David Blatner

Plumb the Depths of Your InDesign Layout

When an InDesign page gets complicated, knowing the tricks for selecting overlapping and/or grouped objects will save you time and frustration.

InDesign Efficiency: Keep Your Hand on the Keyboard

InDesign's Quick Apply is an amazing yet underused feature that greatly improves your efficiency and is even better than keyboard shortcuts, since you only have to remember one key combination.

Track Down Obscure Glyphs in InDesign

There are many characters that don't appear on standard keyboards. Here's how to enter those hard-to-reach glyphs in Adobe InDesign.

Drop 20 Pounds with InDesign

Are your InDesign files so full of junk that they're clogging your printer? Slowing down your processor? Taking more than their share of hard drive space? Here's how to make them slim, svelte, and ready to jog all the way to the printer or screen. We can't help you fit into too-tight clothes, but it's easy to put your InDesign files on a diet.

Create InDesign Effects that Wow!

These quick tutorials will add seven tricks to your toolbox: everything from a ripped-paper look to the reflection effect so popular right now. And you can do them all in InDesign, not Photoshop or Illustrator!

Design As Child's Play

People all over the world know and love the characters created by Sesame Workshop: Big Bird, Grover, Elmo, Boombah (in India), Putri (in Indonesia)... But very few people think about the design behind the Muppets. Here's the story.

Make an Image Sandwich in InDesign

Place an image above and below text and vector graphics for a tasty visual meal.

InDesign How-to: Take Object Styles Where They've Never Gone Before

A cool trick using anchored objects extends the power of object styles to the geometry of your InDesign pages.

Why You Need a Different Kind of Scanner

No, not another scanner for artwork. An automatic document feeder can clean up your life -- or at least your office.

Share and Synch Content in QuarkXPress

Are you repeating images, text, or stylistic attributes across multiple boxes or even multiple layouts? Use these tools to make sure that content always matches, no matter what changes anyone makes.

Photoshop Fundamentals

You can do some far-out stuff with Photoshop (hello, Liquify Filter!), but image adjustment is the program's bread and butter. Here's how to fix common photo problems.

Photoshop How-To: Using Adjustment Layers

Being able to correct and edit images in Photoshop is a life-saver for most creative professionals. Yet every time you use layers and curves, you start to degrade the image data -- unless, of course, you use adjustment layers. David Blatner and Bruce Fraser show you how.

InDesign How-To: Applying Paragraph Formatting

You'd expect InDesign's paragraph-formatting features to give you precise control over text alignment, indents, tabs, line-spacing, and so on. But InDesign CS ups the ante by providing expert features like nested styles and multi-line composition. Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner reveal all.

InDesign How-To: Creating Tables

Tables are one of the most powerful features in Adobe InDesign CS, allowing you to make complex, sophisticated-looking tables quickly and easily. And you don't have to be an Excel wiz to do it! Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner show you how.

QuarkXPress How-To: Creating PDF Files

Added to QuarkXPress 6 is built-in support for the creation of PDF files. Instead of using Acrobat Distiller, you simply export your layout as a PDF. In this excerpt from "Real World QuarkXPress 6," David Blatner explains how QuarkXPress handles PDF files.

QuarkXPress 6 vs. InDesign CS: Taking Sides

When I last compared QuarkXPress and InDesign, XPress 6 had shipped, but InDesign CS had not. I had been beta-testing InDesign CS at the time, but my non-disclosure agreement with Adobe didn't allow me to talk about the new version's features or my experiences with the product. Now the gloves can come off and I can publicly evaluate the two most recent releases, side by side. The results surprise me.

QuarkXPress 6 Tips: Using Layout Spaces

projects that contain multiple layout for print or Web, newsletters or notepads. In this excerpt from "Real World QuarkXPress 6," David Blatner tells you how projects layouts work.

Adobe Creative Suite: An All-Star Line-up

The new Adobe Creative Suite integrates Adobe's graphics applications into a workflow that addresses the needs of nearly every creative professional, from inspiration through execution, from print to Web. Here's a quick look at Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive from creativepro.com's own all-star line up of experts. Plus, a PDF analysis and a Version Cue preview.

InDesign Tips: Printing Transparency

Sure, it's fun to add transparent effects in InDesign, but try telling that to your printer. Keep the peace by learning how to flatten your files before printing. As the authors of "Real World InDesign" say, "with power comes responsibility."

QuarkXPress 6 vs. InDesign 2: Grappling for Answers

It's the question on the lips of nearly every creative professional: Which is better, QuarkXPress 6 or Adobe InDesign2? In this no-holds-barred analysis, page-layout expert David Blatner gives his opinion on the relative merits of QuarkXPress and InDesign.