Today's Lesson - The Transform Palette - My Favorite Tool

[rickself]

My gripe for the month: Learn how to measure!!

OK, I know most of the forum are graphic designers
When you finish that job up and hand it off to me, your Super Friendly Prepress Grampa, what's gonna piss me off the most?

That you gave it to me as lo-res pdf? Nope.
That you sent me RGB's? Not even! But close!

It's the fact that you don't use the Transform palette, aka the digital RULER.

In printing, 1/32" can make the difference between a crap job and an excellent one. When we're looking at a pocket folder spanning over 25" wide. a 1/32" here and there adds up. Nothin is going to fit! Don't give me something close. Use the palette. If you have a panel that's 9"x12", plug those numbers into the Transform palette and then move it into position.

Please don't just slap things on the pasteboard and expect everything to magically fold and cut the way you hope it should or the way yoour crappy mock-up folds. Pay attention.

It's the designers responsibility to handoff a responsible file. If you're not sure of something, ask. I'd rather you learn it, then tell me to fix it. I can fix it, but it's gonna cost ya.

[budafist]

You don't even need to know how to measure, just know how to punch in the right numbers.

I hate when people guess business card sizes and send to us to print. If we print it and it is oversized we're screwed because they'll demand a reprint when it doesn't fit in anyone's business card holders. Nowdays we always check with them that they are sure they want an oversized business card etc.

[urstwile]

Amen to that Rick and Buda. Then again, that's my job, at least that's how I look at it.

[hewligan]

It never ceases to amaze me, the many and varied ways designers find to screw stuff up.

It's not like their aren't enough things to go wrong when you hand off a job for print, assuming you've done everything right. Why make your life more difficult?

Plus, for those of us who have those less than steady hands, perhaps as a result of something of a caffeine habit, the transform palette is a godsend.

[Broacher]

>>When you finish that job up and hand it off to me, your Super Friendly Prepress Grampa, what's gonna piss me off the most?<<

Now why did you have to give it away so soon? I thought we could maybe start a pool or something. [g]

Good points Rick. Of course, after years of being a sort of marketing/PR guy too, I would probably have stated it as, "Do you know what will make your prepress guru your friend for life?"

I'm not all that sure that the empirical evidence supports the belief that the average graphic designer really is concerned about the emotional health of his professional prepress partners.

(Geez, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings with that bit of truth exposure!)

[rickself]

OH NO!!! http://www.mysticwicks.com/images/smilies/willy_nilly.gif
Not truths!!!!

[doubting_thomas]

I'm not all that sure that the empirical evidence supports the belief that the average graphic designer really is concerned about the emotional health of his professional prepress partners.
If everything's set up correctly they shouldn't need to be.
The ones I deal with regularly could be described as not being the least bit
concerned unless it makes them look bad in some way, and
they aren't afraid to let you know where you fit into thier business plan.
That attitude is fine and dandy with me. I just want them to sign the proof. But
it does make me wonder sometimes how many prepress operators keep a .45
next to their magic wand :eek:
Probably plenty of stories about prepress op's asking for jpegs so they can rip
jobs from Photoshop too I'll bet

[prepress_goddess]

RIP from photoshop?!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

you have no idea of the stupidity of people. I have very few if any "designers" that submit jobs set up correctly. I rarely, if ever meet designers that can even read a ruler. I had a client call just the other day. . . . . I have a job that is 5 and 3 lines by 2 and 5 lines

my response: is your ruler in 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 or 1/64 - her response - how do i know?

count the friggin lines between numbers!

then again - i do homebrew for a reason LOL

[urstwile]

RIP from photoshop?!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

you have no idea of the stupidity of people. I have very few if any "designers" that submit jobs set up correctly. I rarely, if ever meet designers that can even read a ruler. I had a client call just the other day. . . . . I have a job that is 5 and 3 lines by 2 and 5 lines

my response: is your ruler in 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 or 1/64 - her response - how do i know?

count the friggin lines between numbers!

then again - i do homebrew for a reason LOL
oh, the humanity!

[Ned]

I have a job that is 5 and 3 lines by 2 and 5 lines


*snicker* I don't even have a response for that one!!

[PrintDriver]

Yeah Rick.
You should see what happens when you don't use the Transform palette then you blow the file up 1200%. Those gaps and overlaps sure do show up don't they. :D

This has been an issue in Quark since Day 1. Today there are plug-ins to help (I refuse to call them Xtensions any more. If I pay for it, it's a Plug-in. F*k'n' Quark.)
If using InD or any other Adobe, Corel, Macromedia/adobe app there is absolutely no excuse for lazy files.

[ellamac]

Please dont berate me too much....but is your transform palette the same as mine? Mine just skews/rotates/resizes... why would that help me with aligning? And what numbers would I type in there? I don't get it!

Or is my Modify > align an OK function to use?!

[urstwile]

The transform palette also shows x,y values for the position of objects. So if you need something to be a quarter of an inch away from the left of your page, then you could just type in .25" in there, and bingo, it would do it.

I may have referred to this in another thread, but about a week ago someone asked me how to refine the snap distance in preferences, and I couldn't even answer in a way that was useful, because I don't use snap for any kind of precision, I use the transform palette.

[urstwile]

Yeah Rick.
You should see what happens when you don't use the Transform palette then you blow the file up 1200%. Those gaps and overlaps sure do show up don't they. :D

This has been an issue in Quark since Day 1. Today there are plug-ins to help (I refuse to call them Xtensions any more. If I pay for it, it's a Plug-in. F*k'n' Quark.)
If using InD or any other Adobe, Corel, Macromedia/adobe app there is absolutely no excuse for lazy files.
Um, I always use the measurements palette in Quark to do the same thing the Transform palette does in InDesign. Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're sayin', PD.

[panzer]

what makes me think though is

"WHY wouldn't you use the rulers or transform etc"

i cant understand why you would call yourself a designer and not
1. know how to use measurements palettes transform or what ever ya wanna call it
2. as above ad infinitum

[PrintDriver]

Not the Transform Menu Ellamac. The palette. You'll find that under the Window menu.

Urst, Quark only gives you the location coordinates of the upper left corner. If you need another shape to just kiss the lower right corner you need to do math. I use a plug-in so it's just a click to get the lower right coordinates and a click and a little bit to get something to move there. Not everyone makes their picture boxes in sizes that are easy to add. And some designers are crazy about not having a 1/16" gap between matching corners on up close pieces. If working in 1" = 1' scale that's only .005". You can't see that on screen.

[Silence04]

not to steer off course too much... but i remember back in tech school, my instructor told us on average, 40% of his class always needs to be taught how to use a ruler!!!

[rickself]

What got me started was a pocket folder that the client made the die line template. Well, the front and back panels were supposed to be 10" and the fold in panel was 9.875. The first 10" panel was actually 1/16" off, the second 3/32" off and the fold in was 1/16" off. That's pert near 1/4" side to side. The artwork was full bleed and there were points where you absolutely had to hit the fold dead nuts on. Get to know your system of measure. If it's in inches, know that an eighth is .125, sixteenth is .0625, a thirtysecond is .03125, not "one of those littler marks on the ruler thingy!"

[Calligirl]

I'll definitely put this one in my research paper. Any other pet peeves I can investigate? The topic of the paper is "printing woes from the screen to the paper" or "how to get the damn thing to print right".I realize this topic has books written about it but it's my main issue right now so prof assigned it to me to research.

[PrintDriver]

Calli- start a new thread. I'm sure we could come up with a list for you...:D

[Calligirl]

Good idea, I think I will!

[urstwile]

Not the Transform Menu Ellamac. The palette. You'll find that under the Window menu.

Urst, Quark only gives you the location coordinates of the upper left corner. If you need another shape to just kiss the lower right corner you need to do math. I use a plug-in so it's just a click to get the lower right coordinates and a click and a little bit to get something to move there. Not everyone makes their picture boxes in sizes that are easy to add. And some designers are crazy about not having a 1/16" gap between matching corners on up close pieces. If working in 1" = 1' scale that's only .005". You can't see that on screen.
Yeah, you're right about the Quark thing, I do love how InDesign lets you choose the origin for the X and Y. With Quark I used to do the math to do those kinds of transformations, cumbersome, you're right.

[capezio]

What got me started was a pocket folder that the client made the die line template. Well, the front and back panels were supposed to be 10" and the fold in panel was 9.875. The first 10" panel was actually 1/16" off, the second 3/32" off and the fold in was 1/16" off. That's pert near 1/4" side to side. The artwork was full bleed and there were points where you absolutely had to hit the fold dead nuts on. Get to know your system of measure. If it's in inches, know that an eighth is .125, sixteenth is .0625, a thirtysecond is .03125, not "one of those littler marks on the ruler thingy!"


Hells teeth I am so glad that by the time I came to learn graphic design we were using metric.
The first thing I do is change defaults to mm's. Inches are like a foreign language to me. However, because we used imperial when I learn't dressmaking etc, I can't for the life of me work in mm's. I just know what 5/8" looks like for seams.
Wierd isn't it! :confused:

[prepress_goddess]

Hells teeth I am so glad that by the time I came to learn graphic design we were using metric.
The first thing I do is change defaults to mm's. Inches are like a foreign language to me. However, because we used imperial when I learn't dressmaking etc, I can't for the life of me work in mm's. I just know what 5/8" looks like for seams.
Wierd isn't it! :confused:

Measurements depend on your press. When I was in flexo printing, all the presses were on 1/8" pitch, so picas, points and metric drove me absolutely NUTS! Especially the "designers" that worked in picas because they were "designers". They didn't get the concept that I couldn't alter my press to fit their specs.

Now i'm in offset and have to deal with both. the transisition was not so bad tho, you just have to know your presses.