Scripting InDesign…from the Ground Up

Event Details

Yes, the event details, but first...

Meeting Topic: Scripting InDesign...from the Ground Up

Max Dunn will explore the power of InDesign scripting from several angles: (1) how to run scripts and use scripting even if you are a non-technical designer, (2) how to get started scripting if you want to extend InDesign yourself, and (3) how scripting is used in diverse publishing workflows around the world. Finally, he will present recent and predicted changes to extensibility that come with InDesign CC, including object model changes and the new forms of extensions.

Max will demonstrate scripts and make available scripts and material about scripting from Olav Martin Kvern and others that you can download for FREE. Four copies of Olav’s book Real World InDesign CC will be among the raffle prizes.

Location and Parking

Plummer Park

In 1874, Col. Eugenio Plummer acquired official title to 160 acres from Señora Francisca Perez, who had occupied this land under preemption law in 1869. Plummer Park and Plummer House were acquired by Los Angeles County from Senor Plummer in 1937 for $15,000. The Community Center in Plummer Park was designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture and completed in 2001.

Plummer Park extends from Santa Monica on the south to Fountain Ave. on the north. There are parking lots off both streets but the Community Center is closer to Santa Monica Blvd.

Agenda

7:00 p.m. - Meet and Greet

7:15 p.m. - Presentation (with mid-presentation break)

9:30 p.m. - Raffles

9:45 p.m. - Goodbyes

Meeting Notes

Max Dunn explored the power of InDesign scripting from several angles at the May 15 meeting of the Los Angeles InDesign User Group. He spoke about how to run scripts and use scripting for non-technical designers, how to get started in scripting if you want to extend InDesign yourself, and how scripting is used in diverse publishing workflows around the world.

Max is an expert in publishing technologies, and has written about XML, SVG, and InDesign itself. He is President of San Francisco-based Silicon Publishing, having co-founded the company in 2000. He is joined at Silicon by several ex-Adobe engineers, including Olav Martin Kvern, author of Real World InDesign CC and developer of the scripts that come with the InDesign product as well as the corresponding scripting guides that explain InDesign automation.

With that background, Max also spoke on recent and predicted changes to extensibility that come with InDesign CC, including object model changes and the new forms of extensions.

Farthest Attendee

The person who travels the farthest to attend the meeting will receive a one-year subscription to InDesign Magazine. This prize has a $69 value. If everyone is kinda sorta in the area, then this prize will go the person who just had or is about to have a birthday.

Raffle Prizes

6-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: eDocker CREATE! Value $774.00

SOFTWARE: Blacklining for InDesign. Value $760.00

1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION: MathMagic. Value $350.00

3-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: Fotolia. 50 high resolution photos or vector images per month for three months. (two raffles) Value $349.00

3-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION: Stock Layouts. Full access to the entire Stock Layout template library for three months. Value $299.00

SOFTWARE: in5 from Ajar Productions. Value $219.00

1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION: FlightCheck Version 7 for Mac from Markzware. Value $199.00

SOFTWARE: Font Agent Pro 6 for Mac from Insider Software. Value $99.95

BOOK: "Real World Adobe InDesign CC" by Olav Martin Kvern, David Blatner and Bob Bringhurst from Peachpit Press (four raffles). Value $74.99

SOFTWARE: TypeDNA. Value $49.00

SOFTWARE: Rasterino for Illustrator CS4 to CC from Astute Graphics. Value $46.24

SOFTWARE: iDML iPad App for iPad from DTP Tools. Value $19.00

SOFTWARE: ColliderScribe for Illustrator CS4 to CC from Astute Graphics. Value $15.00

TICKETS: LA Web Professionals Meeting. Value $7.99 (four raffles)

Raffle Prize Winners

Given the topic of the evening, one of the most sought after prizes was Olav Martin Kvern’s book Real World InDesign CC. Four copies were won by Paul Fan, Traci Larson, Wayne Deselle and Connie Schurr. Traci Larson also won Type DNA and ColliderScribe for Illustrator, while Connie Schurr also won Rasterino for Illustrator. Other raffle winners included Trish Hall who won eDocker CREATE! and a subscription to Fotolia, Lucy Cook who won Blacklining for InDesign, Natalia Naduris-Weissman who won MathMagic, Font Agent Pro 6, an iDML iPad app and a subscription to Fotolia, and Jeffrey Schimsky who won Stock Layouts. Tickets to the next LA Web Professionals meeting were won by Connie Schurr, William Baughman, Natalia Naduris-Weissman and Amy Gilbert. Our presenter, Max Dunn, won in5 from Ajar Productions.

For being the person who traveled the farthest to attend the meeting, Trish Hall won a one-year subscription to InDesign Magazine.

Thanks to our Sponsors

Adobe
Ajar Productions
Astute Graphics
DTP Tools
eDocker
Fotolia
InDesign Magazine
LA Web Professionals
Markzware
MathMagic
Mogo Media
O’Reilly Press
Peachpit Press
Stock Layouts
ThePowerXChange
TypeDNA

About the Presenter

Max Dunn

Max Dunn grew up in Berkeley, California, earned a BA in Music from Wesleyan University in 1985, and spent the 1990s as a database programmer in Silicon Valley before directing Software Engineering at Bertelsmann Industry Services (BIS) at the peak of the dot-com era. BIS was then feeding billions of pages a year to Bertelsmann's 300 print subsidiaries worldwide, and it was there that Max fell in love with document and image automation. He immersed himself in the emerging XML standard and its relatives (XSLT, XSL-FO, SVG), while BIS pioneered online document creation and became the first company to produce dynamic PDF from web input.

In 2000, Max co-founded Silicon Publishing  with BIS colleague Alissa Whitney; Adobe became their first client on day one. SPI helped Adobe bring XML support and server capabilities to FrameMaker and led DITA implementation for years, but the founders' real passion was Adobe's new InDesign, which they pushed to its limits on the desktop while lobbying Adobe for a server version. When InDesign Server finally shipped in 2005, SPI grew substantially. The company later hired numerous members of the original InDesign team, and in 2011 Olav Martin Kvern, who had led InDesign automation at Adobe, joined SPI. Along the way, Max tech-edited SVG Unleashed, contributed a chapter to Charles Goldfarb's XML Handbook, authored whitepapers for Adobe, published articles on XML, InDesign Server, and DITA, and has spoken at numerous conferences and on technology and business podcasts.

Max and Alissa continue to lead SPI as CEO and CTO, and the company has delivered some of the largest document automation projects in the world for leading brands. Max is a strong believer in staying current: SPI's code is continually updated to reflect test-driven development, continuous integration, and prudent adoption of technologies such as XR, AI, and headless, API-first publishing. Today he is energized by the renaissance in Adobe's graphic and document software. Offerings like Adobe Express and Firefly Services closely parallel SPI's long-held devotion to online editing and server-side rendering, crystallizing the vision Max has pursued since the beginning, and SPI is more deeply allied with Adobe than ever.