![]() Here again, it can be argued that InDesign allows to quickly repeat transformations. You still won! Next, I'd like to apply a rotation angle: Much more exciting! But since I'm talking to InDesign CS5.5 users, you probably know that such synchronization could be achieved through Linked Stories. OK, I would have got the same feature through a common object style-you win! Then, let's change A's content too: Each time something happens to A, they must receive a full message which tells them how they have to update. In some way I want them to react as if they were A's subscribers. These instances could be anywhere in the active document. My goal is to create a deep connection between these objects, considering A as the master, and (B, C) as two cloned instances that inherit from any modification applied to A. In the below screenshot we see three text frames (A, B, C) that, apparently, are just independent duplicates: Also, factorizing the appearance of objects is easy (thanks to Object Styles), but again this does not regard the objects in themselves, I mean: shape, size, applied transformations, content, interactivity. Actually, this feature only allows to factorize pages and spreads in their entirety. But this kind of factorization is dramatically rigid, in that it binds the position of each instance relative to a parent spread. Of course each master (spread) provides a ‘channel’ through which one could template and manage master objects. (By the way, this is probably the major issue that designers-and InDesign developers-are trying to solve today: the “Fluid Layout” challenge.) Smart Clonesīack to concrete! Although InDesign offers obvious functionalities to replicate objects ( Copy/Paste, Duplicate, Step and Repeat), a surprising fact is that we cannot easily factorize objects, in the sense of linking a prototype to several instances. The bottom line is to provide flexibility at some level without breaking synchronization at another level. Given a set of parameters that we need to manage and maintain across various objects, paragraphs, or character ranges, go to Objects Styles, Paragraph Styles, Characters Styles-and behind the scene: effects, stroke styles, swatches… Think about Layers, GREP Styles, Object States, Table Headers, Grids, Presets, Preferences… The list is endless!įactorizing is not only about sharing temporary invariants across things, it also regards how these settings are linked to existing or future objects, what kind of modifications these objects should support relative to the master factor, whether the link is dynamic or static, whether one can update, lock, override, the original choice. What if we need to reuse graphic resources or components between different documents? Links, Snippets, Library. If we have to instantiate the same text at different places, depending on the context we can use Text Variables, Section Markers, maybe Cross-References, or Linked Articles. Need to apply the same template, including fixed objects, to several pages or spreads? Masters will do the job. Now if we want to lay out a set of structured data in the same way, we will probably take advantage of Data Merge, or XML workflow. If A is a Transformation and (O1, O2, O3…) a set of page items, then we use the Transform Again Sequence Individually feature. In fact, almost every feature in InDesign offers a way, a path, to factorize something. Given an attribute or an action (A) that we want to apply/perform on several objects (O1, O2, O3…), the goal is to do: A × (O1 + O2 + O3.) instead of A × O1 + A × O2 + A × O3. And so on.Īs you can see, all these situations involve a key principle. A few examples: building a document template for future instantiations, applying a master to different pages, repeating a transformation (or a scripted process) on various objects, synchronizing stories within or between documents, preserving style settings through the composition, prototyping the XML structure of a catalog, sharing the same primary layout between different media. ![]() Take a moment to think about how you factorize things in InDesign. The problem is: depending on our task, what we want to make the same and what we need to make different significantly vary. Practically, this meets two basic needs of graphic designers:ġ) Doing once what there is no reason to redo.Ģ) Updating/synchronizing instances, if possible from one single place. ![]() ![]() Factorization is the way we try to abstract, centralize and take control of temporary invariants.
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