Beginner’s Guide to Adobe InDesign

By Richard D. Coleman

You can start designing colorful Magazines and Books using Adobe InDesign within an Hour of Reading this Guide.

The InDesign software has been the primary tool designers use to create publishable documents for a long time. If you are thinking of starting a career in Indesign, it is probably much easier than you might have imagined it. Once you know the functions of the various controls, you can create any publishable document you can think of. In this book, you'll not only learn the functions of the various tools in Indesign but how to apply them to create appealing and readable documents that work across all platforms.

A Snippet of what you will be learning in this book include:

How to install Adobe indesign software on Windows Operating System and MacOS

Introducing the Workspace on the inDesign

How to customize the workspaces onm inDesign

Create keyboard shortcuts for your workspaces on inDesign

Navigating through a document on inDesign

Useful keyboard commands on Adobe inDesign

Using context menus on Adobe inDesign

How to create Guides on multiple pages on Adobe inDesign

Adding text on Adobe inDesign

Working with graphics on Adobe inDesign

How to fit your images or objects into frames on Adobe inDesign

How to place your image over texts on Adobe inDesign

Preflighting as you work on Adobe inDesign

Viewing the document in presentation mode on Adobe inDesign

Working with master pages on Adobe inDesign

Changing the size of pages within one InDesign document          

Numbering Page sections in an Indesign document

Overriding master page items and placing text and graphics

Printing to the edge of the paper: Using the bleed guides

Viewing the completed pages or spreads      

Working with objects Adobe inDesign

How to add metadata captions to graphics on  Adobe inDesign

Wrapping text around a graphic on Adobe inDesign

How to create a flowing type along a path on Adobe inDesign

Drawing lines and modifying arrowheads on Adobe inDesign

Working with color on Adobe inDesign

Flowing text on Adobe inDesign

Checking spelling on Adobe inDesign

Creating a drop cap on Adobe inDesign

Working with styles on Adobe inDesign

Working with tables on Adobe inDesign

Importing and Modifying Graphics on Adobe inDesign

Working with Transparency on Adobe inDesign

Creating a background graphics on Adobe inDesign

Printing and Exporting on Adobe inDesign

Packaging files on Adobe inDesign

Creating a Fixed-Layout Web on Adobe inDesign

Adding animation on Adobe inDesign

Adding multimedia and interactive elements

Exporting a fixed-layout EPUB file        

InDesign Publish Online   

and Lots more

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard D. Coleman
• Release date: Feb 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215819029

Book preview

Beginner’s Guide to

Adobe

InDesign

A Quick Reference Guide to InDesign for Desktop and Online Publishing

Richard D. Coleman

Copyright

Copyright©2023 Richard D. Coleman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

© 2023 by Richard D. Coleman

Table of Contents

Copyright

Chapter One

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Windows

MacOS

Installing the Software

Introducing the Workspace

The right side (Panels)

Menu Bar

Working with panels

Customizing the workspaces

Create keyboard shortcuts for your workspaces

Navigating through a document

Using the pages panel to jump to pages

Using keyboard commands

Using the layers menu for simple navigations

Using the view menu for simple navigations

The hand tool

Using context menus

Using the menu bar

Modifying interface Preferences

Exploring on your own

Chapter Two

Getting to Know Indesign

Viewing guides

How to hide or show guides

Moving Guides

Deleting guides

How to create Guides on multiple pages

Adding text

Using text wrap

Working with styles

Working with graphics

How to fit your images or objects into frames

How to place your image over texts

Working with objects

Working with object styles

Preflighting as you work

Viewing the document in presentation mode

Exploring on your own

Chapter Three

Setting up a document and working with pages

Creating a new document and saving its preset

Creating a new document from a preset

Working with master pages

Applying master pages to document pages

Adding new document pages

Rearranging and deleting document pages

Changing the size of pages within one InDesign document

Numbering Page sections in an Indesign document

Overriding master page items and placing text and graphics

Printing to the edge of the paper: Using the bleed guides

Viewing the completed pages or spreads

Chapter Four

Working with objects

Introducing layers

Working with layers

Creating and modifying text frames

Creating and modifying graphics frames

How to add metadata captions to graphics

Wrapping text around a graphic

Transforming the shape of frames

Transforming and aligning objects

Selecting and modifying grouped objects

How to create a flowing type along a path

Drawing lines and modifying arrowheads

Exploring on your own

Chapter Five

Working with color

Managing color

Creating colors

Creating colors from the swatches panel

Creating colors from colors in imported images

Saving colors in CC library for future use

Applying colors

Applying colors using the color pallete

Working with tint swatches

Working with gradient

Working with color groups

Chapter Six

Flowing text

Getting started

Flowing text into an existing frame

Creating text frame while flowing text

Creating threaded frames automatically

Flowing text automatically

Using Find/change Option

How to delete multiple paragraphs and extra spaces using Find/change

Adjusting columns

Adding a jump line page number

Chapter Seven

Editing text

Entering and importing text

Finding and changing text and formatting

Checking spelling

How to check spelling automatically

Using the story Editor

Tracking changes

Chapter Eight

Working with Typography

Adjusting vertical spacing

Working with fonts and glyphs

Working with columns

Changing paragraph alignment

Creating a drop cap

How to adjust letter and word spacing

Word spacing

Adjusting line breaks

Setting tabs

Working with paragraph shading and rules

Paragraph shading

Paragraph Rules

Chapter Nine

Working with styles

Creating and applying paragraph styles

Creating and applying character styles

Nesting character styles into paragraph styles

Creating and applying object styles

Creating and applying table and cell styles

Globally updating styles

Loading styles from another document

Chapter Ten

Creating table

Working with tables

Converting text to a table

How to adjust rows and column

Formatting a table

Adding graphics to table cells

Creating a header row

Chapter Eleven

Importing and Modifying Graphics

Comparing vector and bitmap graphics

Managing links to imported files

Updating modified links

Adjusting display quality

Working with backgrounds

Using subject-aware text wrap

Filling text with a graphic

Using an Indesign library to manage objects

Chapter Twelve

Working with Transparency

Creating a background graphics

Applying transparency settings

Applying transparency settings to text

Working with effects

Chapter Thirteen

Printing and Exporting

Preflighting files

Previewing separations

Previewing the pages

Creating an Adobe PDF Proof

Packaging files

Chapter Fourteen

Creating Adobe PDF Files with form fields

How to create an Interactive PDF form

Chapter Fifteen

Creating a Fixed-Layout Web

Creating a new document for fixed-layout export

EPUB: Fixed-layout versus reflowable

Adding animation

Adding multimedia and interactive elements

Exporting a fixed-layout EPUB file

InDesign Publish Online

About the Author

Chapter One

Getting Started

Adobe Indesign is a very popular page and layout design software that book creators often encounter in the process of creating a book. It comes with a wide variety of tools to allow designers and publishers to create beautiful designs. If you need to design and print documents such as cards and book covers, Adobe Indesign has all the features you need to do just that. With Indesign, you can now create interactive documents such as PDFs that contain well-sized pictures and formatted texts. Indesign also allows you to easily upload different types of documents and work with them.

With Indesign;

●  You can import images into your documents, move and crop them to fit your design.

●  You can add shadows to your pictures or make them glow.

●  You can also change the background of your text to bring in more complexity and style to your document.

●  You can easily work with file formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, EPS, PSD, Ai and other image formats as well.

The Adobe Indesign can be quite complicated for users completely new to its workings. In this book, we’ll break down the different parts of the software to help you understand where to go to carry out your designs.

Prerequisites

To run Adobe Indesign, your PC must meet the following requirements;

Windows

●  Operating System: Windows 11 (64-bit)

●  Processor: 64-bit supported Multicore Intel processor or 64 processor AMD Athlon

●  RAM: 4GB or more

●  Required Storage: 3.6GB and more of free hard-disk space for installation. Cannot install on removable flash storage device. SSD also recommended.

●  Required Monitor resolution: 1024 x 768 (1920 x 1080 recommended) HiDPI display support.

●  Support Video adapter: Video card – 32 – bit video card.

●  Internet: Internet connection needed for activation, access to online services and validation of subscriptions.

MacOS

●  Processor: Multicore Intel processor or Apple silicon/M1. SSE 4.2 or higher SIMD engine

●  Operating system: macOS version 11 (Big Sur), macOS version 10.15 (Catalina), and macOS version 10.14 (Mojave)

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