Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible

When you open a new document, it's assigned a default name ‚ Untitled-1, Untitled-2, and so on ‚ and the first page is displayed in the document window. At this point, you're like a painter standing in front of a blank canvas. But painters don't have to worry about system crashes and power failures; you do. Make sure that when you work on InDesign documents, you follow the first rule of safe computing: Save early and often.

The second group of commands ‚ Close, Save, Save As, Save a Copy As, and Revert ‚ in InDesign's File menu provide options for saving the active/frontmost document. Here's a rundown of what each command does:

• Close ( z +W, or Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4) closes the active document. If the document has never been saved or if it's been changed since it was last saved, a dialog box lets you save, close without saving, or cancel and return to the document.

• Save ( z +S or Ctrl+S) saves changes you've made to the active document since you last saved. If you choose Save for a document that hasn't yet been saved, the Save As dialog box is displayed. This dialog box lets you name and choose a storage folder for the document.

  Tip ‚

  If you have more than one document open, you can save them all at once by pressing Option+Shift+ z +S or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S.

• Save As (Option+ z +S or Ctrl+Alt+S) lets you save a copy of the active document in a different (or in the same) folder using a different (or the same) name. When you choose Save As ‚ and when you choose Save for an unsaved document ‚ the Save As dialog box, shown in Figure 4-6, appears.

  Figure 4-6: The Mac version of the Save As dialog box (left) and the Windows version (right) are slightly different.

• Save a Copy As lets you create a copy of the active document in a different (or in the same) folder using a different (or the same) name. When you use the Save a Copy As command, the original document remains open and retains its original name. It differs from Save As only in that it keeps the original document open.

• Revert undoes all changes you've made to a document since you last saved it. There is no way to undo this and reinstate all your changes after you revert, so be careful.

  Tip ‚

  InDesign's Save, Save As, and Save a Copy As commands let you save only InDesign documents and templates. If you want to save a document as an EPS, InDesign Interchange, XML, or PDF file, you should use the Export command (File ‚ Export), which is explained later in this chapter.

Saving documents versus saving templates

Whenever you save a document for the first time or you use the Save As or Save a Copy As command, the Save As dialog box lets you save a standard InDesign document file or a template.

In an ideal world, you would create a finished template, save it, and then open a copy of the template and use it to create an actual publication. In the real world, however, templates are often created by yanking the content out of a finished publication and then saving the gutted file as a template. Regardless of how you create your templates, make sure you remember to select the InDesign 3.0 Template option in the Save As dialog box. On the Mac, use the Format pop-up menu; in Windows, use the Save Type As pop-up menu.

If you forget to save a document as a template, it will open under its actual name. If you then make any changes and choose File ‚ Save ( z +S or Ctrl+S), the changes are saved with the original document. If this happens, simply save the document again and choose the InDesign 3.0 Template option.

Knowing how to not save changes

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, InDesign is a very forgiving program. If you make a mistake, change your mind, or work yourself into a complete mess, you don't have to remain in your predicament or save your work. InDesign offers several escape routes. You can:

• Undo your last action by choosing Edit ‚ Undo or pressing z +Z or Ctrl+Z. (Some actions, particularly actions such as scrolling that do not affect any items or the underlying document structure, are not undoable.) You can undo multiple actions in the order they were done by choosing Edit ‚ Undo or pressing z +Z or Ctrl+Z ‚ each time you undo, the previous action is undone.

• Redo an action you've undone by choosing Edit ‚ Redo or pressing Shift+ z +Z or Ctrl+Shift+Z. Alternately choosing Undo and Redo is a handy way of seeing a before/after view of a

  particular change. As with undo, you can redo multiple undone actions in the order in which they were undone.

• To undo all changes you've made since last saving a document, choose File ‚ Revert. There is no way to undo this and reinstate all your changes after you revert, so be careful.

  Tip ‚

  If you perform an action and then change your mind while InDesign is completing the action, pressing Esc cancels the operation.

  Tip ‚

  To undo any changes you've made after opening a dialog box, press Option or Alt, which changes the Cancel button into a Reset button, then click Reset. (This feature is not available in all dialog boxes.)

Saving files in other formats

InDesign's Save commands (File ‚ Save, File ‚ Save As, and File ‚ Save a Copy As) let you save documents and templates using InDesign's native file format. The Export command (File ‚ Export) lets you save the stories ‚ and in some cases stories and whole layouts ‚ in InDesign documents in several formats:

• Word processing formats: If you've placed the text cursor into a story, you can export its text (select a range of text if you want to export only that selection) into one of three formats: RTF for import into word processors with only basic formatting retained and Text Only for import into word processors that don't support RTF (no formatting is retained).

  Note ‚

  You can save only one text file at a time. If you need to export several stories from the same document, you must do so one at a time.

• InDesign workflow formats: Whether text is selected via the Text tool or the Direct Selection tool, you can save the story in the InDesign Tagged Text format (for editing in a word processor and later reimport into InDesign with all InDesign formatting retained) or in the InDesign Interchange format (for import into InDesign 2).

  New Feature ‚

  The new InDesign Interchange format lets users of InDesign 2 read InDesign CS files ‚ if they acquire the Interchange software for InDesign 2. You cannot otherwise downsave to earlier versions of InDesign.

• Production formats: Whether text is selected via the Text tool or the Direct Selection tool, you can save the document ‚ not just the story ‚ in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) formats for use by prepress tools and service bureaus or for import into other applications as pictures.

• Online formats: Whether text is selected via the Text tool or the Direct Selection tool, you can save the document ‚ not just the story ‚ in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format for use in online database-oriented content-management systems, as well as a specific page, spread, or text selection into JPEG bitmap or Adobe SVG vector formats for use as online graphics.

When exporting a file, choose a format from the Formats pop-up menu (on the Mac) or from the Save as Type pop-up menu (in Windows) in the Export dialog box.