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Hello, my name is Terry White, Worldwide Design Evangelist for Adobe Systems,
and it's my pleasure to take you through 2
of the cool new exciting things about InDesign CS6.
One of which is the Content Collector tools,
and more importantly the linked content and how these 2 tools or sets of tools work together.
Let's take a look.
I've got an InDesign spread open here, of course, with multiple objects,
text, graphics, illustrations,
and as you know we've always been able to duplicate content
or copy and paste content, and we can even go from
document to document with copy and paste,
or duplicating, but you kind of just--it's like a one off.
You copy something and paste it and you're done,
but what if you want to reuse content either in the same InDesign document
for a print or digital work flow, or a different InDesign workflow
or a different InDesign document, and more importantly
you want that content to stay linked so that if you make changes in 1 area,
you get those changes represented or reflective in other areas.
Let's see how this all works together.
Now, I'm going to go ahead and just zoom in a little bit on this document,
and we'll go ahead and move over.
Let's start with the Content Collector tools.
As I mentioned, we have different graphics.
Some of this stuff is actually overlapping, which could be good or bad
depending on what you're trying to do,
but we have the ability to, of course, select anything here, move it around.
This is all basically individual objects.
Now we have a new set of tools here called Content Collector tools,
and when I click, it brings up the content conveyor.
Now, the Content Conveyor is either in 1 of 2 modes.
It's either in the Content Collector mode or it's in the Content Placement mode.
I'm going to go back to the collecting mode because we haven't put anything in it yet.
How can I collect content?
Well, I can go in and click one by one.
I can grab 3 photos for example,
and then if I want to place those 3 photos,
I can then switch over to the content placer tool,
and I can start placing those 3 photos,
and as you can see its basically given me the placement gun.
I have the ability to create a link to those original photos or not.
If I don't create a link, it's just like copy and paste at that point.
It's just a one off or if I create a link
that means it's a parent-child relationship
from the original photos to the new photos.
Let's say that for this first example I'm not going to create a link.
Well, I can go to a different document or I can do it within the same document,
and unlike copy and paste, I have the ability now to place the content
and transform it as I'm placing it.
If I wanted that photo to be smaller I can make it smaller.
If I wanted this photo to be larger I can make it larger,
and if I want this one to be smaller I can make it smaller and have it line up.
That's a great quick use of one of the ways of using the Content Collector tools.
Let's go back to the original document and let's take another example.
Another example would be--well, what if I select them first?
Let's say I want this photo, this photo, this one, this one, this one, and this one.
If I select them first and then go to the Content Collector tools,
I have the ability, if I go to the far right, to load the conveyor in a more custom way.
If I click load conveyor I can say do it based on the selection.
When I click okay, it loads those 6 photos, and it gives me a little indicator here
that there's 6 things there as a set.
Even though they're individual objects,
when I go to place them, and I go to wherever I want in the same document
or different document, I'll be able to place them as a set of photos.
As you can see all 6 are coming in and, again,
I can transform them.
I can use modifier keys such as the command key, or shift key,
or option key to control the spacing between them.
I basically get all of my great placement options,
but with the Content Collector inside the same document.
I don't have to place them, again, from the hard drive.
Great, okay, now what?
Let's go back and let's take a look at 1 more way to use this.
Let's do a drag select.
Again, we're back in the collection mode,
and if I just--here let's deselect first just so we're not confusing things.
If I go back to the Content Collector and I'm in collection mode,
I can drag select.
Now when I drag select, it is really collecting everything that my cursor touches.
If I drag select out here, it's going to grab all of the content.
It grabbed 11 things in that case.
Now we'll go back to the placement, and, again,
we'll go to a different document just to keep things clean.
We'll go to our pages panel, perhaps add a new page or a new spread,
and now I can click to place all of that content that my cursor selected or touched,
including the background frame as 1 object.
Now when I say as 1 object I mean really 1 placement
because these are still individual objects that you can transform
and work with just as if you had placed them manually inside of InDesign one by one.
Everything in the text is still editable.
Everything is select-able, and you can transform or work with anything in the new layout.
Okay, great, now let's take it up a notch.
Let's go back, and so we kind of got an idea of how the Content Collector works and places.
Let's look at a couple more options though.
Let's say that I collect objects.
Let's collect this one and this one,
and I go to place them.
Well, there's some other options that we have here.
For example, we've been basically placing and removing from the conveyor.
It basically drops it down on the page,
and then takes it out of the conveyor, but we have additional options.
Maybe you want to use the content more than once.
We can place multiple and keep in the conveyor.
That means we'll just keep placing it as many times as we want,
and it will stay in the conveyor until we choose otherwise,
and this last one is placed and keep in the conveyor
and load the next object.
The middle one was place the same photo, again, again, again.
The next one is place the photo, keep it in the conveyor,
but then go to the next photo, place that photo, keep it in the conveyor.
It will just keep cycling through your photos and/or objects
because they don't have to be photos, and in this case,
we also have the ability to go in and say which one we want to come in next.
We can click back and forth, and it will load the placement with the next object,
and, again, you can have several objects and keep clicking through them
in the order that you want them to go in.
Very cool conveyor options, and, again, we can just say hey I want this one here,
and this one here, so we're just basically placing those in the same document,
in this case, and transforming them as we go.
Now what's linked content?
We've been doing all these great things with the Content Collector tools,
placing same document, different documents,
but now let's talk about linking this content,
and for this, I think the best illustration is working with text
because people really get when you place text, and it's linked,
and you make changes, but keep in mind these Content Collector tools
and the linking is for any type of InDesign objects
including even animations.
You don't have to--you're not limited to just texting graphics,
basically anything InDesign can do can be loaded into the conveyor
and used elsewhere or re-purposed, but let's talk about text for a second,
and let's go ahead and load the conveyor with this text frame.
This text frame is loaded.
I'm going to go ahead and go to the placement option,
and I am going to create a link, and notice I've got something here.
I've got a choice called map styles.
Now map styles means that not only does it recognize
that this is text or object styles, but in this case,
it can say hey if you've got a style on the original object
but then you want to map it to a different object or a different style in the same document,
you can do that.
For example, I'm going to go ahead and say edit the custom style mapping,
and we're going to go ahead and create a new mapping based on character style.
I've got a character style for that drop cap.
Let's go ahead and say new mapping, and what I want to happen is
when I place something that uses character style A,
I want it to automatically switch to character style B.
That's mapping to a different style using the same content.
Let's click okay; that style mapping is ready to go.
Now, I'll go to wherever I want to place this content.
Let's try it on the pace board.
I'll switch it to the placement.
Click, we get our content, but you'll notice that
the As are different because this one is using character style A.
This one's using character style B,
which is a different font, different color.
Not only do I get the same content, but I get the content with different styles if I choose to have that.
Now the other thing you'll notice is that we have the ability to do linked content.
How does that work?
For example, let's select this content.
Let's go in and use the edit place and link command.
We can do this linking either through the conveyor or just simply using edit menu.
When I say place and link, same thing, it loads the conveyor.
It's automatically going to create a link.
If I go to a different document and place it,
it will place it, and you'll notice that it's giving me a little link symbol at the top.
Now we're in a totally separate document.
We placed the content from the original document.
If we go back to the original document now,
and we make any changes to this content so it says nightshirt,
and I want to change that to T-shirt,
once I make that change, and I go back to the new document,
notice that link symbol let's me know it's out of date.
I just simply click the link symbol and it updates nightshirt to T-shirt
in my totally separate document.
I could do it in the same document or different documents,
and my content will remain linked throughout my entire InDesign workflow.
As you can see, InDesign CS6 gives us great new features to be able to repurpose content
either in the same document or other documents and keep that content linked
so that if we make changes we don't have to worry about
well, did that change get made in all the other places I used that content?
And, again, it's not just limited to text and graphics,
it could be any InDesign content including animations.
I hope you enjoyed this; my name is Terry White, thanks for watching.
[Adobe]
