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.