Creating Graphics for Web and Screen } Data Merge } InReview: IDMarkz } InQuestion SPECIAL DECEMBERREPRINT! 2020 / ISSUE #140 Become a Member of CreativePro! Professional members receive InDesign Magazine, plus many other great benefits! Visit creativepro.com/become-a-member for all the great reasons to join. Use the discount code MCKEE to get $10 off! Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 2 IDMarkz Preview and convert InDesign files to other formats without a copy of InDesign BY Jamie McKee Whether you need to preview, Previews export, or convert your InDesign files, When you launch IDMarkz, it presents you IDMarkz from Markzware (macOS only) has with a Welcome screen where you can drag } IDMarkz 1.7.3 you covered. Combining three of their earlier your InDesign documents to get a preview } Markzware products into a single, unparalleled package, (FIGURE 1, NEXT PAGE). Like its now-discontinued } Free/$99 yearly subscription/ IDMarkz’s unique set of features allows you predecessor ID Util, IDMarkz builds a $149 perpetual license to preview multiple versions of InDesign high-resolution preview of the pages based } CS4–Adobe InDesign 2021 CS4 or later files for free. With the purchase on the internal document data, so it works (macOS); native for M1 Macs of a license, you can use the program to whether or not preview images were saved } Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ export InDesign documents to various other with the InDesign document (an option formats, as well as move them to other that you can turn on in File Handling area editing applications—all without having a of InDesign’s Preferences dialog box). The copy of InDesign installed. displayed preview is representative of the Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 3 IDMARKZ FIGURE 2. IDMarkz quickly builds a preview of the InDesign document allowing you to zoom as much as 400%. FIGURE 1. Drag your InDesign files onto IDMarkz’s Welcome screen to get a preview of the document, whether you have InDesign installed on your system or not. original document, and the text spread. There’s also a handy is crisp at any magnification Document Inspector (FIGURE 3, level (FIGURE 2). NEXT PAGE) that shows a summary A sidebar shows all the pages in of data, including the file type, the document. Clicking any one version, size, creation date, modi- of these page images will take fication date, page count, spread you to the actual page where you count, page size, and font, color, can zoom in as much as 400% image, and story data. or out to 25% to see the whole Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 4 IDMARKZ FIGURE 3. The Document Inspector Other preview options include as well as Finder thumbnail have been turned off by default, shows the file type, version, size, Quick Look support, which lets previews (FIGURE 5), which replace because when the option is creation date, modification date, you preview InDesign, IDML, the default InDesign file icon turned on, determining whether page count, spread count, page size, and the number of fonts, colors, or InCopy documents in the with a preview of the document’s a file is actually an InDesign file images, and stories. Finder by selecting them and first page. Based on customer can be difficult. pressing the spacebar (FIGURE 4), feedback, thumbnail previews FIGURE 4. IDMarkz includes a Quick Look plug-in that allows you to view an InDesign document FIGURE 5. Finder thumbnails can be enabled through a right in the Finder by pressing the spacebar. setting in IDMarkz’s Preferences. Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 5 IDMARKZ From the Preview window you which application opens the file from IDMarkz are exported at path to completion isn’t as direct. can print the document or export after the export and whether 72 dpi for bitmap formats and for If a document has been edited it to various formats, including to display the exported file’s PDF as well. and re-edited, the story order, IDML, PDF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, location in the Finder. However, The final export option is and thus the Story IDs, may be and GIF (FIGURE 6). IDMarkz you won’t find any options Stories, which exports all the jumbled up—and the story order offers a handful of useful for choosing image quality InDesign story data in a file of your export will be too. export options for each format. when exporting to the image (i.e., the content from all the If you find yourself exporting For instance, you can specify formats. All pages exported text frames in the document) to specific formats often, you’ll as RTF, TXT, or HTML text. appreciate IDMarkz’s ability to This is a great option to have automate the export process. FIGURE 6. IDMarkz exports to seven file formats. when you need to repurpose the In the Automation area of the text of a document to another IDMarkz Preferences dialog box, format. There’s one big caveat, you can choose one or multiple however: The Stories option formats to export documents merges all the story data from to whenever you open a file in all the separate text frames of IDMarkz (FIGURE 7, NEXT PAGE). text in your InDesign document into a single file, based on an Conversions internal order-of-story-cre- Perhaps the greatest draw of ation-ID in the InDesign file. IDMarkz is its ability to convert For new documents, where you InDesign documents to other start at the beginning and work desktop publishing applications, sequentially to the end, stories such as QuarkXPress, Affinity should export in page order. For Publisher, Adobe Acrobat, Illus- many documents, however, the trator, and even other versions of Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 6 IDMARKZ InDesign. IDMarkz inherits these contains only older versions of abilities from former Markzware InDesign, IDMarkz first converts products MarkzTools and ID2Q. your newer InDesign file to an FIGURE 7. You can automate document exports to one or multiple IDML file and then opens that formats in the Automation area of IDMarkz Preferences dialog box. Previous versions of InDesign IDML file in the older version of The Open in InDesign command InDesign. That’s why IDMarkz opens the currently viewed file is compatible with InDesign in the same version of InDesign CS4 or later only: CS4 was the as the file was last saved in. If first version of InDesign that that version cannot be located supported IDML as an inter- on your computer, then IDMarkz change format. This feature uses the system default version replicates InDesign’s ability (in of InDesign, which is usually CC 2014 and later) to send your the latest version of InDesign document to Adobe’s conversion installed on your system. This servers and then send it back to typically results in an older you, allowing you to open newer InDesign file being opened in documents with an older version a newer version of InDesign, of InDesign—but IDMarkz so IDMarkz displays a message does so without sending your warning you that saving the file document over the internet. will break backward compati- bility with the older version of QuarkXPress InDesign. The Open in QuarkXPress If you try to open a newer command creates an IDML InDesign file on a system that version of the open file and Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 7 IDMARKZ then attempts to open it in LOST IN TRANSLATION QuarkXPress 2017 (the first version to handle IDML files) InDesign, QuarkXPress, and Publisher are different programs with different feature sets and underlying code, so it’s inevitable that some document features will be lost when or later. In the Open In area of you convert from one format to another. The following features are not supported in the IDMarkz Preferences dialog files converted from InDesign. box you can set the version of QuarkXPress you want the QuarkXPress Publisher IDML to open in. By default } Drop shadows } Cross-references this is set to Attempt to Use } Hyperlinks and anchors } Footnotes and endnotes Document Version. } Underline styles } Accessibility features (alt tags, reading order) } TOCs } Interactive content (animation, bookmarks, buttons, Affinity Publisher } Indexes multi-state objects, media, and PDF forms) The Open in Publisher command } Text variables } Spans and splits uses a different method of } Cross-references } Data merge features conversion, based on which } Tagged elements } XML tags version of Publisher you have } Tracked changes } Tracked changes installed. If you have Affinity } Interactivity } Conditional text Publisher 1.8 (the first version } Footnotes and endnotes } Non-printing content able to open IDML files) or later } Lists } GREP styles installed on your system, Open } Image layers } Some text wrap options in Publisher creates an IDML } Numbering } Complex tables of the file and then opens that } Some overprints IDML in Affinity Publisher. This Source: support.quark.com } Linked Creative Cloud library items yields a more accurate conver- } Multi-page spreads (i.e., where Allow Pages to Shuffle sion than the PDF workflow for has been turned off in InDesign) Reprinted by permission from InDesign Magazine 140 To subscribe, visit CreativePro.com 8 IDMARKZ Affinity Publisher 1.7 and earlier. Conversion quality not rely on Adobe in any way to Missing the Markz If you have Affinity Publisher As for how good the conversions create their IDML. In my testing In my testing of IDMarkz, I 1.7 or earlier installed, the Open from InDesign to QuarkXPress of numerous files, I found their found many great features to in Publisher command creates or Affinity Publisher are, that translation generally faithful appreciate but some glitches too.