Add depth and interest to an InDesign layout using the "cheap tricks" demonstrated in this episode, which uses a magazine feature to demonstrate what I called "Poor Man's Lighting Effects" in Episode 4. In the process of building this example, I put a lot of other features to use including dropshadows, transparency, layers, step-and-repeat, object styles, gradient swatches and more.

There are no simple questions when it comes to InDesign. I prove that in this week's episode in which answering a listener's simple question about how to align an object to the page leads me to demonstrate three possible ways to do it and introduces the concepts of math operations InDesign can perform for you, using the proxy image and reference points in the control palette, and even installing and running scripts.

At last, the thrilling conclusion of the Style Sheets Trilogy. The final installment on this topic demonstrates some additional flexibility you can build into your style sheets to account for the unexpected. Also, for good measure, you'll find out what a right-align tab is, and learn how to refer to it (and other special characters InDesign recognizes) in your nested style settings.

Picking up right where Part 1 left off, this second installment on Nested Style Sheets shows how you can build in additional instructions to your paragraph styles, allowing you to apply multiple style sheets to multiple paragraphs in a specific order with a single click.

At long last, the video podcast that was "a week away" (according to my optimistic first episode) is finally here. This first-ever video episode is the start of a two-part (maybe even three-part) tutorial covering what, to me, is the hands-down, deal-breaking, no-brainer, single most compelling reason to make the switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign -- Nested Style Sheets.

How does a person go about learning InDesign? What's the best way? What resources are available? Where do you you start? Do you take a class? Buy a book? Hire a training consultant? There are a number of different approaches, none of which is any more or less valid than any other. But certainly some of them are more or less expensive than others. This episode discusses different, inexpensive ways start building your InDesign knowledge.

One of the most long-awaited featues for a page layout program has been transparency support -- and InDesign's got it. But making the transparency you see on the screen translate to the printed page requires a process called Flattening. This episode discusses Transparency and Flattening in InDesign and the steps you should take to prevent unwanted flattening results from causing problems with the printing of your work.

It's a very unique time of year for me. I'm in the middle of massive annual project that I'm doing for the first time entirely in InDesign. It's always a battle to meet this deadline, so this episode of the podcast consists of war stories about how I've used InDesign to fight the most unrelenting enemy of all: a huge deadline.

Inspired by a question from a listener, this week's episode takes a detailed look at InDesign CS2's Data Merge function, which allows a level of automated, data-driven publishing and page creation options that can prove to be a powerful tool and a genuine time-saver. It's not perfect -- and I talk about that, too -- but it works and works well.

The end of one year and the beginning of another is a time of change in many ways...giving us a chance to make a fresh start. As a designer, I feel that InDesign has given me that fresh start. A chance to learn new things, fix past mistakes, break habits, solve problems and explore options in a way that the old regime software made difficult to the point of frustration. In this episode, I'll talk a lot bit about making some resolutions -- to switch to InDesign in a strategic, productive way, to break old habits from old applications, and to take advantage of the time you'll save to explore new and better design options.