When a client is faced with the decision to select a Digital Asset Management system or Content Management System I often see a battle play out in the decision making process between user experience (user interface) and system functionality.

Usually in the early stages of system evaluation a product is measured by functionality against a set of requirements. Products that look good on paper are then evaluated in Web-based or in-person demos.

On a couple of recent Digital Asset Management consulting projects a few clients asked me how they would distinguish different uses of the same image in a DAM system.

How do I relate my Camera RAW image asset to my Hi-res RGB JPG? How do I relate my main image to another image that is of the same subject but at a slightly different angle?

First off let me say that FileMaker is a great database system that has proven to be extremely flexible and easy to manage.

Countless times we have started a project with a client to determine content strategies, data warehousing strategies, and digital asset management strategies and they all have one thing in common. The client will usually mention an implementation of FileMaker that they are looking to replace. "We need a way to migrate from FileMaker." "We have multiple FileMaker systems that we need to either eliminate or integrate with."

Ask any print designer what pre-flighting is and that person will most likely describe a quality assurance process that they follow to prepare their spreads and layouts for printing. Before going to press, designers must be sure that they have included all the necessary document fonts, and that all graphics have been properly resized and are the correct resolution and color space.

I'm using the image below to show two things. First, we see how awesome it is that InCopy CS4 finally shows tables in Galley view and second, we see how I am able to view both the galley and layout view of this single document at the same time.

Being one of the full-time Macintosh users in our office, I find that sometimes my co-workers can get a little annoyed with all the useless files my Macintosh spews out into network folders. Wherever I go on the network Instantly a .DS_store file is created, and if I copy any files up to the network a companion resource fork file is also created with the same name just with a ._ in front of it.

One of the features of InCopy that I find is a huge hit with editorial teams in my training classes is the ability to create a shared dictionary. While the shared dictionary feature can often be overlooked, it is quite easy to setup and will save lots of headaches once implemented. With a shared dictionary one individual can add custom words, terms, proper names, technical jargon, website URLs etc. along with preferred hyphenations to a custom dictionary file that is shared by the entire team.