Business Macro (v11.0.3)

[Alibear57]

Business Macro (v11.0.3)

Business.kmmacros (19 KB)

[Nige_S]

From the other thread, in regard to the macro above:

@Alibear57

The main thing I want KM to do is replicate items over my page. To explain. I design business cards on a 55x89mm page size. Once the design is complete, I change the page size to SRA3, then select my business card image, move it to the top left of the page, replicate it across to the right, then repeat this using alt cmd U & return (it used to be simpler). Then I group the three items, replicate them DOWN the page once, then use the above keys to replicate the grouped set, all the way down until I've filled the page with 24 business cards.

This is very tedious and time consuming. I have made several failed attempts at this, and have ALMOST got a macro to do this, but it doesn't seem to want to copy the items in an exact straight line horizontally, but offsets them a fraction - so not sure what I'm doing wrong, any help would be appreciated.

Can I suggest another way?

1. Put your single card in
2. Duplicate it twice
3. Select All
4. Align top edges and distribute horizontal centres, using the "Align to page" setting
5. Group
6. Duplicate the group 7 times
7. Select All
8. Align left edges and distribute vertical centres, still using the "Align to page" setting

That should give you perfectly distributed cards across your sheet. It's quick enough that you may not even need to macro it!

[Alibear57]

Hi Nige_S, thanks for your suggestion. Might I respectfully ask if this is an operation you have actually done yourself?

[Nige_S]

@Alibear57

Might I respectfully ask if this is an operation you have actually done yourself?

Yep -- not for a long time in earnest, but I was typing out those steps as I was doing them in InDesign. Obviously it's all a lot easier if you make your single card's dimension 1/3rd and 1/8th of your full size sheet, but that's easy enough to do with an "invisible" backgrounded rectangle.

To be honest, I usually used a template with appropriate guidelines and Option-dragged the cards (actually tickets) to clone them and snap to the guides.

[Alibear57]

Yes, well I've been doing this operation for a good number of years now and, because of changes made by Adobe (which is anybody's guess as to WHY). Now, the option drag, that you mention, has another few keystrokes added. We used to option drag and then shift command D (I think) and every time you hit these keys, the object would copy across or down, at exactly the same spot for however many it is possible to fit on your page. Now you have to option alt drag, then alt cmd U, which brings up a dialogue box asking for a quantity (which is pretty much impossible to guess, at times) then hit return. All of these moves, should be able to be copied by KM, so hitting one hot button, is a lot easier than the 36 odd moves involved in the current way (even WITH a template).
Anyway, thanks for your input, but I've now got it to work (bar a few glitches that I will have to figure out). I didn't actually notice that the original poster sent his question about 2 years ago. I'll now try to go and find out how to upload my macro into the vault, in case it is of any use to others.

[Nige_S]

@Alibear57

Now, the option drag, that you mention, has another few keystrokes added.

Not that many, you can fill your page with 9 actions:

1. Drag object to top-left corner
2. Option-drag to top-middle
3. Option-drag to top-right
4. ⌘A
5. Option-drag to second row
6. ⌘A
7. Option-drag to fill third and fourth row
8. ⌘A
9. Option-drag to fill the bottom half

BUT... InDesign is highly scriptable, and I can't help but think it would be easy enough duplicate and place the objects with the press of a button. Are you using the full 450mm x 320mm of your paper, or trimming to A3 after printing? What size is a card?

[Alibear57]

Yes, you would think that Adobe would have made it simple to do the above task, but no, there's no such script available. I use both SRA3 and SRA3+ and the business cards are 55mm x 89mm. I don't drag to the centre, because that leaves a gap which would have to be trimmed off after printing. I move my first copy, so that the left edge of it, snaps to the right edge of the first card, then do the same with the third. This operation is then repeated vertically. I know what you're saying about selecting the top two rows with cmd A and then option dragging them down, but it complicates things if I am using a different sized page or different sized objects (sometimes I'm doing A7 size cards). It's much easier to do the alt cmd U button press 7 or 8 times, or just as many times as it takes to fill the page. Your suggestion above, would be fine enough, but when doing duplex cards, then the process is double, so 18 operations. Over my 21 years in the industry, I can do this operation pretty quick, but one macro key will make me do it even quicker. I've managed to get it to work today, so I'm well pleased with the results. I only have one thing to figure out - how to choose [align to left or top margins] without having the alignment panel open, because the way I've used KM just now, is to record what the mouse clicks on, but that relies on the alignment panel being open, AND in the exact same place every time, which is ok for now, but there might come a time when I need to move the panel, then I'm scuppered.

[Nige_S]

@Alibear57

I only have one thing to figure out - how to choose [align to left or top margins] without having the alignment panel open

Set up some custom keyboard shortcuts. See https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/indesign/using/aligning-distributing-objects.html for more.

If you do have to rely on mouse clicks then look at KM's "Click on Found Image" so you can click wherever the button is rather than at fixed coordinates.