Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I Concepts

1 Of Mice and Brooms: An Informal Introduction to Automation

Alternative Ending

To the Laboratory

2 I, Automated Animal: The Robot Within Us

Body

The Heartbeat Experiment

A Bear Steps into the Room

Mind

Habits

Instincts

Multitasking

Spirit: Rituals and Repetition

Free to Be Human

PART II Tools

3 A Call to Actions: Creative Suite’s Native Automation Tool

The Reflecto Action Tutorial

Creating a New Action Set

Creating a New Action

Recording the Action

Playing Back the Action

Editing Your Action

Running Batch Actions

Action Management

Saving and Loading Action Sets

Sharing

Droplets

Clearing, Resetting, and Replacing Actions

Button Mode and Color Coding

Advanced Actions

Triggering Scripts

4 Behind the Curtain: Scripting in Creative Suite

What Is Scripting Really?

Why Would You Want to Script?

What Is Scripting Like?

What Can You Script in Creative Suite?

Scripting Benefits

A Bit of Tough Love

Three Scripting Languages

AppleScript

JavaScript

VBScript

Which Scripting Language Should You Choose?

Scripting Editors

AppleScript

JavaScript/ExtendScript

VBScript

The Obligatory “Hello World” Tutorial

Creating a New Page

Building the Circle

Adding the Text

Playing with Your Script

Give It a Go

5 Robot with a Pipe: Mac’s Automator

Automator in Action

The Power of Workflows

Caveat Emptor

Workflow Strategies

Tutorial

Getting Started

Building the Interface

Configuring the Action

Writing the Code

Testing Your Action

The Final Build

6 From One, Many: Data-Driven Publishing with Creative Suite

Data-Driven Publishing

A Little History

Data-Driven Benefits

DDP in Creative Suite

The Clock Project

Building the Template

Creating the Variables

Creating Variable Logo Files

Creating the External Data Sets File

Importing the Data Sets File

Outputting the Child Files

The Future

7 Mixed Bag of Tricks: Auxiliary Tools

Multipurpose Automation Tools

QuicKeys

Proxi

Data-Cleaning Tools

Text Editors

Spreadsheets

Databases

Triggering Tools

Macintosh Software

Windows Software

E-Mail Rules

Watched Folders

8 Automatic for the People: Server-Based Applications

What’s a Server?

Clients and Servers

Server-Based Graphics and You

Playing with the Big Toys

The Applications

For Photoshop: Automated Imagery

For Illustrator: Packaging

For InDesign: Automated Composition

Rolling Your Own Server System

PART III Projects

9 Thinking in Pictures: The Photoshop Projects

The Projects

Project 1: Metadata

Project 2: Bridge Mini Projects

Project 3: Annotations

10 Beautiful Geometry: The Illustrator Projects

Project 1: Direct-Mail Image

Creating the Template File

Creating the Variables

Building the Data File

Editing the XML File

Importing the New XML File

Generating the Output Files

Project 2: Seed Packets

Creating the Template File

Creating the Variables

Building, Editing, and Importing the XML File

Generating the Output Files

Project 3: E-Mail Invitation

Setting Up the Illustrator File

Writing the Script

Project 4: Unused Swatch Cleanup

11 The Art of Composition: The InDesign Projects

Project 1: Ad Generator

Building the Base InDesign Ad

Building and Distributing the PDF Form

Collecting Form Data

Merging the Data and Generating the Ads

Project 2: Contact Sheet

Creating the Template

Creating the Contact Sheet

A Little Cleanup

Project 3: Step and Repeat

Project 4: Ticket Generator

12 A Symphony of Automations: The System Project

The Project

Planning

Strategy

Tools

Getting Started

The Templates

The Web Form

E-Mail Script and Rule

The Big Project Script

Appendix: Resources

Index