11
USING INDESIGN
What’s new
Last updated 11/16/2011
Cross media design
Interactive documents and presentations
FLV and MP3 import You can import video files in Flash Video format (.FLV and .F4V), H.264-encoded files (such as
MP4), and SWF files. You can import audio files in MP3 format. Legacy media file types like QuickTime (.MOV),
.AVI, and .WMV are still supported. However, use FLV, F4V, MP4, and MP3 formats to take full advantage of the rich
media support offered in the most recent versions of Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash Player.
Use Adobe Media Encoder to convert older media file types to .FLV. See “Relink legacy media files” on page 551.
Media panel The Media panel lets you preview SWF, FLV, F4V, MP4, and MP3 files directly in InDesign. For FLV,
F4V, and MP4 files, you can choose any frame in the video as the placeholder poster image. You can choose which
video playback controls you want the viewer of your interactive document to have. The Media panel lets you create
navigation points, which are time-code markers that you can target with button actions. See
“Add movies and sound
files to documents” on page 548.
Motion presets The Animation panel lets you assign a motion preset to any page item as a way to quickly create an
animation. These motion presets are the same motion presets found in Adobe Flash CS5 Professional. Furthermore,
InDesign can import any custom motion preset created in Flash, enabling InDesign and Flash users to collaborate to
create animation effects. See
“Animate a document with motion presets” on page 552.
Animation panel Use the Animation panel to create or edit animation effects. You can edit supported animation
attributes such as Position, Scale, Rotate, and Opacity. Save any custom animation created in InDesign as a custom
motion preset that can be shared with others.
Use the Animation panel to specify when an animated object is played, such as when the page is loaded or clicked. See
“Animation” on page 551.
Timing panel Use the Timing panel to change the order of when animated objects play. See “Use the Timing panel to
change the animation order” on page 555.
Object States panel Use the Object States panel to create multiple versions of an object. For example, you can create a
single page object with 20 different states, and each state contains a different photo. Anyone who opens the PDF or
SWF file can click forward and back buttons to browse the photo gallery. See
“Create a multi-state object slide show”
on page 564.
Preview panel In InDesign, you can preview interactivity and animation of the current selection, the current spread,
or the entire document using the Preview panel. You can also test interactive elements in a web browser. See
“Preview
interactive documents” on page 532.
Pixels as unit of measurement You can now specify Pixels for your unit of measure in Preferences > Units &
Increments. You can override the current unit of measure by adding “px” to your values in edit fields in the Control
panel, dialog boxes, and other panels. When using pixels, objects and X/Y coordinates snap to whole pixel values, and
the line weights listed in the Stroke panel also change to pixels. See
“Change rulers and measurement units” on page 49.
Convert URLs to hyperlinks Use the Convert URLs To Hyperlinks command to search the current selection, story, or
document for URL strings and convert them to hyperlinks. You can also assign a character style to the found URLs.
See
“Convert URLs to hyperlinks” on page 539.
Improved export to Flash Player
SWF file export can now include animation, video, audio, and remote rollovers. In addition, several new options let
you control the final SWF file output. See
“Create interactive SWF (Flash) files for the web” on page 523.