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InDesign Top Tips
Clients always expect absolutely flawless results, and that’s what you should always be aiming for. Spell check should be your new best friend as simple spelling or grammatical mistakes can be the most embarrassing and are normally the most obvious to everyone. I have created a list of a few quick tips that I believe will help tie up loose ends when you’re closing up your project in InDesign.
If you would like to learn more then try our InDesign Training in Brighton, Sussex or perhaps Photoshop Training or Dreamweaver Training would be more beneficial for you.
Find/ Change in InDesign–
This is one of the simplest and greatest features of InDesign and you can employ Find/ Change in different ways to help clean up your project. Extra spaces are a real pain and can easily occur without you realising. To use Find/ Change you simply click – Edit – Find/Change (or CTRL + F), then type – a double space in the Find what and then type – a single space in the Change to box, click – find or change all, depending on what you want to do, and then it’ll run and do all the leg work for you by replacing all double spacing with single spacing.
find/change in indesign
Concealed Characters in InDesign –
Using these all the time can be very annoying and distracting, but for re-reading your work once its almost finished, this tool is vital. It will allow you to find hidden/ unwanted spaces, paragraphs, indents etc. To use it simply go to – Type – Show Hidden Characters (or CTRL + ALT + I).
Colours in InDesign–
Something so simple yet, its overlooked by many. Delete ALL of the default colour swatches from the library and only use colours that you have created yourself. Also, please don’t sample colours from the other images using the eyedropper tool as they never come out properly and just makes your whole piece look really cheap.
Preflight in InDesign–
This is a very useful tool and you can customise it to include checking a mix of links, colours, images and objects, text and the whole document itself. It is a great way of checking the make sure all the different elements are the right size, type etc. To add a new profile simply click – the downward arrow at the bottom of the page then click on – Define Profiles, you then need to click the – New Preflight Profile, after that you can rename the Profile and select all the boxes you desire to have checked, and then click – OK.
Spell Check in InDesign–
As I talked about before, Spell Check should be your new best friend, it is so important it’s being mentioned twice! Of course Spell Check can only notice the words that are spelt incorrectly, so if you accidentally typed ‘The whether forecast looks bad today’ you need to make sure you re-read all your work so to correct any mistakes. To use Spell Check, simply click – Edit – Spelling – Check Spelling.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in InDesign Training, Presentation Skills Training on October 29th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
For in-depth instructor led Management Skills tuition, we offer a comprehensive Management training and Leadership training in Brighton, Sussex. We can also arrange bespoke Staff Motivation training courses tailored to your requirements.
In difficult economic times it is really important to keep your teams motivated especially when budgets for giving bonuses and large staff parties are not as large as they used to be. So here are some simple and effective tips to keep your staff motivated…
- Get to know your staff. Take the time to really understand what motivates and interests them, what concerns they may have and what ideas they have to make the department and company more effective. If people feel that their managers are really interested in them they will return the interest in the work they are doing and the company as a whole.
- Praise your people. When your team members do good work, put the extra hours in, come up with a brilliant idea or help a colleague – make sure that you give them praise and a thank you. Praising your people will encourage them to do more of the same in the future.
- Enhance your people’s creativity. Allow your team members to express their ideas and be sure to listen to them and explore those ideas with them – they could come up with the next best thing for your business. Also in brainstorming sessions use a variety of ways i.e. mind mapping/Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to stimulate creativity and use coloured pens, toys and music to enhance the creative atmosphere.
- Empower your people. Your role as a manager/leader is to get things done through your people and you can do this by effectively empowering your team. Where appropriate involve them in the decision making process, communicate key company information with them and ask for their feedback. Coach them to do some areas of your job that they would find stimulating and motivating and this will give you more time to do strategic thinking and planning.
- Be consistent with your management and leadership style. Ensure that you are consistent with your style, if you are empowering and motivating one day but secretive and moody the next your team will get confused, paranoid and you will lose their trust. Remember every single second you are with your team you are having an impact on them, so make sure it is a positive one.
- Be motivated yourself. The more positive and motivated you are the more likely it is that your team will be as they will follow your example. Take time to understand what it is that motivates you personally and assertively communicate that to your manager. As a leader and manager it is vitally important that you take time for your own learning and development to learn new skills but also to take the time to reflect on what you need to do differently and how you are going to do it. So see learning and development as vital part of your role and an investment.
- Reward your staff. You may not have the budget for staff bonuses or large Xmas parties but you can still do small things to reward your staff when they have met targets, demonstrated excellent customer service etc. Chocolates, cakes and wine always go down well as a thank-you. Or you can be creative and look at other ways in which you can reward staff, for example, introduce flexi hours or write them a handwritten personal note of thanks and praise. In some cases you could get the MD/Chairperson of the company to do this.
- Have a social get-together. Organising the occasional social get together is a great way to boost morale and enable your team to get to know one another better. You can organize a social committee that takes responsibility for organizing such events.
- Celebrate your successes. It is important of celebrate and communicate your successes as a company. Have a success board that is visually appealing and accessible for all staff to see. You could also have a ‘company hour’ once a week in which all members of the company are invited to have some wine/nibbles or tea/cake and learn about what successes the company has had and what the current priorities are. This is an excellent way to communicate directly to your staff.
- Put your people first. Your people are your greatest asset so make sure that every single member of your organization is made to feel valued, talk to them, listen to them, invest in their learning and always put them at the top of your agenda.
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Posted by Aaron Charlie in Management Skills Training on August 13th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Social Media: The Basics
If you would like help with your social media we offer a great social media training course. We have just launched new HTML5 training and Email Marketing Training course. SEO Training is also popular in Brighton, Sussex.
Many will tell you that Social Media is fast becoming an essential tool for business in all areas, but most of these people will not be able to tell you how to use it properly!
- Make sure you’re not selling yourself short, Social Media isn’t just Twitter. Remember, Facebook & even YouTube can be used to help you and your business
- Twitter can still become a valuable SM asset to your company. Look at Chris Brogan’s blog post ‘50 ideas on using Twitter for business‘, which forms part of his Social Media 100 project.
- Do you offer a product/service? Offer support via Twitter. If you’re attempting to create sales from your use of Twitter, think about offering a ‘Twitter exclusive’ voucher code or discount offer.
- Use Facebook pages, users can ‘Like’ your company or product, and you can encourage discussion and feedback from Facebook users. This can be invaluable, especially when you consider the fact that Facebook has over 400 million active users. That’s a lot of people you can potentially reach.
- YouTube is, to me, an almost criminally underused resource for businesses. Start up your own YouTube channel and fill it with interesting, different content. A few videos giving a tour of your offices, or introducing staff helps to create a different kind of relationship with your customers and users. There are more uses for YouTube within your business than you think.
- On a more professional level, LinkedIn is a valuable tool that enables you to build working relationships with fellow professionals.
- Lastly, make sure you blog. Offering a slightly relaxed standpoint from within the business will help others to better understand what it is you do and how they can relate.
However, using all these different platforms can prove to be a fruitless exercise if you fail to consider how these services can help your business. Don’t use SM platforms for the sake of using them, ensure that you can use them well and use them to your advantage. A training program focusing on Social Media would be an ideal starting point.
Pair this with some SEO training, tie it all in together and you’ll be well on your way to creating a formidable Social Media presence for your business.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in Internet Marketing Training, Social Media Training on July 29th, 2010 | No Comments »
Hopefully you’ve found this guide to time management useful. If you’re interested in learning more, our 1-day Time Management Training runs on a regular basis at our training centre in Brighton, Sussex.
To finish, here’s a quick ready-reckoner of our top tips for time management:
- Write it down – make lists
- Plan – and stick to it
- Prioritise – and stick to it
- Avoid procrastination – stop thinking start doing
- Control interruptions – make it brief
- Delegate – you don’t have to do everything
- Avoid unnecessary meetings – and keep necessary ones to a strict agenda
- Maintain balance – all work and no play….
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Posted by Faye Binfield in Time Management Training on January 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
Microsoft Excel Workbooks are made up of Spreadsheets. A Spreadsheet is organised into rows and columns of cells. The columns lettered and the rows are numbered. These numbers and letters combine to give each cell an address (e.g A1). All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
The contents of each cell can be entered via the formula bar. This is divided into two parts: the left side of the formula bar shows the cell address, and the right side shows the information that the cell is holding. If you can’t see the formula bar, select the “view” tab in the top menu and click the formula button in the show/hide section.
You can also see the total, mean, maximum or minimum of any numbers or cells by highlighting them and looking at your status bar. This is located at the very bottom of your excel window. If you wish you can also change the information the status bar gives by right clicking on the status bar and choosing its options in the Customise Status Bar Menu.
Excel Status Bar
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
The first thing that you will need to learn is how to move around a Spreadsheet. One way of doing this is to use the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight a particular cell. The highlighted cell has a thicker black border than the others. Using the arrow keys you can move the selected cell up, down, left or right one cell at a time. You can also use the page up or page down keys to move a whole page at a time. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
It’s easy to lose track of where you are in a spreadsheet – at any time you can hold the “Ctrl” key the “Home” keys together to return the selected cell to the top left of the sheet (cell A1). If you are new at this then it is worthwhile practicing this for a few minutes before continuing so as to get a better feel for moving around.
For a quick and easy way to locate a cell press the F5 key. This will open the “go to” box, where in you can enter the address of the cell that you want to go to, and be taken there immediately. Alternatively, you may find it easier to use the left part of the Formula bar at the top of your spreadsheet. Just type the address of the cell (e.g A1 or C4 etc…) and press enter
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
In the last section we explored how to select one cell at a time, however there are times when you might want to select a group (or “range”) of cells together. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
There are two ways to do this. The first is to simply press and hold the left mouse button and then drag the curser over the area which you which to highlight.
The second way is to highlight one cell (for example A1), and then press the F8 button on your keyboard. When you have done this the “Extend Selection” notification will appear on you status bar. Now select the last cell you which to highlight by clicking on it with your left mouse button and the computer will then highlight all the cells in between those two points. For instance if you click on A1 then E13 then all the cells between those two rows and columns will now be selected. Try it now!
In order to highlight more than one separate area at a time you can hold down “Ctrl” whilst using the dragging technique described earlier. Also if at anytime you want to completely clear your spreadsheet of all highlighted areas then press Esc.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
OK – we now know how to highlight cells, but we still don’t have any data in them!
Cells can hold all sorts of data, including text, numbers and calculations.
In order to enter data into a cell, first select it. After you have highlighted the cell you want, you can add data to it either just by starting to type straight away, or by clicking the in to the right hand side of the formula bar and typing there:
To delete any unwanted or incorrect information simply press backspace. If you highlight a cell that already has data in it and start typing, the original data will be wiped. If you want to edit the data that is already in the cell, highlight that cell and press F2.
After you are satisfied that you have put what you want to in the cell, press enter to finish or if you prefer use the directional key buttons or mouse to move to another cell or area.
All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
