I’m not a graphic designer, but in the process of putting together game prototypes, I like to play with the tools of graphic designers and pretend I have more talent than I actually do. In the spirit of giving back, I’d like to share a couple tricks I’ve come across that might be useful to you, the game designer in the same position.
Turning Spreadsheets into Cards
When I discovered the “data merge” function in InDesign, it turned my card-prototyping upside down. With the power of this digital wizardry, you can dump the card data from a spreadsheet into an InDesign template, and the program will create all your cards for you.
I had to figure it out on my own, using help files and outdated tutorials, in a snow storm, while walking uphill, but you — You can learn these arcane secrets with a handy video tutorial from Daniel Solis (who actually IS a talented graphic designer, and a super-nice guy to boot).
Turning Pages into Sheets
If you use the technique described above, you CAN end up with nine cards per letter-sized page, in three rows of three cards, perfect for cutting out and sleeving for all your prototyping needs. However, depending on the project, you may have only one card per page, and each page the size of a card. This is great for sending to an actual printer… but how do you get them nine-up for your own printing and cutting?
First export the cards to PDF. (It’s under the File menu on InDesign.) Then open that PDF in Adobe Acrobat (not Reader).
If you want to print those cards nine-up right now, print the document, but under “Page Sizes and Handling” select “Multiple” and tell it to print 3 pages by 3 pages per sheet.
If you want to save the cards in this nine-up format, do the same thing, but select “Adobe PDF” as your printer. This creates a new PDF you can give to someone else to print. (Yes, you’re using Acrobat to “print to” PDF. Add your own Inception sound effects to taste.)
Like I said, I’m not a graphic designer. But if you find these tips helpful, please pass them along to the game prototyper in your life. If you have your own prototyping tips, please share them here, and we’ll all be a bit wiser.
