Speed writing for Twitter?

Back in my high school days, I had a class which consisted mainly of the entire class copying pages and pages and pages of notes from the originals which were projected on an overhead projector.

Around this time, I came across an article in a magazine about speed writing (or something like that) as a type of shorthand for the rest of us.

It was not a mysterious code, like shorthand, but was just an abbreviated writing system. The main points (as I remembered them from my brief reading of the magazine article) were: dropping all short vowels (hat=ht, hate=hat), spelling phonetically, representing common endings like "-tion", "-sh-" and "-th-" using abbreviations like "Sn", "S" and "T", and abbreviating common words like "the" of "of" with abbreviations like "T" and "v". I also abbreviated the suffix "ing" with a letter that looked like a combined "n" and "g". Abbreviated, the opening of Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" would be written: Lsn my Cldrn & u Sl her v T midnit rid v Pl Rver.

This system wasn't too difficult to decipher. One classmate would even take my notebook home and copy what she had missed during class.

What reminded me of this was Twitter. Trying to get a complex idea into 140 characters leads to abbreviations that have been common for a long time in instant messages: u, 2, l8r. But I wonder if people would understand things like: vacaSn, domstc prtnrSp, dmcrt, cnglmrts, britn s seTng t prlmnts abus v gvrnment fnds. Hw dd Ts cm abt?

InDesign: Zoom to actual size script

In Adobe InDesign, when you zoom to actual size (100%, Command/Control-1) it really doesn't zoom to actual size. That means, if you zoom a 3.5x2-inch business card to 100% (what the InDesign View menu calls "Actual Size") and hold a ruler up to your screen, the image onscreen won't measure 3.5x2-inches. This is due to the differences in screen resolutions on different computers.

So what can you do to easily zoom to "Actual Size"? Well, you can create a script for InDesign and then set the keyboard shortcut for that script to Command/Control-1, so that when you press Control-1 to zoom to actual size. you actually get actual size.

First you need to figure out what zoom percentage is actual size on your computer. I took out a business card and drew a 3.5 x 2 box in InDesign, then zoomed in until the on-screen image was the same size as the actual business card. For me, this was 140%.

Then you have to create the script. This is a simple, one line script.

Open any text editor that can create plain text files (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit* on Mac).

Create a new file and paste the following text into it (replacing the 140 with whatever the zoom percentage works for your computer):

try {app.layoutWindows[0].zoomPercentage = 140 } catch (e) {};

Save this file, using the file extension jsx. I saved mine as "Zoom 140 Percent.jsx".

Put this file into your InDesign scripts folder:

Mac OS: Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/[version]/Scripts

Windows XP: Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\Scripts

Windows Vista: Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\Scripts

To run this script, open your scripts panel (Windows->Automation->Scripts) and double-click the scripts.

To create a keyboard shortcut for this script, edit your keyboard shortcuts by choosing menu item: Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts.

This works in InDesign CS3--Mac & Windows. Haven't tried it in other versions.

You can also download the script file here (it's set to 130%): http://tinyurl.com/IDZoom130

*TextEdit normally saves files in Rich Text Format by default. You must save this script as plain text. To save a TextEdit file as a plain text file, choose menu item Format->Make Plain Text. You will then be able to save this as a plain text file. Make sure you use the file extension ".jsx" when you save the file.

Comparing Helvetica Neue to Helvetica

I've wondered what the difference is between Helvetica and Helvetica Neue. (or, more correctly, what the differences are).

According to Wikipedia, Helvetica Neue (or more correctly, Neue Helvetica) is "a reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths…. Other changes include improved legibility, heavier punctuation marks, and increased spacing in the numbers."

As you can see from the example at the top, the letter shapes are visually very similar.

Below is a comparison of the full alphabets.

How to spot Arial v. Helvetica (and Myriad)

Here is a visual guide to the major differences between Helvetica Neue and Arial. And, for comparison, Myriad (Illustrator's default) and Helvetica.

The easiest way to spot Arial is to check the cuts on specific letters. Helvetica's strokes are typically cut either horizontally or vertically, while Arial employs slanted stroke cuts. This is especially visible in the t, r, and C. Helvetica has a tail on the G (Arial doesn't) and a rounded stroke on the R (Arial has a straight stroke).