InDesign question

[radiohead1075]

Is there a way to prevent a placed illustrator line art drawing from scaling it's stroke weight when you scale the image within InDesign?

[Typically]

why don't you just scale it to the correct size in illy? that would be the best thing to do.

[DesignVHL]

i agree. I WILL resize in Indesign ONLY for mockup purposes...but its a good practice to have things at 100% in InDesign...so it is best to resize the artwork OUTSIDE of ID, and then relink or update it.

[Broacher]

Yes, copy and paste it in. That way it comes in as an editable vector shape (or shapes). When rescaling, use SHIFT, but NOT Ctrl-Shift or the stroke will scale too. Also, you have to have ID's "Preferences/Clipboard/Prefer PDF when Pasting" unchecked.

If a curve comes in as scalably-outlined object, you should see the center of the curve as a light blue line when selected.

[DesignVHL]

Yes, cut and paste it in. That way it comes in as an editable vector shape (or shapes). When rescaling, use SHIFT, but NOT Ctrl-Shift or the stroke will scale too. Also, you have to have ID's "Preferences/Clipboard/Prefer PDF when Pasting" unchecked.

If a curve comes in as scalably-outlined object, you should see the center of the curve as a light blue line when selected.

While it is a decent suggestion...I don't think it's very good for when you need to use the element on multiple pages...or for when you need to go back and update/edit it later. By linking instead of pasting the graphic, you have more flex.

[Broacher]

Hey, one problem at a time. I'm just saying scaling stroked stuff from AI into ID is possible. Yeah, if you want to add all that other stuff, and even if you DON'T, a saved copy of the AI file is a must-do.

But if it's a fairly simple, basic shape... no big deal. Multiple pages? Plonk it into an ID library, or use page mastering if it'll work. Even if you do get really complicated, you can always cut and paste it into a blank ID page and save off as an EPS or PDF and open that in AI.

[garricks]

To add to Broacher's post, if you paste it in, you also can go to the Transform panel, select the flyout and deselect the bottom item:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/garricks/GDF/Picture34.jpg

That said, I'd probably go back to the Illy file, expecially if it's being used in multiple places in the Indy doc.

[PrintDriver]

I gotta ask... Why wouldn't you want the stroke to scale?

[radiohead1075]

I gotta ask... Why wouldn't you want the stroke to scale?

Thanks all for the feedback.

I don't want it to scale because I have several line art illustrations on one page and I want all the line weights to be the same.

More on why I ask this... I need to have the files linked because updates to our products are frequent and the line art is used in multiple documents. So the pasting into the ID document really isn't a good solution for my purposes – would take too much time to update all our literature.

The idea of sizing it properly in AI is fine, but the same file may be used in another piece of literature at a different size. So doing it this way would create multiple files of the same illustration which is what I would like to avoid...

[Broacher]

Oh. Okay. Well, given all that the short answer is: NO. In ID, there's no way to keep stroke scaling controllable in linked, placed files. The best you can hope for is a non-linkable (hence non-updatable) solution like the one I outlined with the converting each piece with a Copy/Paste from AI to a blank ID page, and saving to a special ID library.

Truthfully, I've never understood why they can't get ID to 'honour' the AI stroke-scaling attributes contained in a placed AI file. It's obvious that they're 'getting inside' the file with their hi-rez display. I suspect it's one of those 'postscript fundamentals' thing-- that is, the whole graphics engine is built around an extended version of postscript/pdf which does NOT include all of the AI-only object attributes (remember the PDF export switch to include AI editability? That sort of data.).

Weirder too because they've obviously stretched the engine code to include more exotic things like layers, Opacity Msks-- but simple stroke scaling? Nope. At least... not yet.

[radiohead1075]

Weirder too because they've obviously stretched the engine code to include more exotic things like layers, Opacity Msks-- but simple stroke scaling? Nope. At least... not yet.

This is always something that bugged me... maybe in CS4 things will be improved, ha.

[garricks]

Check back next Tuesday. ;)