InDesign® CS4 Bible

Chapter 34. Working with Others

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Sharing common elements with multiple users

• Sharing document and general preferences with other documents

• Transferring files safely between Mac and Windows versions of InDesign

• Working with other CS4 applications

Publishing is rarely a one-person enterprise. Chances are that the creators of your text and graphics are not the same people who do your layout. And in many environments, the chances are high that many people are involved in layout and production.

By its very nature, publishing is a group activity, so publishing programs must support workgroups. Yet a Mac or a PC is a personal computer, so it's easy to work on a Mac or PC without worrying about how your setup and work style might affect others. InDesign lets you create your own balance between the individual and the workgroup.

The key to working effectively in a workgroup environment is to establish standards and make sure they're easy to stick to. A basic way to accomplish this task is to place all common elements in one place so that people always know where to get the standard elements. This practice also makes it easy to maintain (add, modify, and delete) these elements over time, which is essential because no environment is static. How you do this depends on your computing environment:

• If you don't use a network, keep a master set of disks and copy elements from the master set in a folder with the same name on each person's computer. Update these folders every time a standard ...