SneakPeek for iOS allows you to preview Adobe Illustrator (.ai) and InDesign (.indd) documents on your iPhone and iPad. It relies heavily on Apple’s “Open In…” button that’s supported on many iOS apps. When an app such as Mail, Safari, etc., accesses and Illustrator or InDesign document, tapping the “Open In…” button allows SneakPeek to take over, previewing your graphics files.

One of the more popular ways to access these graphics files on your iPhone and iPad is by using Dropbox. It’s a popular way for designers to transfer their artwork between their computer and their mobile device(s). But recently, Dropbox for iOS changed the way it gives access to Illustrator (.ai) files. It no longer offers the “Open In…” button after it fails to preview Illustrator documents. This is something Dropbox changed and we’re working hard to get it resolved.

But there’s good news. We recently released version 1.2 of SneakPeek with built-in Dropbox support. Now you can access all of your Dropox files from within SneakPeek. Just press the [+] button in the top right corner of SneakPeek and the “Add File” screen will appear. From there, access your Dropbox folders to select the graphics file you’d like previewed.

West Hills, California - Code Line announces a free update to its popular “Collect for Output” application, Art Files 2 for Mac. Art Files is a major timesaver for graphic designers that automates the collection of linked images and fonts contained in Adobe Illustrator documents. The new update adds support for Adobe Illustrator CS6 released earlier this month.

“Many designers are familiar with the ‘Package…’ feature in Adobe InDesign. Art Files offers that functionality for Adobe Illustrator documents,” says Matheau Dakoske, Code Line’s Founder. “We’re excited about Adobe’s CS6 launch and made support for CS6 a priority for all of our products.”

Features

• Simple Drag & Drop interface
• Collects multiple documents at the same time
• Packages up Illustrator documents for sending out to colleagues and printers
• Great for archiving artwork to make sure you have everything you need to reopen in the future
• Supports Adobe Illustrator documents from Illustrator 8 through CS6

Art Files 2 is available as a free, 15-launch demo and is available for purchase online. A single-user license is just $49.95 and upgrades are priced at $24.95. Current Art Files 2.x users can download the update for free. For more information visit Code Line’s website.

Go to InDesign’s Preferences
(InDesign > Preferences > File Handling… ⌘K)

Note: In addition to setting the preview size, you can also set the number of pages that are previewed in Adobe InDesign CS5 (or later). Keep in mind the number of previews also affect file size.

You can select between Small, Medium (Default), Large and Extra Large. We found that going from a Medium preview for our single-page, 8-1/2” x 11” sample to Large only added about 59KB and from Large to Extra Large another 427KB. Your results may vary, but you may want to start off by storing the Large preview depending on your needs.

Here are a few samples to show what we found:

1. 1,024 Pixel Preview - Extra Large
2.    512 Pixel Preview - Large
3.    256 Pixel Preview - Medium (Default setting in InDesign)

On a standard US Letter document, Medium previews began to Greek text below 24 point. On both the Large and Extra Large previews, text was still legible at 12 point. Further testing showed the Large preview would Greek text at 10 point and the Extra Large preview didn’t start ‘til 4 point text. That said, the Large preview should suffice for most.

That’s all there is to it. This, of course, won’t affect your previously saved documents. But moving forward, this should give you a better experience working with InDesign.

If you’d like to download the demo files we used for this test, you can download a .zip file here. But make sure you have a copy of SneakPeek Pro installed, so you can preview the items in Quick Look.

Oh… Just one more thing. In case you’ve forgotten what Quick Look looks like without SneakPeek Pro, here it is:

Art Files 2 has powerful features that make collecting fonts and images for packaging and archiving your Adobe Illustrator documents faster and easier than ever. If you work with Adobe Illustrator and haven’t had a chance to check it out, click here to download a free demo.

Watch 3:30 Video about Art Files 2

If you’re already an Art Files user, and haven’t yet upgraded to version 2, take a look at what you’re missing:

1. Compatible with Adobe Illustrator CS5 and CS5.1 (part of Creative Suite 5.5)
   Version 2 collects documents from Illustrator 8 all the way through 15.1.
2. Quick Look Integration
   Cover Flow and Quick Look previews make it even easier to visualize your artwork.
3. Spotlight Enabled
   Broken links are no longer a problem. Just click “Locate” and watch Art Files find missing images for you, automatically.

It’s easy to demo Art Files 2 and purchase a license. Demos are fully functional and licenses are sent via email immediately upon purchase. Just follow these steps:

1. Download Art Files 2 and drag it into your Applications folder
   If you’re already using Art Files 1, don’t worry about replacing your current version. You can always download it again from here.
2. Run the demo and check out its new features
   It’s a fully featured demo until it expires, so you can see it in action on your artwork. Check out the video in this post to see how it can help you collect your digital artwork.
3. Select “License…” from the “Art Files” menu
   From there you can purchase a license from our online store. If you have an Art Files 1 license installed on your machine, it’ll provide you with a one-click upgrade button that enters the previous serial number for you on our online store. Licenses are sent via email immediately upon purchase.

For more information about Art Files, or any of our other products including Art Directors Toolkit and SneakPeek Pro, visit our website at code-line.com.

Looking for our previous blog site? You can find it here:

http://codelinesoftware.blogspot.com