Introduction to Layouts

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Introduction


This is where your branded collateral comes to life in the form of smart templates. Layouts extension is a powerful extension that enables content creation according to your brand guidelines. All without the need for graphical knowledge or expensive software. 

Please keep in mind that it is available only for Pro licenses. You can get in touch with us for more information.

We use CHILI publish as a creative automation tool in collaboration with a service partner to build these smart templates. These templates are created based on your design and requirements with an additional cost that is provided by the service partner. The complexity of the design and functionality of the templates will decide the cost. When these smart templates are created, you can make them available in your Kadanza installation based on the number of allowed active templates in the Pro plan.  

If you already have a CHILI publish license, you can easily add these smart templates to your Kadanza installation too. 

Overall, users can create a document from a template after they are added to your installation. There are certain restrictions on what users can do based on their permissions. Users can add text, change images, choose a different header layout, and more, while other users with different permissions can only update the text of the documents. However, no one can change the company colors, logo, or font style, so you can be confident that the templates are always on brand. 


Workshops

If you don't have your own CHILI publish license, our service partners can help with the licensing and creating the templates. In this case, together with one of our service partners, we will organize workshops to go through your communication material and decide on an ideal approach together. The template developers will go through each document with your design/communication team to discuss all the options and come up with a template proposal.

This is what we call design automation: optimizing designs to be easily replicated as a template while still looking great and on-brand.

After these workshop(s), we usually know:

  • Which templates should be created
  • Whether multiple designs can be consolidated into a single template
  • Whether design elements need simplification or a different structure
  • Which elements should remain consistent and which can be customizable
  • Which workflows should be configured
  • Whether master data sets will be utilized
  • Whether approval flows are necessary

As previously mentioned, based on this outcome, a budget estimate for the template creation is presented by a Kadanza service partner. When the proposal is approved, the template developers can start creating templates based on the InDesign documents from your design team.

The checklist of the InDesign document

This document needs to fit certain requirements, so please use the following checklist in order to optimize the source file:


Layout 

  • Remove any unnecessary elements from the artboard, such as unused text frames, frames, and objects
  • Delete any objects and frames that are located outside the artboard
  • Ensure that the width and height of the frames are logical and consistent
  • Give appropriate names to your color swatches and remove any swatches that are not being used
  • Adjust the size of text frames to accommodate as much content as possible, while allowing space for additional text, translations, and so on

Styles 

  • Try to utilize character styles instead of paragraph styles as they are simpler to use when editing content in the template
  • Review both the character styles and paragraph styles and remove any styles that are not currently in use
  • Avoid using nested styles, as they may not convert properly and could cause problems when creating a template
  • Ensure that the names you give to your styles are meaningful and understandable for users working with the templates
  • Check previous documents or templates and adopt the same style names whenever feasible. This practice maintains consistency across templates and enhances the user experience

Layers and pages

  • Set up two layers in your document:
    • Background layer: This layer will hold all the elements that are not editable
    • Editable layer: This layer will contain adjustable or editable objects, including fixed images linked to other frames
  • Assign elements to the appropriate layers accordingly
  • Implement different page layouts on individual pages as desired. This can be done by customizing the arrangement, placement, and formatting of elements on each page to achieve distinct layouts while maintaining consistency throughout the document

Fonts

  • Include all the fonts used in the InDesign folder
  • Only include fonts in the package that are in either .otf or .ttf format, as these are the supported formats. Other formats may not work properly
  • It is essential to verify that the fonts used in your document have the appropriate (server) licenses. Kadanza is not responsible for the fonts used in the online editor

Files

  • Optimize image file sizes by reducing them to a minimum while maintaining a resolution of 300 dpi at the actual size
  • Use .jpg or .pdf file formats for images in your document
  • Ensure that every image used in the document is in CMYK color mode for proper printing
  • Give clear and understandable names to all links within the document
  • Include all linked files in the InDesign package to ensure that all necessary assets are available
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