Dear User Group Leader:

O'Reilly is pulling together a new book called "InDesign CS Annoyances"
and we'd like your help! As you might guess from the title, this book 
aims
to identify (and solve) the problems, quirks, bugs, odd design 
decisions,
conversion hassles (especially for PageMaker and Quark users), and more
involved in using Adobe's popular desktop publishing program.

If any members of your group use InDesign--be they Publishing Mavens or
DTP newbies--and they have annoyances they'd like to see solved, 
have them email marsee@oreilly.com with "InDesign Annoyances" in the 
subject line. Just have them note which version of InDesign they're 
using 
and the operating system version (say, OS X or Windows XP).

As thanks for sharing, we'll make sure to get copies of "InDesign
Annoyances" sent to your group shortly after publication.

--Marsee

***

An example of an Annoyance:

THE ANNOYANCE: I am a typography nerd. I'm a stickler for having
everything line up perfectly. But coming to InDesign, I find that when 
I
make a drop cap, the large cap often doesn't left align to the left
margin--it's a few points to the right. And actually, in traditional
typography, a little bit of the drop cap should hang out into the left
margin, even beyond the frame edge. I am mortified. How can I get it
right?

THE FIX: Relax, it's just a few steps. First set the drop cap from the
paragraph view of the Control palette. There are two controls for the 
drop
cap, just below the paragraph spacing before and after. The field on 
the
left is the number of lines down the cap is dropped. Your 
choice--typically
two or three lines, depending on the column width. In the field to the
right, however, where you would normally enter "1" for just the first
letter to drop, enter "2" instead and now there are two large drop cap
letters. Hold your breath! Insert a hair space in front of the first
letter of the paragraph. First click the Type tool at the start of the
paragraph to set an insertion point. Then bring up the Context menu,
clicking with Control if you have a one button mouse or right click if 
two
buttons. From the Insert White Space command, select Hair Space from 
the
submenu. Now the second large cap letter is small again. You can see 
the
hair space if you Show Hidden Characters (Cmd-Option-I or Ctrl-Alt-I).
That's the smallest fixed space available. By the way, a common word 
space
doesn't cut it. Last, your insertion point is between the hair space 
and
the drop cap. Now kern back until the drop cap hangs out to the left a
little bit. Use Option-left arrow or Alt-left arrow repeatedly until
done.

***