How-To: InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Designer

Step-by-step, how the creative team initiates, controls, and concludes a typical InDesign/InCopy workflow.

Bring up InCopy and “what is it” is always the first ques­tion. Next comes the inevitable, “how do I use it.” In the first three parts of this spe­cial six-part series, “InCopy CS2: In Production,” we answered the first ques­tion. Now, we’ll answer the second.

In this step-by-step arti­cle, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Designer,” we’ll explain how to ini­ti­ate the InDesign/InCopy LiveEdit work­flow from with­in InDesign CS2, how to man­age assign­ments that will be used by your edi­to­r­i­al staff, and how to con­clude col­lab­o­ra­tion on your pub­li­ca­tion. Here, we address the InDesign CS2 user–the designer.

In the next arti­cle, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Editor,” we go through the InCopy CS2-based edi­to­r­i­al staff’s side of the LiveEdit work­flow, step-by-step.

Installing Collaboration

Most design­ers are con­trol freaks (it’s an occu­pa­tion­al haz­ard that comes from being able to posi­tion items to with­in 1/10,000ths of an inch), so the fact that design­ers are in charge of the col­lab­o­ra­tion between out-of-the-box ver­sions of InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2 sits just fine with most design­ers. Editors like to feel in charge, though, so in the coun­ter­part tuto­r­i­al, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Editor,” I’ll make the edi­tors feel like they’re run­ning the show. Relax: you’ll still be in con­trol of the LiveEdit work­flow from with­in InDesign; I’ll just stroke the edi­tors’ egos and make them think they’re in charge.

Before even open­ing InDesign, install the LiveEdit work­flow pieces that enable InDesign and InCopy to com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but, yes, installing the LiveEdit plug-ins will add yet anoth­er palette to the 38 already over­pop­u­lat­ing the InDesign interface.

When you insert the InCopy CS2 CD-Rom, you’ll be prompt­ed to install either InCopy CS2 (includ­ing the LiveEdit plug-ins for InDesign) or mere­ly the LiveEdit plug-ins. If you are a sin­gle user or are respon­si­ble for teach­ing InCopy to Editorial, it would be pru­dent to install InCopy CS2 on your com­put­er. Otherwise, don’t both­er. You don’t need InCopy installed to col­lab­o­rate with users who do, mere­ly the LiveEdit plug-ins. Either option will auto­mat­i­cal­ly search out your InDesign CS2 instal­la­tion direc­to­ry, and place the LiveEdit plug-ins in the appro­pri­ate folder.

Upon launch­ing InDesign after installing the LiveEdit plug-ins or InCopy, you’ll notice sev­er­al new addi­tions, includ­ing the Notes tool on the Tools palette, the Notes menu along the menu bar, an Assignments palette on the Windows menu, and a User item on the File menu. The LiveEdit plug-ins ful­ly inte­grate through­out the InDesign user inter­face, includ­ing less obvi­ous new com­mands in places like the View menu and the context-sensitive menu avail­able by right-clicking on an object.

Establish your iden­ti­ty in the LiveEdit work­flow by going to File > User and enter­ing your name, nick­name, depart­ment, or what­ev­er will unique­ly iden­ti­fy you among both the oth­er InDesign users in your depart­ment, as well as the InCopy users in Editorial. It’s impor­tant that your iden­ti­ty here be unique–if you’re not the only InDesign user, don’t list your name as “InDesign User.” While you’re in the User dia­log, pick a col­or to rep­re­sent you at a glance on color-coded frames and con­tent on which you’re working.

The InDesign User Dialog

The options you choose in the User dia­log will trav­el through LiveEdit to oth­er InDesign and InCopy users, but that’s the extent of it. InDesign/InCopy user names are not tied to the sys­tem or net­work login, nor is there an authen­ti­ca­tion scheme or auto­mat­ed check for con­flict­ing user names. User options are, how­ev­er, unique per sys­tem login because they are stored in the user-specific appli­ca­tion pref­er­ences. The user name and col­or may be changed at any time from with­in the application.

Preparing Collaboration

For the writ­ers and edi­tors in Editorial to fit their own copy, you must first grant them access to the areas into which their copy must fit. So, design your lay­out, build­ing text frames to hold con­tent. Fill them with greek­ing from InDesign’s Type > Fill with Placeholder Text com­mand or place sto­ry first drafts (if you have them). It isn’t nec­es­sary to fill the text frames with anything–they could be emp­ty and still work with­in the LiveEdit workflow–but you’ll quick­ly find that the process is more intu­itive to new InCopy users if sto­ries are pre-populated. Create all the text frames required by your layout–main sto­ries, head­lines, bylines, kick­ers, decks, image cap­tions, pho­to cred­its, side­bars, pull-quotes, and so on–and set their frame and text for­mat­ting. Define your para­graph and char­ac­ter styles. If your doc­u­ment style sheet isn’t yet final­ized, at least build styles with default options so Editorial has some­thing with which to work; like any InDesign lay­out, styles can be rede­fined lat­er. Now, build your graph­ic frames, style them, and set text wrap and oth­er options. In oth­er words, do every­thing you would nor­mal­ly do to lay­out a page, spread, doc­u­ment, or template.

Now that you have your lay­out, what would you typ­i­cal­ly do? Right: You’d fill the text frames with greek­ing and cal­cu­late word counts to pro­vide to Editorial. Fuggetaboutit. Unless you have a need to know the word count of a par­tic­u­lar frame (what edi­tors call “the hole”), don’t wor­ry about it. Copyfitting is no longer your con­cern (until the final lay­out check). Hallelujah, broth­er and sis­ter design­ers! Copyfitting is Editorial’s job now. 

Remember: The lay­out does­n’t have to be fin­ished; it must only be ready for Editorial to begin work. Setup your grid and build the struc­tur­al ele­ments of the lay­out, but you can still work on text styling, illus­tra­tions, and oth­er design ele­ments con­cur­rent with Editorial doing its job. In fact, one writer can be work­ing in the doc­u­ment while you’re still build­ing frames for oth­er writers.

Initiating Collaboration

The com­mu­ni­ca­tion between InDesign and InCopy is accom­plished through the LiveEdit plug-ins, thus the ref­er­ence to the LiveEdit work­flow. In ver­sions CS, the plug-ins and work­flow were called the Bridge, but were renamed to avoid con­fu­sion with Adobe’s Bridge dig­i­tal asset man­age­ment and Creative Suite uni­fy­ing con­trol pan­el. Under the Bridge work­flow, InCopy users were lim­it­ed to edit­ing stories–one-story sin­gle or thread­ed text frames–but under LiveEdit in CS2, both you and Editorial will deal with assign­ments, or groups of sep­a­rate frames (includ­ing thread­ed text frames, if desired) that com­prise a sin­gle article.

Let’s build an assign­ment and hand-off the copy­fit­ting for an entire arti­cle to Editorial.