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)

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)

(download)

Click here to download:

better-adobe-indesign-previews-with-sneakpeek-pro-wzrAdshIkoajFmaFHzct.zip (639 KB)

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:

SneakPeek lets you preview Adobe Illustrator and InDesign documents on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. There are some well written reviews online that highlight its features from sites like BestAppSite (reviewed by Terry White), and InDesignSecrets.com (reviewed by Steve Werner).

Many people use Dropbox* to access files on their mobile devices. But like nearly every other mobile application available today, Dropbox doesn't support previewing Adobe Illustrator and InDesign documents.

That's why designers need SneakPeek for iOS installed. SneakPeek lets you preview graphics files from Dropbox, Safari, Mail, and just about any app that accesses files on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Here's how to use SneakPeek with Dropbox… (Reference the images with the line items below.)

1. Launch Dropbox on your device and select the file you want to preview
2. Wait for Dropbox to download and process the file you selected
3. Dropbox will show "Unable to view file" for .ai or may display garbled text for .indd
4. Press the action button at the bottom right, then press the "SneakPeek" button
5. SneakPeek will launch and process the image displaying a preview as well as other useful metadata including fonts, images and swatches (see also figures 6–10).

(download)

Click here to download:

using-sneakpeek-with-dropbox-for-ios-ypgoFIGFvcarhdqdfymb.zip (914 KB)

SneakPeek previews Adobe Illustrator (.ai) documents with or without PDF compatibility. For information on high quality previews for InDesign, read our blog post about InDesign and SneakPeek Pro, the big brother of SneakPeek for Mac.

* Dropbox is a popular way to share files between your computer and mobile device. If you haven't checked it out before, you can sign up for a free, 2GB account here. Dropbox is not affiliated with Code Line.

With the much anticipated release of Adobe Creative Suite CS6 happening this year (confirmed first half of 2012), customers have been asking if they'll need to purchase upgrades for Art Files 2, SneakPeek Pro and SneakPeek. We're pleased to announce that we'll be offering free updates for CS6 support once it's released.

That means if you've been nervous about purchasing our software before CS6 comes out, you need not wait any longer. You'll be able to take advantage of our industry-standard software now for your current version of Adobe Creative Suite (currently through CS5.5) without having to upgrade again later this year.

Visit our website for more information.

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.

(download)

Click here to download:

Art_Files_2.mov (20.52 MB)

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 2, or any of our other products including Art Directors Toolkit 5, Color Expert and SneakPeek Pro, visit our website at code-line.com.

SneakPeek Pro and SneakPeek Photo are Quick Look plugins for the Mac.

SneakPeek Pro allows you to preview graphic design files from within any application that supports Quick Look. That means you can preview the contents of an Illustrator file someone just emailed you without ever having to leave Mail. And Pro goes beyond just displaying previews. It also lets you know what fonts, images and swatches were used in many file types. SneakPeek Pro supports Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Swatch Exchange, EPS and Freehand MX files.

SneakPeek Photo is the Quick Look plugin for digital photography. Photo's previews don't just show you previews of image files. It digs deep to display the digital photograph's metadata, histogram, camera settings and more. No longer do you have to open a JPG for PSD file in a photog app to find out what f-stop you used on a particular shot. Just pop open a Quick Look preview window and the information is presented neatly along with the photo.

Lion Compatible
Our SneakPeek line for Mac has been updated for Lion. That means both SneakPeek Pro and SneakPeek Photo are working just fine under Mac OS X 10.7. But unlike Snow Leopard, Lion introduced some changes to Quick Look. We, in turn, updated our SneakPeeks.

Grey is the New Black
First off, we updated our skins to match the new Lion Quick Look. I actually like the way this worked out. The original Quick Look’s black always seemed a little harsh to me. In either case, whether your preview windows are black or grey, SneakPeeks know which outfit to wear.

Quit Mousing Around
Lion’s Quick Look no longer responds to mouse moves and hovers. That means you’ll need to do some clicking and dragging to recreate some of the old functions, like view metadata in Photo and using the updated Loupe in Pro. But rapid clicks can lead to accidentally “opening” the preview document, so hold down “Command” (⌘) to avoid that.

Free Update
Version 1.6 of SneakPeek Pro and 1.1 of SneakPeek Photo are free updates for current users. These versions are recommended for Mac users with Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion.

For more information, to download a demo, or to purchase our SneakPeek line of Quick Look plugins, visit our website at code-line.com.

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