InDesign & Illustrator Tip for the Mathematically Challenged

[signmeup]

Here's a picture of how I do it.

 

[GypsyGraphics]

Here's a picture of how I do it.

aaaand that's why you have a crown and all i have is this dumb hat!

 

[signmeup]

You're funny!

 

[iSign]

well, gg's a whiz at page layout & I watched her take my 12 page sign guide & tweak it into an indesign document that suddenly corrected 100 little irregularities in spacing & alignment from page to page.. before she even got around to editing & improving copy writing & critiquing page layout designs...

...so, when she showed off this neat trick she has her own uses for in the page layout world... well i feel guilty telling her "hey... put it in sign guy language & use the truck door example" ..oh well, my bad.. at least she can be more careful taking my suggestions next time

 

[GypsyGraphics]

awww, thanks doug!

so ummm... no request for that ice recipe?

it's really easy... the list of ingredients is really short and it wouldn't take me more than an hour or two to get it all written up for ya with graphics, circles, arrows... the whole shi-bang!

Ingredients:
two (2) Hydrogen Atoms
one (1) Oxygen Atom
a pinch of hydrogen bonds to go between the molecules
and lastly you'll need a a crystal-seed or particle

wait... wasn't i suppose to be finding a clear and concise description for the original topic.

 

[Rick]

My head is dizzy with all those numbers....

Bill, i hope you'll give this function a try... it's quite different than simply letting the program calculate the second dimension for you after you've plugged in a known dimension.

My apologies... it seems i gave such a basic example of this feature, that it sounds like i'm talking about a simple scaling step, which i'm sure we all do day in/day out, all day long.

Consider this...
You're about to create a file for a sign, you have the dimensions of the building and you know the allowable square footage.

Do you...

A. Calculate the allowable square footage with the assistance of a calculator and then plug those figures as the height and width as your document, file or page size?

NO

B. You're quite the math whiz and with a few scratches of pencil to paper, you've quickly got your sign size and plug those figures in for your document, file or page size?

NO


C. You're a frigg'n genius... a virtual SIGN SAVANT and merely laying eyes on a structure, you instantaneously know the allowable sign size and plug those figures in for your document, file or page size?




D. NONE OF THE ABOVE?

I use CadTools... you can pick a scale or use layers to make a multi scaled document, size the image up to the scale that fills the page, and it figures out square footage as you design, you can type in shapes to a scale and even draft signs for construction.... in some of my pages, I use multiple scales on a single page or on multipage documents in Illustrator, so this is probably not a good solution for me. I only design in Indesign for print stuff. I will make multi-page submittals in Illustrator for a sign submittal.

Since all the work most sign shops do have to be submitted for permitting, they are usually required in an architectural, or engineer scale. Random scales really tick off the people at the counter as there is not way for them to measure something with a scale ruler.


anyone.... anyone...

don't make me bump this for an answer... i will... over and over... because anyone not using this function in InDesign, Illustrator, Corel, Flexi, ect. is missing a valuable time saver.

please... anyone who thinks, or thought on first read, thought this was a basic scaling tip... open a new document with a difficult equation in the dimension fields. then come back to this thread and answer the question above.