Before you come to your Mix CD printing/burning session on Monday, please follows these steps:

  1. Check your design using the "mask" layer. Click on the Layers palette on the right-hand side of your screen, then turn on the "mask" layer by clicking the eyeball icon next to it. You should see a black border around your file. The black border represents the edges of the perforated pages you will use to print your CD case and label. If the design looks the way you want it to when the "mask" layer is turned on, proceed to the next step. (Note: you'll need to complete each of these steps for all five InDesign files you've worked on.)
  2. Make sure that all of your work in the InDesign files is in the "foreground" layer of each file. To check this, click on the Layers palette on the right-hand side of your screen, then click on the eyeball next to all of the other layers besides the "foreground" layer. (The only layer that should have an eyeball next to it is the "foreground" layer.) If you can see all of the items you added to the file (pictures, text, shapes, colors, etc...), your file is ready to go. If some of your items disappear, it's because they're part of a different layer. To fix this problem, re-open the eyeball next to each layer until you see the missing items. Next, using the Selection Tool (the solid black arrow), click on the object you want to move to the "foreground" layer. With the object selected, look at the Layers palette; you should see a solid-colored box next to the name of the layer that's highlighted. Click-and-drag that box to the "foreground" layer. Repeat this series of steps for each misplaced object, then check your file again by turning off all of the layers except for the "foreground" layer. If you can see your file as you intended it to be printed, you're ready to move to the next step.
  3. Preflight your files. Once you've completed steps #1 and #2, save your file. Then click on File > Preflight. InDesign will check to make sure that all of your images and fonts are available on the computer you're using at that moment. If you get error messages that some of the links or fonts are "missing," that's a problem. If you used a font that was in the Ross 15 lab, but now you're working on a different machine, you might not have access to that font. In some situations, you'll need to go back to the computer you used when you selected that font. Likewise, if your images are missing, you will need to "fix" the broken links before you move to the next step. To find the missing images, click on the "links and images" option in the left-hand menu of the Preflight screen. You can locate and/or repair missing images using this screen. When you're confident that all of your fonts and images are available (you should have no "missing" errors on the Preflight summary screen), click on Package. (Note: if you have errors saying that some of your links or images have a "RGB color space," don't worry -- that's not a serious problem.)
  4. Package your files. When you click on Package at the bottom of the Preflight screen, you'll be prompted to create "Printing Instructions." You can ignore this screen and just click Continue. The "Save as" field should be automatically filled in with the name of your file, but if you want to change it, you can. If you're on a Mac, click the blue arrow next to the "Where" option, and navigate to your desktop, your flash drive, etc., then click "New folder" at the bottom of that window. Create a folder called "Your Name Packaged Files" (e.g, "Quinn Warnick Packaged Files") and select it. Make sure the "Copy Fonts," "Copy Linked Graphics" and "Update Graphic Links in Package" options are checked, then click Save. You'll see a warning about copyright violations and fonts; click "OK" and InDesign will package your files for you. Repeat these steps for each of your InDesign files, always selecting the "Your Name Packaged Files" folder as the place you put your packaged files. When you're done with this step, your packaged files folder should have five folders in it—one for each of your InDesign files. Inside those folders, you should see the InDesign files themselves, plus "fonts" and "links" folders.
  5. Zip your files for submission to the class website. After you've packaged all your InDesign files, navigate to your "Full Name Packaged Files" folder. Right click (or control-click) on this folder, then select "Compress" or "Create archive" or "Send to zipped folder" (the specific wording will depend on what operating system you're using). When you choose one of these options, your computer will "zip up" all of the files in that folder into a single .zip file, which you can upload to the Mix CD Assignment on the class website. If your zipped file is larger than 8 MB, the class website won't be able to accept it. Don't worry—just bring the zipped file to class on Tuesday and I'll copy it to my flash drive.
Please make sure you complete ALL of these steps before you come to your printing/burning session on Monday or Tuesday. If you've done these tasks, your appointment will be quick and painless. If you arrive unprepared, it will take a LOT longer than 15 minutes to print your files.

As always, if you have any questions about these instructions, or if you run into any problems, please let me know.
Last modified: Thursday, 16 August 2012, 9:20 AM