There are as many different ways to work with InCopy as there are different publications, but we’ve boiled it down to three general workflows: design-first, copy-first, and parallel. By summarizing the possibilities into three basic approaches, we hope you can join us in a bit of role play so you can determine how you might tackle your InCopy implementation. We explain these three approaches in the context of Adobe’s LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins. Even if you’re implementing a partner system such as K4 from MEI or Smart Connection from Woodwing (see appendix A) the underlying theory remains the same even though the mechanics may vary. You might choose one workflow for your entire organization or use different approaches for each project, but this chapter should help you decide how to proceed.
For some publications, design is king. The text is important, but the designer holds the trump card in these cases. It’s no slight to the writers and editors, it’s just the balance of power in some workflows. Typical examples of this approach can be found in many advertising agencies, package design firms, and publishers who develop design-centric print pieces.
If the most important factor in these scenarios is design, then it’s logical that the writing must fit the design, not vice-versa. This means the publication process is initiated by a designer using InDesign, and then the writers write to fit using InCopy, and then the fit copy goes back into InDesign for publication (Figure 9.1).
Let’s outline how design-first works:
The InDesign user designs the layout with images, logos, and graphics.
The InDesign user adds text frames to the layout and creates character and paragraph styles that the InCopy user will use later. The text frames can be left empty or filled with placeholder text (Type > Fill with Placeholder Text) to simulate copy in the design. The designer can communicate with the writer by using the Note tool in InDesign
to add a note in a text frame.The InDesign user selects text frames that need to be edited and chooses Edit > InCopy > Export > Selection. The designer types a root name for the InCopy story files (.incx) and exports them in a subfolder named Stories or Content. This exports the text frames that need to be written or edited as InCopy stories. Now the content (InCopy stories) has been separated from the presentation (InDesign layout), and the text is part of the managed LiveEdit Workflow.
The InDesign user selects exported text frames in InDesign and creates a new assignment by choosing Edit > InCopy > Add Selection to Assignment > New. In the New Assignment dialog, the Assigned Spreads or All Spreads options should be selected so that the writers and editors using InCopy have accurate page visualization of the layout (see Chapter 8 for more on exporting stories and creating assignments). If only placeholder frames are included in the New Assignment dialog, it’s impossible for the writer to write accurate text for captions and callouts because the images won’t be visible in InCopy. If the InDesign files and related images are relatively small, and the computer network is fast enough to handle opening native InDesign (.indd) files, the InDesign user might be able to skip the process of creating assignments. For example, if the workflow consists of single-page ads in InDesign, and the network is fast, InCopy users might be able to open the InDesign layout in InCopy with acceptable performance. However, if you try opening native InDesign files, and performance is unacceptable, you should create assignment files to speed things up.
The InCopy user opens either the InDesign layout (.indd) or InCopy assignment (.inca) because page visualization and writing to fit are of paramount importance in this workflow. The InCopy user shouldn’t open the InCopy stories (.incx) directly, because they won’t be able to write to fit. Remember that InCopy cannot calculate copyfit statistics of an exported InCopy story without the page geometry information that’s stored in InDesign (.indd) and InCopy assignment (.inca) files.
The InCopy user checks out the stories that need work (File > Check Out) and writes and edits the copy as needed. Unless the design and editorial departments have agreed otherwise, the InCopy user should format all text using the character and paragraph styles created by the InDesign user.
The InCopy user must watch the Copyfit Progress Info bar as he works on the story to ensure the text doesn’t go over or under the allocated space (see Chapter 8 for information about copyfit calculations). Tracked changes and notes don’t affect copyfit calculations, so InCopy can be trusted to provide accurate text fitting information.
The InCopy user should also keep an eye out for notes left by the InDesign user. With more experience using the InDesign/InCopy workflow, it will become apparent which co-workers tend to use the Note tool and which don’t. The writer/editor will become more accustomed to looking for notes from the Design department. Notes are much easier to see in Galley and Story views than Layout view, which is another good reason to do most of the editing in one of those two views. Another approach is to use the Notes palette (see Chapter 5) which is an easy way to search through a document and find all the notes, irrespective of the view mode.
When the InCopy stories are finished being edited, the content must be saved (File > Save Content) and checked in (File > Check In or File > Check in All). At this point, the designer can be notified that the editor is done with the stories so the project can be completed.
If the InDesign layout is open at the same time a story is saved and checked in, the status icon in the Assignments palette changes from In Use and Out of Date
to Available and Out of Date 
. Now the InDesign user can select the Out of Date linked InCopy stories in the InDesign Links palette and choose Update Link from the Links palette menu or click the Update Link button at the bottom of the Links palette 
.The InDesign user should check the layout for any notes that may have been added by the InCopy user, and make any last-minute adjustments to the file. Now the completed layout is ready to pass on to the production or pre-press department for final pre-flight, output, and distribution.
In this design-first workflow, there’s not a lot of back and forth between different users and departments. Essentially, the design department designs, the editorial department writes to fit, and the file proceeds to final production and pre-press. It’s mostly a linear process, but the main benefit is that the editorial department knows exactly how much space they have to write.
Because InDesign and InCopy share the same text composition engine, character and paragraph styles, and file formats, this dynamic duo lets writers and editors complete their task in one pass.
A traditional workflow might include a designer designing, a writer writing to an estimated word count, waiting for printouts from production, making copy editor’s marks by hand on paper, and waiting again for production to complete the edits in their page-layout software. In many cases, this cycle of edits would happen several times until everything fit accurately or the deadline was finally reached and the piece had to go to press.
In the streamlined workflow we outlined in this section, however, InCopy users can write to fit the first time around, which prevents a lot of wasted time. It also allows writers to focus on writing instead of on technical details. Because the design and pre-press departments are the last people to touch the InDesign layouts, the designer ultimately “wins” any disputes. If design and editorial disagree on some aspect of the layout such as a headline, photo selection, or image placement, the designer using InDesign holds the trump card. Design always wins.
In a content-first workflow, content is king, and the design of the publication follows suit. Some examples of a content-first workflow might include technical documentation, a literary journal, or a novel. In these cases, the text content is the most important element, the design is often relatively straightforward, and the length of the publication will increase or decrease based on the copy.
When you participate in a content-first workflow with InCopy, it’s called stand-alone mode. It’s a stand-alone mode in the sense that when the writer is working in InCopy, he or she is working on an InCopy file that was created in InCopy instead of an InCopy file that was exported from InDesign. You’re also opening .incx files instead of InDesign (.indd) or InCopy assignment (.inca) files (Figure 9.2).
Let’s outline what a copy-first workflow might look like:
The InCopy user creates a new .incx document by choosing File > New and sets the text area and page dimensions. These page dimensions are only for the benefit of the writer and will likely be overridden by the final InDesign layout (see Chapter 2).
If the InCopy user knows how long the text should be, the text area dimensions provide accurate line breaks without relying on InDesign for copyfit information. For example, if a certain weekly newspaper column is always 2.5 inches wide and 18 inches deep, those values can be entered as the Text Area width and depth.
If the InCopy user writes stories with the same length on a regular basis, document presets can save time and ensure consistency. Choose File > New to enter the desired document properties, click Save Preset, and give the preset a memorable name. Now the document preset can be accessed easily from the Document Preset pull-down menu in the New Document dialog (see Chapter 2).
Tip
If the text of a story already exists in another format such as Microsoft Word or a text file, those files can be opened or placed in InCopy (see Chapter 2) for further writing and editing.
Next, the InCopy user might create some character and paragraph text styles or import them from an existing InCopy or InDesign file. If the team members have decided not to use text styles in InCopy but rely solely on the InDesign users to style text, then skip this step. However, many workflows benefit greatly by having the writers and editors be responsible for styling their text. Even if it’s as simple as creating structural styles for headline, byline, body, and caption, it can save a lot of time in the rest of the process, and designers aren’t forced to guess what’s what. If certain stories are frequently the same length and include common text styles, InCopy templates (.inct, see Chapter 2) should be created for future use.
After the InCopy user creates a new InCopy document (possibly from a document preset) or chooses the right InCopy template (.inct), the writing can begin. When writing in stand-alone mode, the InCopy user employs the writing and editing features we’ve documented throughout this book as well as a few other special options. Stand-alone mode enables a few extra features that aren’t available when working on an InCopy assignment or an InCopy story that’s checked out of an InDesign document:
Stories do not need to be explicitly checked out. When an .incx file is opened in stand-alone mode it’s checked out automatically.
InCopy users have the ability to create custom swatches and apply any color swatch to selected text.
InCopy users can create and edit character and paragraph styles for formatting text.
InCopy users can change the document setup with the File > Document Setup command. This includes text area width and depth as well as page dimensions.
When the InCopy user is done writing and editing the copy, the file must be saved, closed, and submitted to the design or production department.
The InDesign user places the .incx file in the InDesign layout just as if it was a Microsoft Word document or a text file but with all the benefits of an InCopy file. The completed layout is now ready to pass on to the production or pre-press department for final pre-flight, output, and distribution.
As you look over this outline of a copy-first workflow, you might be wondering how it differs from a typical workflow where writers and editors use Microsoft Word to prepare stories that are flowed into a page-layout application. Why bother using InCopy instead of Word?
First, the fact that InCopy and InDesign share many of the same technologies makes it easy to create InCopy templates that share common text styles with the InDesign layout templates. Second, InCopy can calculate basic copyfit information even in stand-alone mode. You don’t have complete page visualization in a copy-first workflow with InCopy, but you can still have copyfit statistics as specified by the File > Page Setup command. Third, if the writer using InCopy is using the same text styles as the InDesign layout, he can see accurate text formatting in Layout view.
Lastly, some users will prefer InCopy simply because it’s a streamlined writing and editing tool and not a bloated word processor that tries to do everything short of waxing your car. This is admittedly a very linear workflow, but it simplifies things a lot thanks to all the shared technology and file formats. InDesign users are the last people to touch the files, so design always wins in this scenario.
Some publications will stick to a design-first workflow, and others will take a content-first approach, but the beauty of InCopy really shines when InCopy and InDesign users work together in a real-time parallel workflow instead of a linear workflow. By working in parallel, an editor doesn’t have to wait for a designer to finish a layout before a story can be edited. Similarly, a designer doesn’t have to wait for an editor to finish editing a story before a last-minute advertisement can be placed. Different departments can work on the same layout at the same time and the LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins (or a third-party system) negotiate the check-in/check-out and all the updates (Figure 9.3).
Here’s an outline of what a parallel workflow might look like:
A common file server is established so that all users, regardless of geographic location, computer platform (Mac and Windows), or role, have access to the same set of files.
Everybody agrees on a naming convention for files, including InDesign layouts (.indd), InCopy stories (.incx), and InCopy assignments (.inca). Using consistent filenames helps ensure that users work on the right files. A standard file organization scheme is also important so users know where to find the files they need.
A parallel workflow starts like a design-first workflow (see the section “Design-first Workflow” earlier in this chapter) in that the InDesign user creates templates or draft layouts and then exports InCopy stories and assignments for the InCopy users.
InCopy users open either an InDesign layout or an InCopy assignment, check out stories, and write and edit as needed. InCopy users can open the InCopy stories in stand-alone mode, but they don’t have the benefits of copyfit calculations or page visualization. InCopy assignments are usually the ideal compromise between opening large InDesign layouts an d stand-alone InCopy stories.
The real-time collaboration enabled by the LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins comes into play when an InCopy user saves a story or an InDesign user changes the layout. For example, when the InCopy user edits and saves changes to a story, the InDesign user will see an Out of Date icon in the Assignments and Links palettes and on the frame itself
. The InDesign user can select the modified story and click the Update Link button at the bottom of the Links palette to refresh the layout according to edits made by InCopy users.Similarly, when the InDesign user changes the design and saves the InDesign layout or updates an assignment file at the same time the InCopy user is working on a related story, InCopy warns the InCopy user that the layout has changed by displaying [Out of Date] in the document title bar. InCopy also warns users that the InDesign layout has changed by displaying a yellow status icon next to the filename in the Assignments palette
. The InCopy user can continue to work and then choose File > Update Design when he’s ready to see the effect of the design changes. These updates never display an annoying dialog for the InDesign or InCopy user. Instead, the notifications are subtle so the user can finish whatever he’s working on and update the content or design at a convenient time.Notes can be created, edited, and read by both InCopy and InDesign users. Notes aren’t required, but they can be an effective way to communicate between departments.
Design and editorial departments continue to work in parallel until the project is complete.
It’s this real-time back and forth that makes a parallel workflow with the LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins so cutting edge. Nobody is waiting for anybody else to finish a task, work is always getting done, and it’s easier to meet deadlines. Like the other workflow scenarios we described, the InDesign users are the last people to touch the files. Ultimately, design always wins.
Lastly, here’s a top-ten list of tips for a successful implementation of an InCopy LiveEdit Workflow:
If you have more than ten users, contact some of the InCopy integration partners listed in appendix A. The LiveEdit Workflow plug-ins function as designed, but they are intended for smaller workgroups of 2-10 users. Performance will suffer if you have too many users participating in a LiveEdit Workflow on one server.
Ensure that all InCopy and InDesign users are using the exact same application versions (such as 4.0.2).
Consider using OpenType fonts. Because OpenType fonts are fully cross platform, if you’re working in a mixed-platform environment of Mac and Windows computers, OpenType can save you frustration trying to match fonts across platforms.
Agree on a file naming scheme for your InDesign files (.indd), InCopy stories (.incx), and InCopy assignments (.inca) and how to organize your files and folders.
If this is the first time you’ve used InDesign, make sure you do InDesign training before any InCopy training. For InDesign training options, consider the Adobe InDesign CS2 Classroom in a Book by the Adobe Creative Team (Adobe Press, 2005), the Getting Started with Adobe InDesign CS2 Personal Seminar DVD by Terry White (Peachpit Press, 2005), or search for a training partner at http://partners.adobe.com.
Train your users close to the date when you plan to roll out the new workflow. If you offer training too far in advance, the staff is likely to forget important material. See appendix C for a list of InCopy training partners. You should also check out the InCopy video training series recorded for Lynda.com, by Colin Fleming, a fellow Adobe Systems Engineer and InCopy expert.
Test your network for acceptable performance with some real-world sample files from your publication. It might sound crazy, but we’ve worked with customers who are still using 10Base-T Ethernet and haven’t upgraded their networking in more than a decade. In our testing, we’ve seen no notable speed differences between the AFP or SMB network protocols. If opening InDesign files with InCopy over your network results in unacceptably slow performance, consider using InCopy assignments instead (see Chapter 8).
As you may know, the Macintosh and Windows operating systems use different authentication and permission systems. Without third-party server or client-side software to help mitigate these issues, you’re likely to encounter file-locking and file-access issues using InCopy in a mixed-platform environment. Some possible solutions include purchasing and installing software on a Windows server, such as Extreme ZIP from Group Logic (www.grouplogic.com/products/extreme/overview.cfm) or AdmitMac from Thursby Software (www.thursby.com). Both solutions support both Mac networking protocols (AFP and SMB) and mitigate resource-fork issues. Another option is to purchase and install Macintosh client software such as Dave from Thursby Software to help Macintosh clients play well with Windows servers.
Adobe’s Expert Support program offers a subscription-based support contract for various sized organizations. The Solutions Expert for Workgroups plan contract is a great option at a reasonable price. Expert Support plans also offer direct access to trained Adobe workflow specialists via extended phone hours, web case submissions, and unlimited toll-free phone calls. Learn more at www.adobe.com/support/expert_support and purchase an Expert Support annual plan by calling 866-MYADOBE (866-692-3623).
Communicate. It might sound silly, but in all our years of experience, the pitfalls of new workflows usually have more to do with poor communication between team members than with technical problems.
The scenarios outlined in this chapter aren’t the only way to work with InCopy and InDesign, but they do a good job of summarizing the options. You understand the history, staff, and deadlines of your publication better than anybody else, so take what you’ve learned from this chapter and find the right combination for your workflow.