Getting Help

• Use Menu > Help > InDesign Help... (This will launch the default browser to Adobe's web page)
• Enter Search

• Then limit the search to "Support"

The InDesign UI

Looking at the Workspace

• Menu Bar
• Application Bar
• Tools Panel
• Control Panel
• Other Panels
• Document Window
• Pasteboard & Pages

The Document Window and Pasteboard

• The Document window contains the pages in your .indd doc on a gray "pasteboard"


Pasteboard and Artboard/Page

• Pasteboard comes from the traditional drawing board used by designers and artists. It's an area that contains both the camera-ready artwork (the doc pages) and the stuff that going on it. It only appears in Normal view.
• You can control the Pasteboard size under Preferences: Guides & Pasteboard: Pasteboard Options

The Pasteboard

• The area around the pages
• Useful for keeping pieces of the layout until you need them
• Emulates the way layout production used to be done before computers
• Pasteboard won’t print
• Use the View menu to see the various parts at various sizes:
• Menu > View > Fit Page to Window (see the current page at it's largest size that fits in the current doc window)
• Menu > View > Fit Spread to Window (see the flattened piece of paper that get's printed)
• Menu > View > Actual Size (misleading, but sets current view to 100%)
• Menu > View > Entire Pasteboard (shows the pasteboard the currently active page sits on)
• Or use the Zoom tool...
• Or use Command (Mac)/Control (Win) + and - keys
• Or use Command/Control 1 for 100%, Command/Control 2 for 200%

Using the Type Tool (T)

Click on existing type to edit

Click and drag on a blank area to add type

Unlike Photoshop and Illustrator, click-release doesn't create a line of type (Point vs. Paragraph text in Photoshop and Point vs. Area in illustrator)

Using the Line (\) and Hand tool (H)

Essentially the same as Illustrator and Photoshop

Line Tool

Hand Tool (Hold down the space bar for temporary access to the Hand tool except when in the Text tool)

Using the Rectangle Frame Tool and the Ellipse Frame Tool

So far, the tools we've selected can be gotten directly by a click in the tools panel or by using a quick-key or modifier key like Space for the Hand tool. But some tools are nested underneath each other in the Tool panel, like the Frame tools.

Click on the tiny gtriangle in the lower right corner of the tool icon to see the tools nested beneath the primary tool

And let's not forget resize!

Drag from the sides or bottom

Using Panel Menus

Most panels have a little popup menu in the upper left:

There is ton of stuff buried under these menus.
Way more than any other Adobe product.

Using the Hand Tool

Either with the Hand Tool itself

Or by holding down the spacebar (except when editing text)

New Feature: With the Hand Tool selected, click and hold and the doc will zoom out and show a red rectangle indicating the area the hand tool is focusing on. Release it and that area will expand to fill the document window. Nice new gesture!

Preflighting as you work

Preflighting is a way to check a document's preparedness for print. Originates from WWII Pilot's checklist concept for preparing to fly a plane.

• Choose Menu > Window > Output > Preflight

• Expand the error and click on the little "(1)" to go to the page with the error

• Expand the text frame to get the cut off text

Adding Text

Typing and Styling Text

• Zoom into the first page text
• Select the Type Tool (T) and click after the word "Cafe"

• Delete the word "Cafe" and replace with Bistro
• Tripple-click to select the entire line of text

• Set to Bold in the Control Panel

Options for styling and placing text

InDesign has tons of options for styling text, pretty much controlled within these bounds:

• Character Formats: Font, Style, Leading/Line Spacing, Letter Spacing, Caps
• Paragraph Formats: Alignment, Inset Spacing, Indent Spacing, Space Before & After Paragraph, Hyphenation
• Text Frame Options: Columns, Inset Spacing, Vertical Justification, Background Color, Border Width & Color

Importing and flowing text

"Place" is the method for importing all content into InDesign. You can all sorts of media, including directly importing MS Word .docx files. Here, we'll place some text into one of the text frames on the left side of the page.

• Deselect all
• Menu > File > Place – choose “Edibles.docx”.


This loads the cursor with the text from the .docx file. You can see a preview of the text in the cursor as you hover over the text frame

• Click in the text frame


There’s more text than will fit. Note the little red + sign in the lower right. We need to connect the adjacent text frame to this one so the text will flow into it.

• With the selection tool, click on the text frame with the text (to select it) then click on the  +   sign (the “out port”)


This fills the cursor with the overflow text.



But it's still too big for the two connected frames. Next we'll reformat the text to make if fit.

A Word about Microsoft Word

Many writers like to include two returns between paragraphs and two spaces between sentences. You should remove these in Word before you import your Word file. You can do a search in word for  ^p^p   and replace it with   ^pp  , and a search for    .     and replace it with    .  

Applying Paragraph Styles

Paragraph Styles include formatting information about alignment/justification, indentation, spacing between paragraphs, init caps, shading and borders. Most of the stuff on the left side of the control panel when the text tool is active:

To set the style of a paragraph

• With the Type Tool (T), click one of the text frames to select it

• Menu > Edit > Select All or Command/Control-A

• Open the Paragraph Styles panel (Menu > Windows > Styles > Paragraph Styles)

• And click on the style "Body Copy"

• Tripple click in the first paragraph "Starters & Small Plates"

• Set it to Subhead paragraph style

• Select the "Entrées & Desserts" paragraph

• And set it to Subhead paragraph style too

Note: This ain't how the pros do it

Anyone in there right mind would create two separate text boxes and place the text separately in each or insert a break character between them. Linking them creates too much room for error. This is a common problem with our text-book, they do things to demo features and not demo how it's done in the real world.

Applying Character Styles

Character Styles include formatting information about font size, kerning, tracking, width, weight, italics, underlined, super/sub script, skew, color. Most of the stuff on the right side of the control panel when the text tool is active:

Formatting text for the character style

• Select the words "rose martini"

• Set the character format to "italic"

• Set the fill color to "Red-Bright"

• The result

Creating amd applying a character style

• Select the words "rose martini" again, open the Character Styles panel and Option/Alt click the Add Style button in the lower right

• Notice that it's taken the style settings "[None] + Italic + color: Red-Bright"

• Name the style Red Italic and save it

• Select the appropriate bits of text and style them

Moving and Rotating and Object

• Select the flowers off to the left of the page with the Selection tool (V)

• Drag them to the left of the headline "edible"

• Rotate it with the Control Panel angle adjustment -10°

• Use the Control Panel to set the x and y locations to X: 1.84 in and Y: .05in

Changing and object's stroke and fill

• Use the Direct Selection tool (A) to select the white flower

• Open the Swatches panel under Menu > Windows > Color

• Making sure the Fill tab is in front in the panel, fill the white flower with Green-Dark

• Then with the Selection tool (V), choose the black rule at the bottom of the page...

• And set the stroke color to Green-Medium

Working with Object Styles

As with paragraph and character styles, you can create and apply object styles

• Open the Object Style panel (Menu > Windows > Styles > Object Styles) and select the text frame with "Starters & Small Plates" subhead

• Click the "Green Stroke and Drop Shadow" object style

• Do the same to the next frame

And this is why you shouldn't do like the book says and have two linked text frames...