Create a support structure for InDesign users

Before you start training QuarkXPress users how to use InDesign, you should develop a support structure for your InDesign users. A good first step is to put together a group of in-house InDesign experts. Make them the first group to receive training). After they’ve been trained, ask them to evangelize the benefits of switching to InDesign and the relative ease of learning the pro¬gram, as well as to provide on-demand training and support. Designate your top InDesign users as the resident experts and task them with collecting and distributing information about product and plug-in updates, common problems, tips and tricks, frequently asked questions, and so on.
In-house support can also include:
• A library of InDesign reference books. Several titles are available, including:
Adobe InDesign Classroom in a Book from Adobe Press (available for purchase at www.adobepress.com/bookstore.
Real World Adobe InDesign CS by Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner (Peachpit Press).
InDesign CS for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide by Sandee Cohen (Peachpit Press).
Moving to InDesign: Use What You Know About QuarkXPress and PageMaker to Get Up to Speed in InDesign Fast! by David Blatner, Christopher Smith, and Steve Werner (Peachpit Press).
InDesign for QuarkXPress Users by David Blatner (Peachpit Press).
Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One by Deke McLelland (Deke Press).
How to Do Everything with Adobe InDesign CS by David Bergsland (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media). Adobe InDesign for Dummies by Deke McLelland and Amy Thomas Buscaglia (Hungry Minds).
• Subscriptions to the InDesign Talk mailing list. This free e-mail discussion list, hosted by OmniPilot Software, Inc., lets you post and reply to messages about InDesign. If you have a question or encounter a problem, you can post a message to the list, and you can search the list archives to see if your question has already been discussed. To subscribe, unsubscribe, and search the list’s archives, go to the list’s home page at www.listsearch.com/indesigntalk.lasso?tab1=about&tab2=lists.
Other support resources
In addition to the in-house support resources you provide, you can also point InDesign users to support options available on the Adobe website:
• Adobe CustomerFirst Technical Support offers two pay-as-you-go support options: (1) Per minute. Pay $2/minute. The cost is charged to your phone bill. For the Windows version of InDesign, call 900-555-2200; for the Macintosh version of InDesign, call 900-555-3300. This option is available only in the U.S. (2) Flat fee. Pay $25 per incident. For the Windows and Macintosh versions of InDesign, call 206-675-6126. Adobe CustomerFirst Alliance support plans let you purchase one year of toll-free support. Several options are available. For informa¬tion, call 800-685-3652.
• The Adobe InDesign Support page on the Adobe website (www.adobe.com/support/products/indesign.html) includes links to top support issues, tutorials, support-related announcements, and user forums. You can also subscribe to an InDesign RSS (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary) feed to receive current support information.
• The Adobe Support –User to User Forums home page at www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html includes links to user forums for all Adobe products. These forums let you share questions, suggestions, and information with other Adobe software users around the world.
• InDesign User Group chapters have formed in major cities throughout the United States. The InDesign User Group home page at www.indesignusergroup.com/ has links to each of the InDesign user group chapters, as well as a link for meeting topic archives. The archives include meeting notes, presentations, and documents. The home page also includes links to other InDesign-related resources, including news and events, tips and techniques, and services and support.
Leveraging your legacy documents
Although InDesign can open some QuarkXPress documents, the recommended best practice for ad agencies with legacy documents is to rebuild them using InDesign. Attempting to convert a potentially corrupted QuarkXPress document and then making it the foundation for years of future work can lead to unexpected results and other problems. After years of use, QuarkXPress documents can become bloated with unused and unnecessary fonts, colors, and style sheets, as well as other unneeded objects and information. Building new documents and templates with InDesign is a good way for new users to learn the program and ensures that you’re starting out with clean, correctly constructed files.
Opening a QuarkXPress document with InDesign isn’t the only way to move content between the two programs. Here are some other options:
• Save Page as EPS. If you need to use a single page of a QuarkXPress document in an InDesign document and you don’t need to modify any of the page’s content within InDesign, you can use the Save Page as EPS command (File menu) in QuarkXPress to save the page as an EPS file, and then use the Place command (File menu) to import the file into an InDesign document.
• Export Document as PDF. If you would rather work with PDF files than EPS files, you can use the PDF export feature in QuarkXPress to create a PDF file of the pages you want to place into an InDesign document.
• Copy and paste. If you need to move text from a QuarkXPress document into an InDesign document and you don’t need to retain the formatting, you can use the Copy and Paste com¬mands. You can also copy and paste pictures, but in most cases you shouldn’t use this method because the link to the original graphic file is not maintained. Use copy and paste only for pictures that have no disk file (for example, screen captures).
• XML. You can export XML from QuarkXPress and import the XML file into InDesign.
Converting versus recreating QuarkXPress documents
If you’re thinking about converting QuarkXPress documents into InDesign documents, you should begin by doing some experimenting. In general, the longer and more complicated a QuarkXPress document, the more likely you are to discover differences when you open the document in InDesign. If possible, it’s best to recreate your QuarkXPress documents using InDesign. In addition to being an effective way to learn to use InDesign, recreating documents eliminates the possibility of conversion-related problems.
If you choose the conversion option, keep in mind that the process of converting everything in a QuarkXPress document—text formatting, graphics, character and paragraph styles, master pages—is not an exact science. While the programs are similar in many ways, there are also many differences. At best, a QuarkXPress document that’s opened with InDesign is a starting point. You may discover that you need to modify the InDesign document to make it match the original QuarkXPress document. In some cases, you may find it easier to recreate a document than to find and change all of the differences.