Step-by-step, how the creative team initiates, controls, and concludes a typical InDesign/InCopy workflow.

Bring up InCopy and “what is it” is always the first question. Next comes the inevitable, “how do I use it.” In the first three parts of this special six-part series, “InCopy CS2: In Production,” we answered the first question. Now, we’ll answer the second.

In this step-by-step article, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Designer,” we’ll explain how to initiate the InDesign/InCopy LiveEdit workflow from within InDesign CS2, how to manage assignments that will be used by your editorial staff, and how to conclude collaboration on your publication. Here, we address the InDesign CS2 user—the designer.

In the next article, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Editor,” we go through the InCopy CS2-based editorial staff’s side of the LiveEdit workflow, step-by-step.

Installing Collaboration

Most designers are control freaks (it’s an occupational hazard that comes from being able to position items to within 1/10,000ths of an inch), so the fact that designers are in charge of the collaboration between out-of-the-box versions of InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2 sits just fine with most designers. Editors like to feel in charge, though, so in the counterpart tutorial, “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Editor,” I’ll make the editors feel like they’re running the show. Relax: you’ll still be in control of the LiveEdit workflow from within InDesign; I’ll just stroke the editors’ egos and make them think they’re in charge.

Before even opening InDesign, install the LiveEdit workflow pieces that enable InDesign and InCopy to communicate with one another. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but, yes, installing the LiveEdit plug-ins will add yet another palette to the 38 already overpopulating the InDesign interface.

When you insert the InCopy CS2 CD-Rom, you’ll be prompted to install either InCopy CS2 (including the LiveEdit plug-ins for InDesign) or merely the LiveEdit plug-ins. If you are a single user or are responsible for teaching InCopy to Editorial, it would be prudent to install InCopy CS2 on your computer. Otherwise, don’t bother. You don’t need InCopy installed to collaborate with users who do, merely the LiveEdit plug-ins. Either option will automatically search out your InDesign CS2 installation directory, and place the LiveEdit plug-ins in the appropriate folder.

Upon launching InDesign after installing the LiveEdit plug-ins or InCopy, you’ll notice several new additions, including the Notes tool on the Tools palette, the Notes menu along the menu bar, an Assignments palette on the Windows menu, and a User item on the File menu. The LiveEdit plug-ins fully integrate throughout the InDesign user interface, including less obvious new commands in places like the View menu and the context-sensitive menu available by right-clicking on an object.

Establish your identity in the LiveEdit workflow by going to File > User and entering your name, nickname, department, or whatever will uniquely identify you among both the other InDesign users in your department, as well as the InCopy users in Editorial. It’s important that your identity here be unique—if you’re not the only InDesign user, don’t list your name as “InDesign User.” While you’re in the User dialog, pick a color to represent you at a glance on color-coded frames and content on which you’re working.

The InDesign User Dialog

The options you choose in the User dialog will travel through LiveEdit to other InDesign and InCopy users, but that’s the extent of it. InDesign/InCopy user names are not tied to the system or network login, nor is there an authentication scheme or automated check for conflicting user names. User options are, however, unique per system login because they are stored in the user-specific application preferences. The user name and color may be changed at any time from within the application.

Preparing Collaboration

For the writers and editors in Editorial to fit their own copy, you must first grant them access to the areas into which their copy must fit. So, design your layout, building text frames to hold content. Fill them with greeking from InDesign’s Type > Fill with Placeholder Text command or place story first drafts (if you have them). It isn’t necessary to fill the text frames with anything—they could be empty and still work within the LiveEdit workflow—but you’ll quickly find that the process is more intuitive to new InCopy users if stories are pre-populated. Create all the text frames required by your layout—main stories, headlines, bylines, kickers, decks, image captions, photo credits, sidebars, pull-quotes, and so on—and set their frame and text formatting. Define your paragraph and character styles. If your document style sheet isn’t yet finalized, at least build styles with default options so Editorial has something with which to work; like any InDesign layout, styles can be redefined later. Now, build your graphic frames, style them, and set text wrap and other options. In other words, do everything you would normally do to layout a page, spread, document, or template.

Now that you have your layout, what would you typically do? Right: You’d fill the text frames with greeking and calculate word counts to provide to Editorial. Fuggetaboutit. Unless you have a need to know the word count of a particular frame (what editors call “the hole”), don’t worry about it. Copyfitting is no longer your concern (until the final layout check). Hallelujah, brother and sister designers! Copyfitting is Editorial’s job now.

Remember: The layout doesn’t have to be finished; it must only be ready for Editorial to begin work. Setup your grid and build the structural elements of the layout, but you can still work on text styling, illustrations, and other design elements concurrent with Editorial doing its job. In fact, one writer can be working in the document while you’re still building frames for other writers.

Initiating Collaboration

The communication between InDesign and InCopy is accomplished through the LiveEdit plug-ins, thus the reference to the LiveEdit workflow. In versions CS, the plug-ins and workflow were called the Bridge, but were renamed to avoid confusion with Adobe’s Bridge digital asset management and Creative Suite unifying control panel. Under the Bridge workflow, InCopy users were limited to editing stories—one-story single or threaded text frames—but under LiveEdit in CS2, both you and Editorial will deal with assignments, or groups of separate frames (including threaded text frames, if desired) that comprise a single article.

Let’s build an assignment and hand-off the copyfitting for an entire article to Editorial.

1. First, save your document. (This tutorial assumes at least a proficiency in using InDesign on the job and doesn’t cover basic InDesign tasks; however, regardless of your experience level with InDesign, a reminder to save is always a good idea.)

2. With the Selection tool, select the article’s first frame—text or graphic—for assignment to a writer or editor. Then select the remaining frames in the article. Remember to select all the frames Editorial is responsible for filling within this one article, including: main story, headline, illustration(s), caption(s), photo credit(s), pull-quote(s), and so on. Any frames threaded to the selected frames, even if they span multiple pages, will automatically become part of the assignment. Even anchored objects are assignable. Don’t select any frame you’d rather Editorial not touch.

3. Selected? Good. Right-click (CTRL-Click for the mouse-challenged), and choose InCopy > Add to Assignment > New. When you’re prompted to save an .INCA file, save it to a location such as a common network server to which both Production and Editorial have full read-write-modify access.

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Create a new assignment via the context sensitive menu. [Click to zoom in new window]

How you name the .INCA depends on your workflow. Predicated upon the length of your document and the size of your Production and Editorial teams, you may end up creating quite a few assignments. Therefore, the filename must be both human-readable and unique among all other .INCA filenames. Find what works for you, but I recommend building a naming scheme based on: the names of the personnel to whom content is assigned, a descriptive title for the content itself (for example, “Letters” for a magazine’s “Letters to the Editor” department), or section and/or page numbers.

4. After choosing the .INCA filename and location, the New Assignment dialog will appear. The Assignment Name field here specifies how the assignment appears in the Assignments palette itself; you can be a little more descriptive here than in filenames, and the two don’t necessarily have to match. Choose to whom the content is assigned, entering that person’s InDesign or InCopy user name.

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The Assignment Options Dialog. [Click to zoom in new window]

Assignment colors are used for visual separation of various assigned frames. It changes their frame color, overriding layer colors, and tints certain icons and labels that will appear on frames to indicate their status (checked in or out, in need of update, and so on).

Include, the last section of the New Assignment dialog is where you, the designer, the master of the LiveEdit workflow, decide what kind of master you are. Are you good or evil? Do you like the assignee, or do you suspect he’s the one who has been eating your clearly labeled lunch out of the fridge?

One of the great benefits of the LiveEdit workflow is InCopy’s layout view, which shows, within InCopy, the InDesign document layout. A snapshot of the layout as it exists at assignment-creation time is embedded in the .INCA file, and may be updated by you, O’ Great and Glorious Master of the LiveEdit Workflow, at any time in the future. (I’ll bestow upon you that wondrous power below.) Which of the three Include options you choose determines the level of detail presented in InCopy’s layout view:

• Placeholder Frames: The assignment includes in the snapshot only the assigned frames—and only the spreads containing them—graying out the content of any other frames.
• Assigned Spreads: Only spreads containing assigned frames are included, but all content on those spreads is shown.
• All Spreads: Embeds in the snapshot all document spreads and their content as they exist at assignment time.

Your benevolence or malevolence as a master, ruling over Editorial’s InCopy experience, is exhibited by your Include choice, which determines the size of the assignments file, how quickly it loads and updates in InCopy, and how much of the layout InCopy users see. Many editors like to see not only their own work but also content surrounding theirs. For others, however, too much unrelated content becomes confusing—especially if the editor or writer is accustomed to working in a word processor with no view of the layout. A truly benevolent master asks his Editorial team their preferences.

5. Once your options are set, InDesign will perform the export, prompting you for a prefix and location to save the .INCX files, which hold the actual frame contents or stories (text and graphics). Each .INCX file contains one story. By default, the name of the .INDD layout will be used as the prefix for the .INCX files, but you’re free to change this to something more descriptive. For asset management purposes, save the story files to a folder beneath where you’re saved the .INCA assignment file. And, of course, you’ll be prompted to save the InDesign document itself.

6. Notify the assignee that her assignment is ready, then get back to work doing what you do best: designing. Leave the copyfitting to Editorial.

Managing Collaboration

Because you are the master, you also have the power to modify and manage the LiveEdit workflow. Here’s where that thirty-ninth palette comes into play.

Just as you manage image assets on the Links palette, assignments are supervised via the Assignments palette. Here, a tri-level nesting lists the document, assignments, and each assigned frame and.INCX file. Assignments show both the assignment name and the assigned to name (if set), as specified in the Assignment Options dialog. Each listed frame (which corresponds to an .INCX file) reveals the type of content in an icon on the far right; a box with an X through it is a graphic frame while a box containing a T is a text frame.

The InDesign Assignments palette

In order for anyone to edit assigned content—from within InCopy or from within InDesign—the frame must first be checked out. From the Assignments palette, simply highlight the desired assignment (or individual frames), and click the Check Out button at the bottom. Alternatively, you may right-click on an assigned frame on a spread and choose InCopy > Check Out from the context sensitive menu. The most convenient method of checking out content, though, is to simply begin editing. When you click within and try to change an available for checkout frame with the Type or Direct Selection tools, you’ll be prompted with a simple Yes/No dialog to checkout the frame.

Once checked out, no other InDesign or InCopy user may edit the content of a frame. When you’ve finished editing the frames, check them back in through the Assignments palette or context-sensitive menu, thus enabling someone else to check them out.

If you accidentally check out a frame, the Assignment palette menu includes a Cancel Check Out option that, well, as unlikely as it sounds, cancels the check out. I know; it’s crazy. The frame is returned to available status, ignoring any changes you may have made.

Double-clicking an assignment entry will re-open the Assignment Options dialog (here is your power to be mischievous, changing assignees and their colors willy-nilly), while double-clicking the assigned content entry jumps the document window to zero-in on that frame.

Notice that, when Show Assigned Frames is enabled on the View menu, the color of assigned frames’ bounding boxes match the colors you chose in the Assignment Options dialog. You’ll also see in the top-left corner an adornment or icon that communicates whether a frame is out of date (a yellow caution triangle icon), available for check out (a blue globe and clean white page), checked out and being edited by you (a pencil icon), or checked out to someone else (a pencil with a slash through it). Adornments mirror the icons on frame entries in the Assignments palette.

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With Show Assigned Frames enabled, frame edges change to match assignment colors, and status adornment icons appear. [Click to zoom in new window]

Like links, a question mark in a red circle beside the assignment entry indicates that the .INCA assignment file is missing, and an exclamation point in a yellow triangle denotes that the assignment file exists, but is out of date and has been modified. At the bottom of the Assignments palette, a familiar Update Selection button enables you to update the layout with the most recent assignment content.

At some point in the production of a publication, assignments may change. Maybe you goofed (unlikely; you’re the Master of the LiveEdit Workflow and you don’t make mistakes), maybe certain stories and spreads need to be frozen, maybe editorial assignments expand or shift from one writer to another, maybe an editor took your parking spot and you just want to mess with him. The Assignments palette makes it easy to both add new frames to existing assignments, and to unassign content.

To add a previously unassigned frame to an existing assignment, the easiest way is to select it, and then right-click (or, again, CTRL-click for those Mac users still suffering with one-button mice) and select InCopy > Add to Assignment > [Assignment Name]. Of course, the same method can be used to add several frames to an existing assignment.

If you need to create multiple assignments on a spread, there’s technique to make short work of the task.

1. Beginning with a spread of so far unassigned frames, select all the frames that must be assigned. Right-click and choose InCopy > Add to Assignment > New.

2. Save the .INCA file, then choose the options for the first assignment. All frames from the current page will generate entries on the Assignment palette.

3. Click the New Assignment button on the bottom of the Assignments palette, save the .INCA file, and then choose the options for the second assignment. It too will appear as an assignment entry in the Assignments palette, but will contain no stories. Repeat this until you have all the assignments you need; all but the first will be empty.

4. On the Assignments palette, select and drag the needed stories from the first assignment to the desired subsequent assignment. When all stories are distributed, save your document and choose Update All Assignments from the palette menu.

Removing content from assignments—unassigning the frames—is just as easy; at the bottom of the Assignments palette is an entry for Unassigned InCopy Content. This little feature is great time saver when freezing articles; if the article must be unfrozen at any later time, just drag the unassigned content back into an assignment, save, and update. It will then be available once again to the InCopy-based editor who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word frozen.

Pushing your layout changes to InCopy users, so they see the most recent version of your design and each other’s assignments in the InCopy layout view, occurs automatically when you choose Update Selected Assignment or Update All Assignments from the Assignments palette flyout menu. When you update assignments in InDesign, InCopy is notified through LiveEdit that the layout has changed, creating yellow caution signs to alert InCopy users to update the design from with their Assignments palettes.

Canceling Collaboration

On occasion, writers or editors will forget to check in their assignments when you need them. Upon closing InCopy they would be prompted to save and check in any outstanding stories, but you know how writers can be—it may be days before they actually exit their word processor. So, are you stuck, your entire publication hanging over the weekend, destined to blow its Monday AM deadline because somebody in Editorial forgot to check in the story before heading home Friday evening? Of course not! You’re the master, remember?

If you ever find yourself in this dilemma, follow the below steps. Caution: Be aware, however, that, if the writer didn’t save her stories in InCopy, any changes will be lost.

1. In most cases, although an Editorial staffer forgot to check in an assignment, she will have saved the stories. Saving, of course, updates the .INCX files on the server. Therefore, your first step is to select Update Assignment from the Assignments palette menu.

2. Select the checked out frame(s) and open the Links palette. The relevant .INCX files will be highlighted.

Parents, at this point, please ask your young editors to leave the room. The following is information for Production only.

3. At this point, if you look on the Assignments palette menu, the Check Out command will be grayed out. Here’s a secret: The Links palette also has a Check Out command. From the Links Palette flyout menu choose Check Out. InDesign will alert you that the .INCX file is already checked out, but it will also give you the option to embed the content and check it out. You’ll be prompted once for each frame or .INCX file.

4. Edit the content as needed.

5. If the assigned .INCX content needs to be accessed by Editorial afterward—say, for the next issue or edition—unembed the content again by choosing Edit > InCopy > Unembed Story. The frames will then be relinked to their original and still existing .INCX files, but you’ll need to add them again to assignments manually.

When you get to step three above, overriding someone else’s check out, you may be tempted to use the Unlink command on the Links palette menu. At first, it may appear to have the same function as Check Out, but there are distinct differences. Unlink embeds the story, true, but it foregoes check out. The selected frame is embedded and treated as a normal, native InDesign object; there will be no option to relink it to an .INCX file. Moreover, none of the unlink or checkout commands can be completely undone with CMD+Z/CTRL+Z. Be careful.

In addition to the Links palette flyout menu, there is a Check Out command under InCopy on the context-sensitive menu. These are identical in function, so use whichever method is more convenient for you.

If the .INCX files have moved or for some other reason won’t automatically relink when you choose Unembed Story, there’s a fast work-around: Undo the Unembed Story command, then select Unembed File from the Links palette flyout menu. Going that route will cause InDesign to prompt you about re-linking to the original files or shuffling the content out to newly created files, and, if the former, enable you to browse for them.

Finalizing Collaboration

Collaboration begins with the Production department, and it must also end there. As in any successful monarchy, the ruler establishes the foundation, delegates the manual labor (copyfitting and copy changes) to minions, but always checks over the work of minions before trusting that a project is built correctly.

During your final check of the layout before press, follow this LiveEdit-specific final checklist:

• No assignments in the Assignments palette display red circles or yellow triangles.
• No frames in the Unassigned InCopy Content section of the Assignments palette display yellow triangles.
• No stories are checked out.
• There are no notes in the document.

As you may recall, the LiveEdit plug-ins installed a Notes tool and Notes palette. Notes allow Production and Editorial to communicate with, and among, each another with discreet annotations embedded within stories. Because notes do not print unless someone deliberately directs them to in the Print dialog, it’s not really necessary to remove them. If your hands are the last to touch the InDesign document—if you’re printing it PostScript or exporting PDF, for example—you may elect to leave notes. But if you’re packaging and sending native .INDD files somewhere… Well, are you absolutely positive no one will check that little box in the Print dialog?

The fastest way to remove notes is to check out all stories for editing by you, open the Notes palette from the Windows menu, and then, from that palette’s flyout menu, choose Remove All Notes.

Should you have the desire to close collaboration permanently, add this to your final checklist: Highlight assignment entries in the Assignments palette, and, from the palette flyout menu, select Delete Assignment. When InDesign prompts for confirmation, answer in the affirmative. Warning: This deletes the .INCA file! To re-create the assignment, you’ll need to select frames and create a new assignment by hand all over again.

In contrast to that drastic move, you can protect the layout from changes while also affording Editorial the opportunity to later print out its assigned content. Simply highlight all the .INCX files in the Links palette and choose Unlink from the palette’s menu. Again, this completely merges the frames with the document as native InDesign objects.

Final Thoughts

On the Edit menu is the InCopy submenu, which contains such document-wide commands as Add Layer to Assignment, Add All Stories to Assignment, and Add All Graphics to Assignment. The caveat in using these commands is that they will add to the chosen assignment all frames in the document, on all pages, even on master pages. Use with extreme caution.

Though I would hope this goes without saying, if you intend to collaborate across the network, all your assets should be on the server and accessible by both Production and Editorial. Paths to linked images are relative. Even if InCopy users have access to your local harddrive, those unaccustomed to a creative workflow will be confused and frustrated by missing link warnings and the need the relink to assets in InCopy. If you’re an evil master, you should realize that it will come back on you: you’ll have a nightmare on your hands when you update assignments.

Alternative to using assignments, especially with shorter documents, is to have Editorial open the InDesign .INDD files directly in InCopy. See part-one of this series, “[4] InCopy CS2, the World; World, InCopy CS2“, for more on the advantages and limitations of opening .INDD files in InCopy.

Using and managing the LiveEdit workflow myself in InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2 near daily since May of this year, and having taught dozens of designers to become Masters and Mistresses of the LiveEdit Workflow, I can honestly tell you that the workflow is more complicated to write about than to actually perform. Of course no tutorial or even series of articles can take the place of a consultant or trainer helping you integrate InCopy into your specific workflow. This tutorial covers the most common workflows, and broad strokes.

Follow the simple instructions above—and have Editorial follow next week’s “InDesign/InCopy Collaboration: the Editor,” and both departments should be able to adapt it to your workflow, with the control each of you needs. Moreover, the responsibility for copyediting and copyfitting will finally be borne by the correct set of shoulders, leaving you to focus on the design. Of course, through the Assignments palette you’ll always be able to check in on, and exercise your supreme mastery over, your minions in Editorial.

InCopy CS2: In Production 6-Part Special Report:

Part 1: [4] InCopy CS2, the World; World, InCopy CS2

Part 2: [6] A Newsletter Designer Looks At InCopy CS2

Part 3: [7] Proposing Efficiency with InCopy CS2

InDesign, InCopy, InDesign CS2, InCopy CS2, how-to, tutorial