.

2. The editor imports the DOC file into InCopy for initial editing and saves the document as a native INCX InCopy document.

3. Even as the InCopy document is exported back to a Word-compatible RTF document and sent to the writer for revision, the editor passes the first-draft INCX to the design department so that page allocation, illustration, and layout may begin.

4. The designer places the INCX document and begins page composition.

From this point, the workflow can progress along two possible routes:

NaN. You can place the INCX document as a linked asset and forgo assignments altogether. INCX documents are native InCopy documents. Functionally, they are identical to the INCX story files generated when content is added to an assignment–except they are not wrapped in assignments. There will be no check-in/checkout control via the Assignments panel in either application. Double-modification is prevented by the fact that, in a network environment, only one person at a time may open the file from the shared location. If all parties are not working from the same shared folder, there is no protection against double-modification of the copy. Additionally, unassigned INCX files do not include layout information or a layout preview. Switching to InCopy’s Layout view while editing such a story presents a blank page rather than the copyfit page. More importantly, because unassigned INCX files do not include bidirectional communication with InDesign, editors will not know if copy over- or undersets. The INCX remains in the custody of editorial personnel. When they change and save the file to a shared network folder, it is updated within InDesign like any external asset managed by the Links panel.

I don’t recommend this option because it is functionally no different than placing native Word DOCs. Editorial isn’t allowed the insight into how text fits into and looks on the page, and it will be up to you to verify their work after every revision, ensuring that copy hasn’t overset, cutting off the end, or underset, leaving large empty spaces. This negates several of the most important benefits of using InCopy in the publication workflow. You’re back to babysitting the page copy, and editorial is back to requesting proofs after every revision.

NaN. Instead of leaving the INCX document as a stand-alone linked asset, you place it the first time and then build an assignment around it. The assignment is then saved to a shared folder or sent as an assignment package back to the editor. The INCA then enables check-in/checkout, prevents double-modification, and gives the editor a window onto, and the ability to edit within, the laid-out page.

The downside to creating an assignment after beginning with an INCX is not a technological one but an habitual challenge. For everything to work, the editor must stop using his INCX file directly and switch to opening the INCA assignment or INCP assignment package. In fact, if the assigned version was saved to a different location than the original INCX, he must delete the original INCX. For some editors, these simple alterations to the familiar process of using the same story file from start to finish can be quite confusing, which leads to mistakes and frustration.

Keep in mind that the computer experience of some editorial people is limited solely to default, uncustomized installations of Web browsers, the corporate email client, and Microsoft Word. I’m not speaking derogatorily about writers and editors here (remember, I’m both as well as a designer). Rather, I’m pointing out the reality that editorial’s work demands much less interaction with, and knowledge of, technology than does production’s work. Technologically challenged personnel may save all their documents to a single location on their hard drives, leading to massively overcrowded Home (Mac) or My Documents (Windows) folders. They will therefore likely save the INCA or INCP to the same folder containing the original INCX, which, if they don’t delete the original INCX, will probably result in the wrong file being edited at some point.

If you opt to generate assignments after receiving first-draft INCX documents for initial placement–and I heartily advise that you do–be prepared to assist members of the editorial team who are not comfortable with technology. I recommend you create a numbered list of steps to take after the assignment has been delivered to them. Include in the list how and where to save email attachments (if you email assignment packages); how to locate and delete the original INCX; how to open the INCA or INCP, paying special attention to the fact that some editorial computers will not show the .inca or .incp filename extension; and, if using assignment packages, how to send the package back to you or on to the next editor. Print out these instructions for each editor, and suggest that each affix it to the side of his monitor until he’s gone through the new procedures a few times.

Collaborating with a Big Cheese

If the editor in chief, quality control, or other nondesign personnel needs access to edit the majority of stories in your publication, don’t bother sending assignments. Instead, send the InDesign document (or documents) itself. InCopy can directly open and save (but not create) INDD files. Then, the InCopy-using Big Cheese can check out and edit the contents of any frame in the document. The Big Cheese can also use the track changes feature in InCopy to record his or her changes, as well as to approve or reject copy changes made by other editors. Of course, the frames themselves cannot be altered.

If you liked this excerpt, you’ll love Pariah S. Burke’s Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production. It’s the first InDesign book written exclusively for experienced InDesign users. Mastering InDesign CS3 isn’t for beginning InDesign users–InDesign 101 is left to other books. Instead, every page of Mastering InDesign CS3 goes beyond the basics, deep into InDesign, for designers and production people who already have experiencing using InDesign in professional workflows, and who want to improve their workflows and designs.

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