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FOREWORD
In my years as a design and creative director for large publishing
companies such as Taunton Press, Time Warner, and others, the
responsibility for delivering top-notch design work in an efficient
manner has been my main objective. I’ve learned to appreciate the
value of great designers that can not only execute outstanding
creative solutions but also maximize production efficiencies in the
tools that they use. Mastering the use of current and applicable
software is mandatory for every designer. For graphic designers,
especially in publishing, the proper use of InDesign templates is a key
element to their success and their ability to confidently hand off the
components of an intended design so that it is easily understood,
accurate, and repeatable.
I am grateful that I’ve had the benefit of working with Margot Knorr
Mancini and Monica Murphy over the years as they applied their
expertise to help my design teams comprehensively build solid skills,
understand best practices, and achieve a higher level of design and
production success.
This book, Mastering InDesign Templates, takes the proven methods
the authors have taught to many publishing design teams across the
country, as well as the insiders’ secrets they’ve learned along the way,
and captures the steps to become an expert in building and using
InDesign templates. From the fundamentals of creating a document to
the intricacies of working with object and type styles, this book is an
extremely helpful and useful guide. Whether new to InDesign or in
need of a refresher course to hone skills, Mastering InDesign
Templates offers something valuable to all designers.
–Susan Edelman, Creative Director, Black Sheep Design
INTRODUCTION
Why write a book about creating InDesign templates, you ask?
While most designers have learned to competently use the tools and
commands in InDesign to create their work, achieving the art of
InDesign “templatry” can bring a whole new level of optimization to
InDesign documents and to the people who need to work with them.
Understanding how InDesign works internally, and how it physically
creates documents based upon the range of functions and options
available, is a level of focus many designers don’t normally have to
tune into. However, top-notch designers and production artists
consider an in-depth understanding of InDesign templates to be a best
practice and a key component of a competitive arsenal of skills that
sets them apart from the rest and allows them to excel as designers
and demand top dollar for their services.
Over the years, Technology for Publishing has worked with many
design teams at small and large companies, ranging from boutique
creative firms to large publishers, to help designers and the
organizations they work for build their template skills and approaches.
As a result of these many years of refining InDesign production best
practices, our template-building methods have become the go-to
approach in the publishing industry. We’ve worked with most of the
top publishers in the country to help them build sound, scalable
template practices. We’ve also used the same methods with
marketing agencies, catalog retailers, newspapers, and book
publishers. You can view some examples of this work in our case
studies and testimonials at www.tech4pub.com. And while you’re
there, check out our lineup of template services.
Templates are not just the basis for creating a designed document,
they are the foundation for effective workflows, lean processes, and
multiplatform content creation.
Many designers may think of InDesign merely as a tool they can use
to “get stuff on a page,” but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in
understanding the power of what InDesign can do, and what it is fully
intended to do. InDesign has broad potential, and you can tap into that
potential by utilizing templates to create fluid content workflows. We
hope to show you the way.

WHO SHOULD USE THIS BOOK

Based on our years of experience in training hundreds of designers at
many high-end publishers, we would argue that any and every
InDesign user who is responsible for document creation and
production can benefit from the power of using InDesign templates.
If you are a designer who wants to optimize your efforts in creating
documents — and get away from tedious, repetitive production tasks
so you can devote all of your energy to “designing” — you should read
this book.
If you are responsible for managing the templates that a content
creation team needs to use, this book will be your bible — and your
team will thank you for the effort.
If you are a production manager — or anyone who’s interested in
streamlining and optimizing the way an editorial and design team
works — the chapters that follow will guide you.
If you are a designer who wants to achieve the platinum level of
InDesign expertise — one who wants to be able to market that
expertise for top dollar and gain industry recognition — this book will
get you there.
While InDesign users and their roles vary, for consistency’s sake we
will generally use the term “designer” as shorthand for “InDesign user”
throughout this book.

WHY USE A TEMPLATE?

Let’s first talk conceptually about why templates are important and
what they can do.
What are the major benefits of using effective InDesign templates?
Among other things, they can help you do the following:
 Avoid manually intensive, repetitive design and production work.
Improve design productivity and accuracy.
Reduce errors and maintain design consistency.
Reduce learning curves for working with designed documents.
Make even complex designs easy to render and repeat.
Avoid costly production errors.
Create content once but use it across multiple platforms or
outputs.
Break away from the “Save As” mentality in reusing and stripping
down old files — a mindset that leads to inconsistent, bloated,
error-prone, and corrupt InDesign files.

WHAT IS A TEMPLATE?
If we are going to get more specific about it, an InDesign template is a
“source” InDesign file from which InDesign documents can be created.
It captures standard settings and reusable elements that save time in
production and optimize design.
An InDesign template will do the following:

Define standard document defaults and preferences, output

intents, and color settings.
Define page parameters like size, margins, columns, gutters, grid
structures, and other page options.
Define standard defaults for all objects that can be placed on a
page, such as frames, lines, and images.
Define and organize standard typographic style settings at the
paragraph and character level, including complex nested styles,
and mapping to XML tags for cross-platform output.
Define and organize standard color swatches and ensure that
they’re ready for the appropriate output channel.
 Manage file size efficiency — using defaults pared down to only
the necessities.

If you are looking for more of the fundamentals in how to use InDesign
for production purposes, consider our detailed handbook, Using
Adobe InDesign CC, available at www.tech4pub.com.

GETTING STARTED
Our approach to helping you as a designer or production artist
understand the value and methodology of using InDesign templates is
based upon a hierarchical learning method for using InDesign.
If you think about InDesign as a number of layered features that are
used to create a document, with each getting more granular and
specific about settings for the document, you’ll see that this
hierarchical approach makes sense and can provide a breadth of
controls over the production process. It’s a macro (big picture) to
micro (specifically focused) building block approach.
We will take you through descriptions of these building blocks and
discuss how each one can help optimize your template approach.
CHAPTER 1: PREFERENCES –
THE FOUNDATION
Discussing and establishing appropriate preference settings is one of
the first and most important steps when planning to build out a
template for a workgroup. Preferences can be set at the application
level to apply to all documents created and worked on, and
preferences can also be set at the document level to specify unique
settings and “override” the defaults set at the application level.

APPLICATION PREFERENCES
Application Preferences represent the broadest group of settings for
working in InDesign. Defined at the application level, InDesign’s
Application Preferences provide the basis for the working environment
that your templates and documents will live in. Fine-tuning the
preferences for the overall InDesign application is the first step in
laying the groundwork for working in InDesign effectively, and for
streamlining your templates and work processes. And while we
encourage it in environments that use templates, setting Application
Preferences also provides benefits to anyone working in InDesign,
because it preserves the defaults that work best for the way you like to
work.
In a collaborative group environment, Application Preferences provide
consistency across workstations, ensuring that documents are
prepared in a standardized way, and that users’ InDesign work habits
remain aligned. While it is impossible to control every aspect of how
each user prefers to work, having an agreed-upon base set of
preferences for InDesign document construction within a workgroup
makes the process much more manageable.
When you define Application Preferences, make sure that no
documents are open. That way, you are creating the standard settings
that will be the basis for all new documents that you or members of
your team create, because the settings are not saved in a specific
document.
SETTING APPLICATION PREFERENCES
To define Application Preferences, start your InDesign application,
and then, with no documents open, select Preferences. On a Mac, this
is under the InDesign menu, on a PC, it’s under the Edit menu. A list
of sub-menus will display for each of the application preference
categories.
We’ll describe each option for each preference category, and how it
can help support templates and an InDesign production process.

General
When there’s no category that fits, well, then we end up with “General”
as the catch-all for those miscellaneous preferences that need a
home. The following section covers those general preferences.

Show “Start” Workspace When No Documents Are Open

The “Start” Workspace is much like a splash screen when you first
start InDesign. It is a visual dialog that gives you easy access to
recent files, Creative Cloud Libraries, saved document presets,
learning resources, and an Adobe Stock search field.
When this option is enabled in Preferences, this workspace will open
at startup and will also display when there are no documents open.
We explain more about workspaces in Chapter 3. Workspaces are
definitely a feature you will want to use to lock in standard panels and
arrangements that best suit your work methods. They can help keep
the tools used consistently by a work team, as the standard “interface”
across workstations.
Use Legacy “New Document” Dialog
Recent updates to InDesign have changed the “New Document”
dialog to a newer look and feel. This option allows you to continue to
use the dialog from previous versions if that’s your preference.
Note: If you and your team are accustomed to the older look and feel,
this option may help you maintain your current level of productivity, but
at some point it will make sense for you to migrate to the newer dialog
in case additional features are introduced there. Also, because we are
focusing on creating documents from templates, it is unlikely that a
new document created from scratch using the methods we describe in
this book would be affected by this setting.

PAGE NUMBERING
You can use the page numbering settings to optimize the way a
publication is paginated — specifically how pages are numbered or
how a document is broken into sections. The choices you make will
depend on a number of factors, including the length of your document,
but choosing page number settings at the application level will make
the process of creating pages, and the document as a whole, go more
quickly. You can choose one of these two approaches:
Absolute Numbering
With the absolute option, pages will be numbered according to where
they fall in the document. Basically, each page number will align with
the actual position the page occupies in the document. For example,
the third page in a document will be numbered as Page 3.
Section Numbering
The section numbering option lets you break the document into
sections and manually assign numbers to the pages in those sections.
For each section, you will be able to define the starting page number.
You will even be able to choose varying numbering systems (1, 2, 3 or
i, ii, iii, for example) or add prefixes to the page numbers. For
example, you could assign the number 53 to the first page of a
section, and have the page numbers in that section run 53, 54, 55 etc.
Or you could have the page numbers for the section created for the
introduction begin with the prefix A- so that the pages of the
introduction are numbered A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on.

FONT DOWNLOADING AND EMBEDDING

InDesign allows for a certain amount of characters in fonts to be
embedded in an output file to optimize it for further use. The font
downloading and embedding settings control the number of characters
(or glyphs) that can be downloaded from a font file into an output file
from the Print or Export dialogs.
Of course, the number of characters you choose will affect the size of
the resulting output file, and you should take that into consideration if
you modify this setting. In the majority of cases, the default setting of
2,000 is sufficient, but file size and other factors, such as the fonts
available for the file and the best approach to managing special
characters, will come into play as you review your options for template
or overall application settings.

OBJECT EDITING
Setting Object Editing preferences can be a particularly useful way to
save steps while working across any type of document, whether
generated from a template or not.
Prevent Selection of Locked Objects
When an object is locked in an InDesign document, you can’t move it,
but you can still select it and change its attributes, such as color.
However, if you enable the Prevent Selection of Locked Objects
option, you will ensure that users cannot select a locked object on a
page at all. If this setting is enabled, users who want to move or
modify an object, will first have to unlock it by clicking on the frame’s
lock icon, or by using the Object>Unlock object menu command.
This setting can be an obstacle or a benefit, depending upon your
workflow. If your approach is to lock things when they are complete so
that they can’t be further modified, it makes sense to enable this
option. If your workflow is more interactive and fluid, this setting is
likely not a good fit. If you decide not to enable the Prevent Selection
of Locked Objects option, there are other ways to prevent users from
selecting objects, including one that involves the use of Layers.

WHEN SCALING
Setting the specific application defaults for how scaling of items will be
handled when you’re working in a document can save time and steps.
It would be worthwhile to take the time to think about your options
from an individual or group working perspective so that everyone
agrees on common practices for what will work best for all of the
documents your team will create.
Your options are either to Apply to Content or Adjust Scaling
Percentage:
Apply to Content
Enabling the Apply to Content setting defines what scaling will apply to
content within a selection being scaled. For a text frame, the point size
of text will be scaled. For image frames, the percentage of placed
images will be scaled, but the frame will retain a scale of 100%.
Selecting the content within a frame will then display the scaled size
for the text or image.
Include Stroke Weight
If you choose Apply to Content and then this option, an object’s stroke
weight will also be adjusted as the object is scaled.
Include Effects
If you enable this option within the Apply to Content section, any
applied effects such as drop shadows, glows, or feathers will also
scale with the object. An example would be the size parameters for a
drop shadow.
Adjust Scaling Percentage
With this option enabled, InDesign shows the resized object as 100%
when it is selected with the Selection tool, but it shows the actual
scaled percentage when the object’s content is selected with the
Direct Selection tool. This is the default behavior within InDesign. Note
that if the object has a stroke applied, InDesign shows the new scale
regardless of which tool is used to select it.

WHEN PLACING OR PASTING CONTENT

If you want to develop effective InDesign practices, it’s essential to
understand how to streamline the process of importing content or
picking up content from other documents. And deciding how you want
to handle these processes is an important factor to consider when
creating templates and setting up your team’s content workflows.
Allow Incoming Spot Color to Replace Existing Swatch of Same
Name
If you select this option, spot colors in content that you place or paste
into your InDesign document will replace existing spot colors in your
Swatches panel. Enabling this feature will ensure that colors will be
updated from a single source across documents. This comes in handy
if the color specifications for a group of documents changes, because
it makes it easy to reconcile the specifications from one document. To
take full advantage of this feature, consider using consistent and
generic color names in your templates.
Content Aware Fit
This option sets the behavior for content aware fit. Select Make
Content Aware Fit the Default Frame Fitting Option to make this the
standard behavior.

Interface
APPEARANCE
Recent versions of InDesign include new appearance options that
allow you to modify the look and feel of the user interface to suit
specific needs.
Color Theme
The Color Theme option allows you to choose how light or dark you
want the InDesign interface to be. Your choices include Dark, Medium
Dark, Medium Light, and Light, and you make your selection by
clicking the shaded box that represents your desired theme. Color
Theme is a setting that is common across Adobe applications, such as
Illustrator, enabling you to create a consistent look and feel across all
of the applications you use, if you like.
Match Pasteboard to Theme Color
Select the Match Pasteboard to Theme Color checkbox if you want
the pasteboard Color Theme to match the Color Theme you selected.
If you deselect this option, the pasteboard will appear white.

CURSOR AND GESTURE OPTIONS

Tuning the options for cursor and gesture behavior can take miles off
of your mouse travels (and ease the pressure on your wrist) and
provide greater levels of control and precision for layout creation.
Here are some suggestions to consider for each of the Cursor and
Gesture Options:
Tool Tips
You can use the Tool Tips option to set the speed at which tool tips
appear (tool tips display when hovering the cursor over a particular
tool or option, providing a short description of the tool). Your choices
are Normal, None, or Fast. The default, as with many things in
InDesign, is Normal. Experienced users may opt to forgo Tool Tips
altogether in the interest of performance and speed. If that’s what
you’d like to do, select None.
Show Thumbnails on Place
If you enable this option, your cursor will display a small preview of the
content — an image or text, etc. — that’s about to be placed when
you’re using the Place feature. The advantages of the Show
Thumbnails on Place capability include the fact that it lets you see
what’s about to be placed, so you’ll know it’s the right content or not.
For that reason alone, it can save you a good deal of time.
Disadvantages include the fact that generating the preview may add a
split second to your workflow.
Show Transformation Values
If you enable this setting, values will display in a small frame for an
object when it is created, resized, or rotated. This can be immensely
useful when you’re creating intricate layouts with many objects that
need specific sizing and placement.
Enable Multi-Touch Gestures
This option enables you to interact with InDesign using multi-touch
mouse gestures. For example, with a Magic Mouse in Mac OS, you
can use the swipe gesture to scroll up or down or move to the
previous or next page or spread, and you can use the rotate gesture
to rotate the spread. This can improve productivity and add a bit of
finesse to your layout creation process.
Highlight Object Under Selection Tool
When you enable this option, the frame edges of an object will be
highlighted when you move the Direct Selection tool (but not the
Selection tool) over that object. This is a simple feature that provides
you with additional information when you’re working with objects. It is
especially helpful if you have multiple overlapping objects on a page.

PANELS
The way you manage all of the various panels available in InDesign
plays a big role in determining whether your work habits are effective
or not. An organized and disciplined approach to personal panel
management will enable you to perform at a high level and will allow
you to spend more time focused on design rather than mechanics. For
workgroups, defining common methods of panel management can
help to create a unified work practice.
Here’s a look at the panel options, with notes regarding the settings
we recommend.
Floating Tools Panel
The Floating Tools Panel lets you choose to display the toolbar as a
single column, a double column, or single row. If you change the width
of the toolbar column or convert it into a row, you can put the toolbar
in a spot that works best for you in relation to the document windows
and panels on your screen. We find that a single column placed along
the left edge of the screen uses the least amount of real estate and
provides the greatest ease with respect to mouse movement.
Auto-Collapse Icon Panels
As an InDesign user, you know that managing the many panels
available is essential for working efficiently. Panel widths can be
resized to show their name or just their icon. When the Auto-Collapse
option is enabled, panels expand to full width when selected, and
collapse automatically when the cursor is clicked outside of the panel.
By minimizing the panels when not in use to just an icon’s width, this
feature helps to optimize screen real estate when you’re building
documents. As you become more proficient in InDesign, you will find
that it becomes easier to recognize panels just by their icons.
You should also remember that if you hover your cursor over a panel
icon, a Tool Tip identifying the panel will appear.
Auto-Show Hidden Panels
The Auto-Show Hidden Panels option takes the previous setting a
step further, hiding InDesign panels when not in use, but allowing
them to be displayed when you hover your cursor near the edge of the
screen. Again, this is an option that helps you optimize screen space
for your document and design tasks.
Open Documents as Tabs
In InDesign, you can choose to manage your documents as floating
windows or as tabbed windows — like the standard way windows
appear in web browsers. The Open Documents as Tabs setting lets
you choose which option you prefer. When this option is enabled,
documents appear as tabbed windows; when it’s disabled, each
document will appear as its own floating window. Your preference for
this setting may vary depending upon the number of document
windows you typically have open while you’re working and how often
you move document windows around.
Enable Floating Document Window Docking
When this setting is enabled, InDesign will automatically dock
overlapping floating document windows with each other as tabbed
windows. This makes it easier to access document windows and
switch between documents, because the windows stay organized and
the tabs are all visible.
If this setting is not enabled, floating windows can only be docked with
other windows by holding the CTL key while dragging one window
onto another. You may choose to disable this option, and thereby
prevent document windows from automatically docking when they
overlap, if you prefer a more freeform style of working and tend to
open several documents at once and move them around to see
specific areas of the layouts.
Note: This option requires the application frame to be enabled as well.
Large Tabs
Large Tabs are an enhancement introduced in recent versions of
InDesign. Deselect this option to turn off the larger tabs and show the
smaller version. The difference between the new larger tabs and the
smaller tabs is subtle, but you may find that the larger tabs are helpful
in situations where visibility is problematic. Your decision about
whether to enable Large Tabs will depend on a number of factors,
including the size of your screen and how you use the rest of the
screen real estate (not to mention the state of your eyesight).

OPTIONS
Hand Tool
This slider controls the rate at which the screen will refresh when
you’re using the Hand tool. The farther left you set the slider, the less
detail the screen will show while you scroll with the Hand tool,
increasing your workstation’s performance. The farther you move the
slider to the right — and the closer you get to the Higher Quality/No
Greeking setting — the slower your performance will be.
Live Screen Drawing
This setting offers a number of options to define how an image
redraws as you drag an object onto a page. The options can be tuned
to align with the work you need to do. Whether you are producing a
large number of pages or are engaged in minutely detailed design
work on just a page or two, the Live Screen Drawing settings you
choose can help you be more productive.
The drop-down menu for Live Screen Drawing includes three options:
Never, Immediate, and Delayed.
Never
If you select Never, only the frame moves when you drag an image,
and then the image reappears when you release the mouse button.
Immediate
If you select Immediate, the image redraws while you drag.
Delayed
If you select Delayed, the image redraws only if you pause before
dragging.
Greek Vector Graphics on Drag
This option enables greeking of vector graphics while an image is
being dragged to enhance performance. (Greeking simply means that
the image is grayed out and not completely rendered.)
UI Scaling (PC Only)
For those on PC with High Resolution displays, this option enables
automatic scaling of the UI.

Type

TYPE OPTIONS
Type Options are important because they can help you streamline the
design process and reduce the number of times you have to click
when working with type. Consider each of the following carefully to
determine what combination will work best for your template.

Use Typographer’s Quotes

When you enable the Typographer’s Quotes option, InDesign will
recognize open and close quotation marks and will apply the
appropriate “curly quote” characters. That’s a big time-saver, because
it means you don’t have to manually replace standard quotes with
special characters manually.
Type Tool Converts Frames to Text Frames
This option provides a shortcut that lets you get to work with type
within a frame quickly. When the Type Tool Converts Frames to Text
Frames option is enabled, double-clicking on a frame will
automatically turn the frame into a text frame, activate the Type Tool,
and insert a text cursor within the frame, saving you a lot of clicks —
and a lot of mousing around!
Automatically Use Correct Optical Size
This option sets the correct value for the optical size of multiple master
fonts, which is an older font format that allowed variability in weight,
width, and optical size.
Triple Click to Select a Line
This option allows you to define the behavior of a triple click in order to
best support your content selection and editing needs.
If Triple Click to Select a Line is enabled, three clicks will select a line,
four clicks will select the paragraph, and five clicks will select the
story. The benefit of this option is that it introduces the ability to select
a line of text, which otherwise is not available. This allows you to make
finer levels of edits more quickly, so it’s a worthwhile setting to
consider for template-based work where consistent behavior matters.
If this option is disabled, three clicks select a paragraph, four select a
story, and two select a word.
Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs
Depending upon the type of design and formatting work you do, you
may want leading to be applied by individual line or by paragraph. If
you enable the Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs option, any
leading changes you make will immediately apply to entire
paragraphs, rather than individual lines. This improves workflow
efficiency by allowing content formatting changes to be applied more
quickly (and consistently).
Adjust Spacing Automatically When Cutting and Pasting Words
InDesign provides a myriad of options for how to set spacing between
items and learning how to use all of them for the right purpose is key
to using your tools effectively. To enable InDesign to autocorrect a
common problem that occurs while working with text—turn this feature
on to ensure that two spaces are not added when pasting text from
one position to another — it will automatically clean up those double
spaces.
Enable In–Menu Font Previews
See a preview of all the fonts within the font list applied to selected
text or the word “Sample” when no text is selected.
Number of Recent Fonts to Display
In many cases, design projects you work on will use just a limited
number of fonts. Or, if you’re like most designers, you may have a
short list of favorites that you like to use. In either case, you may only
want to see a limited number of options when you check the list of
recently used fonts. The Number of Recent Fonts to Display option
lets you choose how many fonts will appear in that list — making it
easier to access just the ones you want or need.
Enable Japanese Font Menu in Find More
Enabling this option will include Japanese fonts when executing a find
more.
Sort Recent Fonts List Alphabetically
Taking the display recent fonts option a step further, this option lets
you display the list in alphabetical order.
Preview Font on Hover
This feature offers the ability to hover your pointer over font styles in
the fonts list and see a live preview of the fonts “applied” to selected
text within your layouts. Font previews make it easier to select the
perfect font for your project.

DRAG AND DROP TEXT EDITING

If you don’t feel comfortable dragging and dropping text, we
encourage you to further explore this handy way to work. Being able
to drag selected text to a new location saves time and clicks.
Enable in Layout View
Click this option if you want to be able to drag and drop text while
you’re working in InDesign’s Layout View interface.
Enable in Story Editor
With this option enabled, you can also use Drag and Drop Text Editing
while you’re in the Story Editor view. The Story Editor is a mini window
where you can edit stories and other written content in a text-editor-
like environment, similar to InCopy’s.

SMART TEXT REFLOW

The design community was ecstatic when Adobe decided to extend
the text reflow options to include the capabilities designers really
need.
Here’s a look at the options you can take advantage of if you enable
Smart Text Reflow:
Add Pages To
This option gives you a drop-down menu that allows you to choose
whether new pages to accommodate text overflow should go at the
end of the story, the end of the section, or the end of the document.
Here’s a look at each option.
End of Story
You should select this option if you want to work with multiple text
flows or “stories” within a document, and you want InDesign to
recognize those individual flows. If the text of a given story doesn’t fit
in the space allotted, InDesign will add a new page and insert it at the
end of the story.
End of Section
With this option enabled, InDesign will recognize section breaks within
a document and insert new pages to flow text into at the end of the
story’s section.
End of Document
If you choose this option, InDesign will always just insert new pages
for text flow at the end of the document.
Note: You can take comfort in the fact that a warning dialog appears
when Smart Text Reflow is disabled and InDesign detects overset text
that doesn’t fit within the space allotted.
Here’s are just a few more Smart Text Reflow options that InDesign
offers:
Limit to Primary Text Frames
Primary Text Frames are text frames with special properties that can
be defined on a Master Page. They basically are aware that they are
to be the carriers of a main text thread that flows from page to page.
When you enable this feature, InDesign will apply Smart Text Reflow
to Primary Text Frames only.
Preserve Facing-Page Spreads
In some cases, you may have put a lot of design work into the way
objects are placed across spreads, and you won’t want text reflow to
disrupt that. The Preserve Facing Page Spreads option allows the
handedness of spreads to be preserved when flowing text. If an extra
page is needed, InDesign will always add a full two-page spread.
Empty pages will only be deleted as spreads, so both pages need to
be empty.
Delete Empty Pages
Wouldn’t it also be nice if InDesign could subtract pages when the text
flow ends up shorter than originally planned? Well, it can! When you
enable the Delete Empty Pages option, InDesign will delete empty
pages created when cuts and edits remove text from threaded text
frames.

Advanced Type
With the Advanced Type settings, we get a bit more technical with
respect to what we can do with preferences for fonts and how those
preferences can be applied. Consider how you want specific
characters to behave, and how you want text to represent your
intended design when it comes together on a page.

CHARACTER SETTINGS
The Character Setting options give you the flexibility to fine-tune fonts
by defining how superscripts, subscripts, and small caps are sized and
positioned. Each option has a field that can be adjusted, and sizing
and positioning values are set as percentages of the standard
character size. Keep in mind that in a template file, these can be
project-specific settings.
Size
This option allows you to set the size at which superscript, subscript
and small caps characters will render in your template. The values are
set as percentages of the standard character size, so if the standard
text size is 10-point type, and the subscript and superscript values are
set to 50%, the subscript and superscript text will appear in 5-point
type
Position
You can use this option to set the position of superscript and subscript
characters in relation to the baseline. The values are set as
percentages of the standard text height.

INPUT METHOD OPTIONS

Input methods define behaviors for how characters can be entered to
get specific results.
Use Inline Input for Non-Latin Text
This option makes it possible for you to enter non-Latin characters,
such as Asian characters, without using a foreign keyboard. Using
your computer’s input method editor, you can enter characters that are
not available on your keyboard. (If you have Mac OS system, check
your keyboard preferences and enable the other languages you want
to insert characters for, then enable the display in the menu bar to
access.)
Use Native Digits When Typing in Arabic Scripts
You can use this feature to determine whether digits will display in
Arabic text or not.

MISSING GLYPH PROTECTION

If you are not familiar with the term “glyph,” all you need to know is
that it’s another word for a special character or symbol.
Protect While Typing
When you enable this feature, InDesign will automatically check
characters as you type to verify that they are available in the selected
font. If a character is not available in the active font, InDesign will
attempt to change the font upon input, choosing a similar substitute
font based on the Unicode value being entered. For instance, if you
type a Japanese character when using the font Myriad Pro, InDesign
will switch the font to KozMinPro. The font at the insertion point will be
left unchanged, so if you type a Latin alphabet character after you type
the Japanese character, the Latin character will appear in Myriad Pro.
Protect When Applying Fonts
The functionality of this feature is similar to that of Protect While
Typing. But whereas Protect While Typing verifies that characters are
available in a particular font as text is being typed in, Protect When
Applying Fonts goes to work when you change the font applied to
existing text. When this capability is enabled, if you choose a new font
for text that is already in your document, InDesign will not change the
font of glyphs and other characters that would display as missing
characters in the new font. It will display an alert instead.

DEFAULT COMPOSER
The term “composer” comes from “composition,” which historically
was the term used to refer to the practice of manually setting type for
pages. It was called composition because it involved assembling type
according to a set of preferences for the way text would be displayed,
including specifications governing letter and word spacing and
hyphenation. You have two options for the default composer InDesign
will use with your text: paragraph composer and single-line composer.
You should base your choice on the desired visual result you’re trying
to achieve.
Adobe Paragraph Composer
When you choose this option, spacing and hyphenation calculations
are applied to the entire paragraph in order to create a more
consistent and pleasing look across the paragraph, with a minimum of
hyphens.
Adobe Single-line Composer
There are times, especially toward the end of the design and editing
process, when the text has been finalized but a late change is
necessary. If you want to avoid taking the chance of impacting the
composition of an entire paragraph with a single change, you can
choose to enable the Single-line Composer option, which is designed
to resolve a change just within the line where that change occurs.
Additional Composer options are:

World Ready Single Line

World Ready Paragraph
 Japanese Single Line
Japanese Paragraph

TYPE CONTEXTUAL CONTROLS

This option allows you to select what to show or hide in OpenType
contextual menus and what adornments to show or hide. Your choices
include:

Character alternates, fractions, ordinals, and ligatures.

Adornment on text selection or the text frame for more type
controls.

Composition
As we discussed above, composition is all about how type is
presented on a page. InDesign has a number of controls that can
influence the fit, behaviors, and esthetics of type. Determining which
controls you want to enable and disable as part of your standard
arsenal helps set the foundation for speedier work once you are on
the page.

HIGHLIGHT
Having a visual cue to indicate specific problems within your
document’s text helps you avoid making errors throughout the
production process and in the final output of your document, whether
you are printing it or exporting it.
If you enable the highlight option, InDesign will highlight various
typographic problems in a document as you are working. You can
decide which highlight options to turn on and which ones to disable
according to your production priorities. Some of these options may
feel like a nuisance, but learning to work with them at the appropriate
time in your production process can save time and costly (or
embarrassing) mistakes.
When planning a project that uses templates, consider whether you
want to have one or more of these highlights turned on for the
application as a whole or for the template, or whether you would prefer
to enable them manually at some point in the process. The one option
we recommend you almost always should have enabled is Substituted
Fonts, especially when you’re importing text from other sources.
Here’s a summary of the options:
Keep Violations
The Keep Options you define as part of a paragraph style allow you to
set the rules for keeping lines of text together at the start or end of a
paragraph, depending on where a paragraph appears within a column
or frame and on a page. For example, for paragraphs that fall at the
bottom of columns, you may want to keep a minimum of two lines of
text together before allowing the paragraph to break to the top of the
next column.
In some situations, however, it will be impossible to follow the rules. If
you enable the Keep Violations option, InDesign will allow text to flow
in violation of the rules you set in the Keep Options dialog (allowing
only the first line of a paragraph to appear at the bottom of a column,
for example), but it will highlight those violations so that you can
review and correct them.
H&J Violations
H&J means hyphenation and justification, and in InDesign,
hyphenation and justification are determined by an algorithm that
calculates spacing letters and words, location of line breaks, and use
of hyphenation according to rules such as limits on the number of
consecutive lines of text that can end with hyphens. These complex
calculations read the specification of the font in use and make
character-by-character determinations of how to position the words
and characters in each line. Very tricky stuff! The H&J Violations
highlight feature will flag any areas that violate the hyphenation or
justification settings. This comes in very handy if you are trying to
keep a close eye on the esthetics of your typography.
Custom Tracking/Kerning
It’s an open secret in publishing that editors (and designers)
sometimes cheat and manually adjust tracking or kerning to get text to
fit on a line. Sometimes it’s the only way to squeeze in a last-minute
edit. This feature exposes those acts of subterfuge by highlighting text
whose spacing has been manually adjusted. When it was first
introduced, designers were ecstatic, because it gave them a way to
easily recognize where their typographic preferences were being
flouted. Depending on your priorities, this may not sound like a serious
matter, but to some designers, these settings are serious business.
You should enable the Custom Tracking/Kerning highlight if you want
an easy way to find and review typesetting infractions.
Substituted Fonts
As a designer, you know that not all fonts are built the same. You also
know that different fonts can sometimes end up being used in
documents as files travel from user to user for editing and review.
InDesign’s Substituted Fonts highlight gives you an easy way to
identify any fonts used in a document that are not currently available
on your computer.
Substituted Glyphs
Because of the ease with which one font can be substituted for
another, and also due to the variations introduced with OpenType
fonts, it is not uncommon to switch from one font to a different font that
may not have the same character set as the original font. The
Substituted Glyphs highlight marks any instances where substitute
fonts have been used for individual characters.

TEXT WRAP
Text Wrap functionality defines how text will flow around objects and
images placed in a layout. There are several text wrap settings that
you can adjust to control where the text goes and what it will look like
after an image or object is placed either on top of or near text. To find
the standard text wrap behavior that would best support the template
you’re building, you should review your intended design parameters
and identify the defaults that best serve that design.
The following options are available to you when defining Text Wrap
Preferences:
Justify Text Next to an Object
If you enable this setting, when you place an object within text, the
right-hand line breaks of the text to the left of the object will justify
when the text wraps along the object’s left edge. It will do that even if
the paragraph style calls for ragged right edges. You may find that that
this option gives the spacing around the object a uniform look. This
setting will take effect only when an object that has text wrap enabled
is surrounded by text on all sides.
Skip by Leading
You can also define how text will wrap above and below an object. If
you enable the Skip by Leading option, those wraps will be based on
the text’s leading, so there will be at least one full line of space
between the text and the top and bottom of the object, even if the
object’s text wrap settings would allow less space. You may find that
it’s especially useful to select this option if you want to make sure that
the text continues to align if it is locked to the baseline grid.
Text Wrap Only Affects Text Beneath
We love this option, because it saves time and aggravation when you
need text to run across an image. Bring the image to the front of any
text that must wrap around the image box; that will activate the Text
Wrap settings, but they will apply only to the text behind (or beneath in
InDesign terms) the image. Text Wrap rules will not affect any text
placed in front of the image, such as a caption.

Units & Increments

We all have our favorite units of measure to identify where text boxes
and other objects are placed on a page, and you should always make
sure that your desired setting is the one used in your documents and
templates. If you use units of measure that you’re familiar with, you
will work more efficiently and with more accuracy.
Factors that will influence your decision about what units of measure
to use include how intricately you will be working with object
placements on a page and how precisely you will be fine-tuning your
designs. Your approach may vary from project to project, and from
template to template, so you may find that different settings are
appropriate for different templates. The Units & Increments
preferences control not only the measurement units you will use for
positioning items, but also the increments by which arrow keys
increase or decrease settings.

RULER UNITS
Ruler units allow you to define the default behaviors for the rulers
within InDesign. (Remember, you can always override ruler unit
settings while you’re working on a document, but having a standard
setting saves time.)
Origin
The Origin options define where the horizontal and vertical rulers start
— the zero, zero point of a page or spread. Your choices are Spread,
Page or Spine. Most designers prefer to have separate rules for each
page.
Spread
Enable this option if you want the horizontal ruler to start from the left
page of a spread and continue increasing incrementally across the
gutter and onto the right page. It is most common to start the ruler in
the upper left corner of the left page.
Page
Do you prefer to measure each page independently? Then use this
option to set the horizontal ruler to start from the top left of each page
in a spread.
Spine
Setting the Origin of the horizontal ruler at the spine, between the left
and right pages in a spread, will help you significantly if you work with
spreads whose left and right pages are mirrored. When the ruler
originates at the spine, its units increase incrementally to the left for
left pages, and to the right for right pages.
Horizontal and Vertical
These options set the units of measurement for each of the rulers,
horizontal and vertical. You can choose from Points, Picas, Inches,
Inches Decimal, Millimeters, Centimeters, Ciceros, Agates, Pixels or
Custom. If you choose Custom, the values can then be defined in the
field to the right in points.

OTHER UNITS
Stroke
The Stroke option defines the unit of measure InDesign will use for the
width of lines and frame edges. You can use this setting to choose
whether strokes are measured in points or millimeters.

POINT/PICA SIZE
This drop-down menu provides four options: the PostScript
measurement of 72 points per inch (ppi), the traditional typesetting
measurement (predating electronic publishing) of 72.27 ppi, 72.23 ppi,
or 72.3 ppi. PostScript is the default and is the preferred option.

KEYBOARD INCREMENTS
Keyboard Increments options allow you to fine-tune the way the
keyboard behaves when you use the arrow keys or keyboard
shortcuts to make adjustments.
Cursor Key
This option allows you to set the increments by which the arrow keys
move selected objects, using picas and points for value.
Size/Leading
With this option, you can adjust the increments by which type size and
leading change with keyboard shortcuts, using points for value.
Baseline Shift
You can use this to set the increments for baseline shift changes,
using points for value.
Kerning
This option enables you to set the increment for kerning changes,
using thousands of an em for value.

Grids
The Grids preferences dialog provides settings for defining the
baseline grid and document grid for the application or a specific
document.
BASELINE GRID
A Baseline Grid is a separately defined grid for a document. The width
of the grid is generally set at the increment of text leading, and you
can set text to align or “lock” to the grid. You can choose to hide or
display the grid lines as needed to help with the alignment of objects
and text. We think of this as the “sticky grid,” because, in addition to
having text align with the grid, you can also choose to set certain
objects to align to the Baseline Grid. It’s helpful way to easily ensure
that objects and text are neatly aligned.
Note that while the Baseline Grid can be set as a default in application
preferences, it is a preference that can be changed in each individual
document or template.
Take some time to review your options for defining a Baseline Grid.
Once you understand the choices you''ll find creative ways to make
these serve you well in templates you create:
Color
As the name implies, you can use the Color option to choose the color
the grid lines will be when they are visible on your screen. Light blue is
the default.
Start
The Start option lets you define how far from the top of the page (or
margin) the grid should begin.
Relative To
You can use the Relative To option to choose whether the grid starts
at the top of the page or at the top margin.
Increment Every
This is the option you use to set the amount of space between grid
lines. The value is typically set to match a document’s body text
leading.
View Threshold
The View Threshold option let you choose the view percentage at
which the baseline grid will be visible. The grid lines will be visible
when you are zoomed in at percentages above the cutoff point, but
they will disappear when you zoom out at smaller percentages. This is
helpful because, when you zoom way out to get an overall look at a
page, or pages, the grid lines would obscure all of the other objects on
the page if they were visible. However, when you are zoomed way in
and are working on placing and aligning objects precisely, it’s helpful
to have the grid lines visible as guides.

DOCUMENT GRID
The Document Grid is simply a background grid for the entire page
that can be used for placing and aligning objects. Think of it as graph
paper behind your page.
Here’s a look at the options that you can set for a Document Grid:
Color
As is the case with the Baseline Grid, the Color option is what you use
to define the color of the Document Grid. Light gray is the default.
Grid Line Every
You can use this option to define the increments at which grid lines
are placed on the document, both horizontally and vertically.
Subdivisions
This option allows you to specify the number of subdivision grid lines,
both horizontally and vertically. The subdivision lines are finer, so they
help define increments between the main grid lines.

Guides & Pasteboard

Guides are used to define the edge of a margin, column, page, bleed,
or slug. InDesign Preferences offer a number of options that you can
use to determine how these guides will be displayed and how they will
behave while you are working.
You can also define a color for the appearance of the pasteboard in
Preview mode. The Preview Background can match either the theme
color you chose in the Interface Preferences or a color that you can
pick from a drop-down list.
COLOR
The Color option allows you to define colors for Margin Guides,
Column Guides, Bleed Guides, Slug Guides, Preview Background,
and Smart Guides. If you use a different color for each, it will be easier
to tell them apart on the page.
Preview Background
As a designer, you will use the Preview feature often to get a quick
look at your work on a page without guides, object edges, or other
interface “artifacts,” so you can see how the page will really look on
output. The Preview Background dialog includes a checkbox that you
can click if you want to match the background to the Theme color you
chose in the Interface Preferences; if you prefer a different color, you
can pick one from a drop-down list.

GUIDE OPTIONS
The following outlines some of InDesign’s Guide options, which define
simple behaviors for page guides.
Snap to Zone
This option lets you define how close, in pixels, an object must be to a
guide before it will snap to that guide.
Guides in Back
With this option, you can choose to put guides in the background,
positioned behind the objects you place on a page, so they don’t
obscure the design elements. Your choice about whether to have
guides in front or in back is a personal one, based on how you prefer
to work, but you should standardize this option in the templates you
build to instill consistency in the way teams do their jobs.

SMART GUIDE OPTIONS

One of the easiest ways to position objects in an InDesign layout is to
use Smart Guides. By far the handiest layout tool added to InDesign in
recent years, Smart Guides give you the ability to automatically snap
and align a selected object to other items on your layout.
Enabled by default, Smart Guides are temporary guides that
dynamically appear when you create or select and drag or resize an
object to indicate its alignment with neighboring objects. Among other
things, Smart Guides will indicate whether the object is aligned with
the edge or center of another object, or how it appears in relation to
the page overall. This greatly reduces the need to draw ruler guides at
center points or to double-check the coordinates of aligned objects.
Smart Guides options are as follows:
Align to Object Center
With this option, you can use Smart Guides to automatically align a
frame to the center of an object.
Align to Object Edges
The Align Object to Edges feature lets you use Smart Guides to help
you automatically align a frame to the edges of an object.
Smart Dimensions
The Smart Dimensions feature shows the dimensions of objects as
you create, resize, or rotate them on the page. You can use Smart
Dimensions to help you, for example, resize an object so that it’s the
same size as the object next to it. As you work, Smart Dimensions will
display line segments with arrows at each end that you can use to
snap the object to the same width or height as the adjacent object.
Smart Dimensions can also help you ensure that objects are
positioned in the same way on a page. For example, if you rotate one
object in your layout 36 degrees and then start rotating another object,
a rotation icon will appear as you get the second object close to 36
degrees of rotation. This visual cue then allows you to snap the
second object to the same rotation angle as the first object.
Smart Spacing
If you enable the Smart Spacing feature, InDesign will help you evenly
space multiple elements on a page. Smart spacing lets you quickly
arrange page items with the help of temporary guides that indicate
when the spacing between objects is the same.

PASTEBOARD OPTIONS
In InDesign, the term “pasteboard” refers to the area beyond the edge
of your working document. The pasteboard options allow you to define
the overall size of the pasteboard
Horizontal Margins
Use the Horizontal Margins option to set the pasteboard’s left and
right margins. By doing so, you’re defining the amount of working
space available in the areas to the left and right of your documents.
Vertical Margins
The Vertical Margins option lets you set the height of the pasteboard
area above and below your documents.

Dictionary
The Dictionary settings are important because they allow you to define
the rules governing your template’s hyphenation and spelling
dictionaries. Establishing the Dictionary settings in a template is a
great way to ensure that spelling and hyphenation will be consistent in
everything you produce for a particular project; if you used a series of
independently created documents that weren’t based on a template,
you would run the risk of having different and conflicting Dictionary
settings in each document.
LANGUAGE
This value sets the default language to be used for spelling and
hyphenation in the document, as well as the language for any
dictionaries created in addition to the default. (You can add additional
dictionaries for custom words or hyphenation rules specific to your
organization.)

HYPHENATION AND SPELLING

InDesign’s Dictionary uses Proximity Technology’s hyphenation and
spelling dictionaries and thesaurus, as well as the open-source
Hunspell dictionaries for most languages. Hunspell is the default
option for hyphenation and spell-checking. The Thesaurus defaults to
Proximity, but you can change it to Hunspell. You can also opt to use
a user dictionary only and install alternative dictionaries from third-
party providers.
Note: Clicking the Hunspell Info button opens an Adobe Help window
for more information on adding or removing a Hunspell dictionary.
Double Quotes/Single Quotes
These pull-down options allow you to define what the default double
and single quote should be for your working documents.

HYPHENATION EXCEPTIONS
Compose Using
This option provides three selections for how hyphenation exceptions
can be used within a document. InDesign by default stores spelling
and hyphenation exceptions in a separate file on each user’s
workstation, meaning those exceptions are not accessible to other
users. It is possible to share an exceptions file with other users in a
central location, such as on a server, but only the user who created
the file will be able to modify it.
There are three choices for handling hyphenation exceptions:
Document
This option uses only the hyphenation exceptions stored with the
document.
User Dictionary
Choose this option to use hyphenation exceptions stored in the
hyphenation exceptions file on the user’s workstation or server, and
not those in the document.
User Dictionary and Document
With this option, InDesign will use both the hyphenation exceptions
stored with the document (if any) and the hyphenation exceptions file
on the user’s workstation or server.

USER DICTIONARY
Merge User Dictionary into Document
If a user has developed a local dictionary, that dictionary can be
merged into a working document so it will travel with the document
and will be available whenever and wherever the document is edited.
This is one of the great advantages of using a template! When you
enable this option, InDesign will preserve the spelling and hyphenation
preferences in the document when opened at the receiving user’s
workstation. It’s important to ensure that this preference is set
consistently on all users’ workstations if the document is intended to
carry the dictionary and be read when opened.
Recompose All Stories When Modified
This is a tricky option. It basically will update the document’s
hyphenation and spelling to reflect any changes made locally in a
user’s dictionary.

DUDEN DICTIONARY
The Duden dictionary can be enabled to get more accurate
hyphenation and spell checking for German. Once enabled, be sure to
select the specific German language from the Language menu. Show
Hyphenation Options is an additional option that can be enabled.

Spelling
The Spelling preferences dialog allows you to define what InDesign’s
spellchecker will flag and enable Dynamic Spelling.

FIND
The find dialog allows you to choose what the spellchecker will find
when it is run. Here’s a rundown of your options:
Misspelled Words
When this is enabled, the spell-check dialog will reveal misspelled
words that the spellchecker finds and offer suggested corrections, if
any are available in the dictionary.
Repeated Words
Enable this feature if you want the spellchecker to look for repeated
words and suggest corrections.
Uncapitalized Words
With this feature enabled, the spellchecker will flag any words that
would typically be capitalized under rules defined in the Dictionary.
Uncapitalized Sentences
If you enable this feature, the spellchecker will flag uncapitalized
words that seem to be at the beginning of sentences. You may find
that it turns up a lot of false positives, because what it does is find any
uncapitalized word that immediately follows a period character and a
space, even if the period is only used to shorten an abbreviated word
(such as Inc. or Corp. in company names) and is not being used to
signal the end of a sentence.

DYNAMIC SPELLING
If you enable the Dynamic Spelling capability, InDesign will flag
suspect words directly in the text, without the spellchecker being run.
It will underline any of the suspected errors that spellchecker has been
instructed to find. You can use the Dynamic Spelling dialog to choose
the color of the underline for each type of error — misspelled words,
repeated words, uncapitalized words, and uncapitalized sentences.
You can turn this feature on and off via the Edit>Dynamic Spelling
menu.

Autocorrect
We are all familiar with autocorrect from our use of mobile phones and
texting, but the feature originated in text editing in applications like
Word and InDesign. In InDesign, autocorrect works off of a predefined
list of words that are commonly misspelled (or mistyped). You can
manually add new words to the list if you like.
You can enable or disable Autocorrect as a standard preference.
Enable Autocorrect
Click this option to enable Autocorrect as a default. Autocorrect can be
turned on and off using the Edit>Spelling menu command while
working in documents.
Autocorrect Capitalization Errors
This added option will automatically correct any capitalization errors
that occur while you are typing.
Language
Use this option to select the language that Autocorrect should be
based on.
Misspelled Word
Click Add to enter a word that you commonly misspell or mistype, then
enter the correct word. Repeat for all of the words you need. Use Edit
or Remove to make changes to the list of words you added.

Notes
Notes allow you to insert “comments” into text to communicate with
other members of your team within a file. The Notes preferences
panel includes an option to set the color of the notes created on a
user’s workstation. If each member of your team uses a different color
note, you will be able to identify a note’s author based on the color.
The Notes preferences panel also lets you choose whether to include
the text of notes in spell-check and Find/Change operations.

OPTIONS
Note Color
As mentioned above, this option defines the color to be used for notes
created by the current user or on a particular workstation.
Show Note Tooltips
If you enable this feature, you will be able to see the content of a note
when you hover over it. We highly recommend enabling this feature if
you plan to use Notes regularly.

NOTES IN STORY EDITOR

The Story Editor is a special window in which you can edit text in an
interface that is similar to InCopy’s interface. The Notes dialog
includes these options for using Notes in the Story Editor:
Include Note Content When Checking Spelling
This option lets you decide whether you want to check the spelling of
text in Notes. Depending how you plan to use the Notes tool, this may
be essential, because notes in edited text often contain citations,
quotes, or photo credit information and the like. If you plan to use
notes to convey important information and have a lot of text that will
be edited, you should consider enabling this option.
Include Note Content in Find/Change Operations
The second option lets you decide whether to include the text of Notes
in Find/Change operations. Again, your decision will depend on how
you plan to use Notes and the structure of your content workflow. You
may want to do some testing with sample content to determine
whether this feature would be a help or a hindrance.
Inline Background Color
This option allows a background color to be defined for inline notes.

Track Changes
InDesign’s Track Changes tool will capture and retain the edits and
other changes you and members of your team make to the text in your
documents. The options in the Track Changes dialog allow users to
choose the colors and markings used to highlight changes.

SHOW
The Show dialog allows you to define the text color, the text
background color (highlight), and the markings used for text that users
have added, deleted, or moved. For your text and background colors,
you can choose any standard system color in the menu (you can also
choose None for background color). The options for markings are
None, Strikethrough, Underline, and Outline. Users can set the Track
Changes color and marking schemes individually on their own
workstations.
Added Text
Tracking Added Text makes it easy to see any text that users paste or
type in after the initial layout has been created. The default tracking
scheme for Added Text is to use no markings and just highlight the
additions with a specially colored background.
Deleted Text
Tracking Deleted Text allows you to see where text has been removed
from the document. The default tracking scheme for Deleted Text is to
draw a strikethrough mark through deleted words and highlight them
with a special background color.
Moved Text
Finally, the Moved Text tracking feature allows you to keep tabs on
any text that users moved via cutting and pasting or dragging and
dropping. The default tracking scheme is to put an outline around any
moved text and highlight it with a special background color.
Prevent Duplicate User Colors
At the bottom of the Show dialog, there is an option that allows you to
click a checkbox to prevent multiple users from choosing the same
Track Changes colors. Enabling this option will ensure that all users’
color and marking schemes are unique, making it easy to determine
who made what changes.

CHANGE BARS
Change Bars are colored vertical lines that appear in the margin of
text to indicate that a tracked change exists in the adjacent line.
Enabling this feature may be a good idea, because Change Bars can
draw your attention to small changes, such as added or deleted
punctuation marks, that might otherwise be difficult to detect if you
were just looking for colored text, highlights, or markings within the
text. You can use the Change Bars dialog to modify the color and
location of Change Bars.
Change Bar Color
You can choose any standard system color as your Change Bar color.
Location
You can choose to have Change Bars appear in either the left margin
or the right margin.

INCLUDE DELETED TEXT WHEN SPELLCHECKING

The final item in the Track Changes dialog allows you to choose
whether you want to run spell-check on deleted text. You may want to
enable this feature, because deleted text can end up being restored to
a document if a tracked change is rejected.

Story Editor Display

The settings specified in this preference define the appearance of the
Story Editor, a special text-editing window with an interface similar to
InCopy’s interface. You can access Story Editor by selecting
Edit>Edit in Story Editor.

Text Display Options

These settings define the appearance of text when working within the
Story Editor. Options are Font, Size, Line Spacing, Text Color,
Background, and Theme.
Enable Anti-Aliasing
This option can be enabled or disable to improve the appearance of
the editing font.
Cursor Options
These settings define the appearance of the text cursor within the
Story Editor. Options are Standard, Thick, Barbell, Block. Additionally,
the Blink checkbox will allow the cursor to be solid or blinking,
depending upon preference.

Display Performance
You can use the Display Performance preferences to control the
quality and speed at which images are displayed on users’ screens.
You can also define the defaults for the Fast, Typical, and High-
Quality view settings used at the document and object level. Display
Performance settings control only the on-screen appearances of
images and will not affect output settings. Your decisions about what
settings to choose will probably involve finding a happy medium that
enables documents to render quickly but also gives you enough detail
so that you can work quickly without too much zooming and scrolling.
It’s important to remember that these settings, can affect the speed of
many functions, including the opening and saving of documents and
screen redraws.
Note: If you are using a GPU Performance System with a compatible
GPU (graphics processing unit) card, your documents will render
using the GPU by default and your Display Performance preference
will be set to High Quality.

OPTIONS
Preserve Object-Level Display Settings
This feature overrides global view settings, replacing them with
settings applied to specific images. Images with no settings take on
the settings specified in this preference.
Adjust View Settings
This option provides a slider that you can use to adjust and define the
quality of Fast, Typical, and High Display Settings for raster images,
vector graphics, and transparencies.
Enable Anti-Aliasing
If you enable this feature, it will smooth the display of text.
Greek Type Below
You can set the point size at which text appears as gray lines rather
than actual characters when you’re viewing a page at certain view
percentages. Choosing a higher the point size results better system
performance.
Use Defaults
Selecting this button will restore all Display Performance options to the
application default settings.

GPU Performance

The graphics processing units (GPU) on video cards and in display

systems enable faster performance for many design, animation, and
video applications. A system with a compatible GPU card allows
InDesign to render a document using the GPU by default and sets the
Display Performance to High Quality. To support GPU Performance, a
Mac should have a minimum of 1024 MB of VRAM (2 GB
recommended) and support OpenGL Version 4.0 or higher.
Supported machines include the iMac 4K, iMac 5K, MacBook Pro
Retina, Mac Pro connected to a HiDPI monitor, and Mac Mini
connected to a HiDPI monitor
InDesign will sense whether the current computer has a GPU, and if
so, will display “Compatible GPU and Monitor detected.

ANIMATED ZOOM
If you have a workstation with that supports GPU Performance, you
can use special InDesign features like Animated Zoom, which makes
zoom actions smooth and animated. To use Animated Zoom, select
the zoom tool (Z), and press and hold down the mouse button (long
press) to zoom in to the center or press Option and hold down the
mouse button (long press) to zoom out. You can also press and drag
the pointer to the right to zoom in or to the left to zoom out, and press
the Shift key to switch to marquee zoom mode.

Appearance of Black
The Appearance of Black options give you control over the way black
colors appear on your screen and when they are printed. They also
allow you to choose black overprint settings.

Here’s a look at the available options:

On Screen
Your choices for the appearance of black on your screen are Display
All Blacks Accurately and Display All Blacks as Rich Blacks.
If you choose Display All Blacks Accurately, pure black (100K), and
rich black (black with CMYK mixed with it) will display just as they
 are defined in the document. This is helpful when you are importing
from other applications and when you want to be able to see the
visual differences in these values of black.
Display All Blacks as Rich Blacks shows all blacks, pure black
(100K), and rich black (black with CMYK mixed with it) as dark as
possible. This option does not change the color definition in the
document.
Printing/Exporting
Your choices for the appearance of black on documents that are
printed or exported are Output All Blacks Accurately and Output All
Blacks as Rich Blacks.
If you choose Output All Blacks Accurately, printed and exported
documents will feature pure black (100K) and rich black (black with
CMYK mixed with it) just as they are defined in the document.
If you choose Output All Blacks as Rich Blacks, pure black (100K)
and rich black (black with CMYK mixed with it) will appear as dark as
possible on printed and exported documents. We do not recommend
this option if you will be printing documents with small, black text,
because the text will look fuzzy.
Overprinting of Black at 100%
Enabling this option ensures that black always overprints in
Postscript and PDF output. If you leave this option unchecked, the
output calculations will, in some cases, try to knock out other colors
that black would overprint. It’s generally desirable for black to always
overprint.

File Handling
You need to understand, and effectively manage, the mechanics of
how InDesign documents work if you want to have effective
processes. Every designer should know where and how InDesign files
are stored, understand how links are managed, and be familiar with
other file management options.
InDesign’s File Handling options are as follows:

DOCUMENT RECOVERY DATA

InDesign’s ability to recover recent changes to a document in the
event of a crash or power outage is pretty impressive. Understanding
how to fully utilize that capability, and being able to trust it, comes with
experience, but it all starts with understanding the function.
The Document Recovery Data option allows you to specify the
location of the folder in which InDesign stores its recovery files. For a
workgroup, in most cases, that should be a standard location so
everyone will know to look in the same place for documents that need
to be recovered.
If InDesign shuts down and is restarted, it will first check the recovery
folder for files and then present the user with a dialog that includes
options for how to proceed with recovery (or not).

SAVING INDESIGN FILES

This dialog gives you a number of options for managing the overall
size of your InDesign documents and working with InDesign in
general. These are subtle options that can save time and improve
your work methods.
Number of Recent Items to Display
A very useful feature when working with multiple documents is the
Open Recent command under the File menu. This option allows you
to choose the number of items to display with the Open Recent
command. You should pick whatever number works best for you.
Some people like five to 10; we keep ours set at 20 because we work
with many documents at a time for various clients.
There are also some additional settings you can tune for Recent Items
Display:
Always Save Preview Images with Documents
Enabling this option will save a thumbnail view of the document and
allow you to specify the preview size and the number of pages in the
preview. Remember, bigger preview sizes and larger numbers of
pages will enlarge the size of your files and increase the amount of
time it takes to save them. The thumbnail will appear in the Start
Workspace Recent Files list (which appears when no documents are
open.
Pages
Your options are First Page, First 2 Pages, First 5 Pages, First 10
Pages, and All Pages.
Preview Size
Your options are Small (128x128), Medium (256x256), Large
(512x512), and Extra Large (1024x1024).

SNIPPET IMPORT
Snippets are an interesting but lesser known feature of InDesign. It
works like this: You select one or more objects on a page and drag
them outside of your document to your desktop. This creates a file that
is essentially a mini InDesign document that you can then drag into
InDesign documents to re-create the content. Very handy!
In Preferences, you have the following two options for the position at
which Snippets should appear:
Original Location
If you choose this option, a snippet will be placed on a document page
at its original coordinates.
Cursor Location
If you choose this option, a snippet will be placed at the cursor
location.

LINKS
When you place images in a document, by default they maintain links
to their original external files by storing the file path to the location of
that folder. InDesign places a downsampled preview image within the
file by reading the image information from the external, larger file.
InDesign also allows placed images to be edited and updated
externally, outside of the document itself, and notifies you when it
detects changes in an image. InDesign monitors links to images for
any updates to the files and updates the preview within the InDesign
document. This helps to limit the size of documents and improve
InDesign’s performance.
The following options allow you to set behaviors for links to suit your
workflow and file requirements. Depending upon the settings you
choose, these options can also apply to links to text files and
spreadsheets:
Check Links Before Opening Document
If this feature is enabled, InDesign will check image links before
opening a document. It will present a dialog advising you of any
updated or missing images.
Find Missing Links Before Opening Document
If you choose to enable this option, InDesign will let you know about
any linked images that are missing before opening a document.
Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files
If you utilize this feature, InDesign will create links to the external
locations of text documents and spreadsheets that you place in your
InDesign documents. When those files are linked to the InDesign
document, you can edit them in their external locations and then
update them in InDesign via the links, just as you would with images.
Preserve Image Dimensions When Relinking
Select this option if you want to maintain image size when relinking a
file.
Default Relink Folder
You have two choices for Default Relink Folder: the Most Recent
Relink Folder or the Original Relink Folder.
Hide New Layers When Updating or Relinking
You should enable this option if you want to prevent new layers added
in placed Adobe Illustrator files from appearing in InDesign when the
image is updated.
Note: Embedded images are another option for image handling in
InDesign. Embedded images are copied into the document at full
resolution, which results in a larger document.

Clipboard Handling
The Clipboard Handling preference gives you options for controlling
the way InDesign handles image and text formatting when you copy
things to the clipboard.

CLIPBOARD
Prefer PDF When Pasting
If you enable this option, InDesign will convert items copied from
Adobe Illustrator into PDF files so that transparency objects, blends,
and patterns are preserved when pasting into InDesign.
Copy PDF to Clipboard
Select this option if you want InDesign to create a temporary PDF file
when you copy items from InDesign documents with the intent of
pasting them into documents in other applications, such as Illustrator.
Preserve PDF Data at Quit
If you need to keep any pasted PDF information in the clipboard’s
memory after quitting InDesign, make sure this option is enabled. This
feature could prove useful if you plan to place a lot of similar content
repeatedly.

WHEN PASTING TEXT AND TABLES FROM OTHER

APPLICATIONS
Paste All Information
If you choose to enable this option, when you paste a file into an
InDesign document from another application, such as Microsoft Word,
that file will retain all of its original information, including markers,
swatches, and styles.
Paste Text Only
When you choose this option, items pasted into InDesign documents
from other applications will include only text characters; no formatting
will be retained. This allows you to then cleanly format the item in
InDesign. This option is the recommended default.

Publish Online
This preference gives you the option of disabling the Publish Online
feature. If you do that, the Publish Online button will be removed from
the Application bar, and the file menu items Publish Online and
Publish Online Dashboard will be deactivated.
DOCUMENT PREFERENCES
The Application Preferences we reviewed in the previous section
create the foundation for all of the work you do in InDesign. And you
will find that they play an important role when you start to build your
template documents. So once your Application Preferences are set to
your liking, the next step is to define further settings specifically for a
working document or template.
Setting Document Preferences simply means that you further adjust
the preferences you set at the application level by having a specific
document open and changing the settings, and in doing so, you
differentiate those preferences settings for that document only,
essentially overriding the application level preference.
Two important preferences we feel are integral to the success of any
good template are the Baseline Grid and Smart Text Reflow.
Defining preference settings at a template document level can further
streamline your project workflows, whether you use a template to
create multiple files or just a single working document. Predefined
Document Preferences stored within a document alleviate the need to
change settings for every new element you create and enable users to
focus on the design elements that really need their attention.

PREFERENCES WRAP-UP
So, as you work through the standards for your Application
Preferences, keep a list of where you may want to alter these when
setting up new documents. The Application Preferences should be set
to the most commonly used values that will support most of your
documents, and then adjusting preferences with a Document open,
allows specific differences to be set for just that document.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Review and set your preferences once you understand the
defaults you want for your template and your working
environment, and before finalizing the components within the
template.
Remember to set Application Preferences when no documents
are open in order to have them apply to all documents you
create and work with.
Determine where to differ Document Preferences which are
specific to a document, from your standard application
preferences.
CHAPTER 2: SETTING UP NEW
DOCUMENTS
At Technology for Publishing, whenever we train new InDesign users
or coach expert users in how to be “template divas,” we take them
through our layered InDesign methodology. This approach helps from
a learning perspective, but it also helps users build a solid
understanding of InDesign document construction that will serve them
well in future projects that involve both simple and complex
documents.
We say the method has “layers” because we recommend taking a
tiered approach to building documents (and, no, we’re not talking
about the InDesign Layer function).
It begins with the foundation, which consists of the Application and
Document Preferences we covered in the previous chapter. This gives
solid and efficient support to how the document will work and behave.
After the Preferences foundation, there is the document structure
itself: how it is created and tuned to sit beneath the pages that will live
in the file. The document structure includes visible and hidden
components. The visible components are the size, orientation,
margins, and expected page behaviors (single or facing, for example).
The hidden components are the document intent (whether it will
appear in print, on a website, or in a mobile platform) and how it
influences the internal structure of the file with regard to elements
such as the color space or measurement units you choose to use.
When creating a new document, if you don’t choose settings that are
right for the intended content and the work you need to do in the file,
you will likely end up wasting a good amount of time working around
obstacles once you are in the file trying to get things done. There are
some settings that you can adjust through the Document Setup menu,
but there are others that you can’t adjust.
Once we review the important components of healthy document
creation, we will work our way up through the “layers” of pages,
objects, and content in the next chapters.

CREATING NEW DOCUMENTS

There are a few ways to create new InDesign documents. As an
InDesign user, you will already be familiar with the basic steps you
take to create a new document, but we’ll review them just to fill in any
gaps.
The most common method in the latest versions of InDesign is to
choose the Create New option in the Start Workspace that opens
when InDesign first launches, or when no documents are open.
Alternately, you can use the File>New menu command or the
associated keyboard shortcut — CMD-N on a Mac or CTL-N on a
Windows PC.
If you chose the Application Preference Use Legacy “New
Document” dialog, you will see a dialog consistent with older
versions of InDesign. If you disabled that preference, you will see the
more modern version that was introduced with InDesign CC 2017.
Both have the same basic options for creating new documents. They
are just presented in visually different ways, with the newer version
being a bit more dynamic and providing access to additional options.
The New Document dialog has a number of tabs along the top that
display additional options.
Here’s a look at those tabs:

Recent Tab
If you select the Recent tab, a section named Your Recent Items will
appear below the tab. It will list the most recent document sizes that
you’ve used while creating new documents. Below that section, you
will find a search field that you can use to search for templates on
Adobe Stock — a very interesting new feature!
If you select any of the Recent Items listed, the right side of the dialog
will indicate the setup parameters used for that previous document.
You can use those settings for the new document you are creating or
adjust the settings before selecting the Create button.

Saved Tab
If you click on the Saved tab, at the top of the dialog you will see a list
of any blank documents that have been saved as Presets and you can
select any of them to create a new document. Below this are saved
Adobe Templates that are available for use.

Print Tab
The Print tab will display all default print page sizes that are standard
options in InDesign, as well as a gallery of free template samples.

Web Tab
The Web tab will display all default web page sizes that are standard
options in InDesign, as well as a gallery of free template samples.

Mobile Tab
The Mobile tab will display all default mobile device screen sizes that
are standard options in InDesign, as well as a gallery of free template
samples.

Preset Details
The right side of the New Document dialog lists a number of
parameters specific to the size and setup of the document. You can
go down that list item by item to define the following settings for your
new document. Use the Preview Checkbox at the bottom of the dialog
to see the impact of changes as you enter them.

UNITS
This is where you choose the unit of measure you want to use in your
document. Your options are points, picas, inches, millimeters,
centimeters, ciceros, agates, or pixels. You get extra points if you
know what all of those are!

WIDTH
This option is where you can define the width of the pages in your
document, using your chosen unit of measure.

HEIGHT
And here is where you define the height of the document’s pages —
again, using your chosen unit of measure.

ORIENTATION
Most are familiar with orientation as it relates to pages. You have two
options here: portrait or landscape.

PAGES
You can use this setting to choose the number of pages that your
document will initially have upon creation. The default is 1.

START #
Start # is where you choose the page number for the first page of the
document. The default is 1. Note: If you choose an even number and
have also selected Facing Pages, your document will begin with a
two-page spread.

FACING PAGES
By selecting facing pages, you are instructing your document to have
spreads of left and right pages. If you want single pages, deselect this
option.

PRIMARY TEXT FRAME

The Primary Text Frame option creates a default text frame on each
page that is automatically set up to link from page to page for
autoflow, unlike a manually created text frame. This option is useful for
long documents with continuous text that flows from page to page.
Click the checkbox to enable it.

COLUMNS
Columns define how your page will be broken up vertically and will set
the default column guidelines for each page. This value is also used
for defining how many columns the Primary Text Frame will have, if
enabled. The default number of columns is 1.

COLUMN GUTTER
If you do choose to have more than one column of text, use this
feature to define the default width of the gutter between columns.

MARGINS
Here you will find options for defining the width of a document’s
default margins in your chosen unit of measurement. Margins are the
area from the edge of the page to the guidelines that outline the “live”
area on a page and that your frames will align to. Click the expansion
triangle to reveal the available options, which are Top, Bottom, Left,
and Right if Facing Pages is not selected. If Facing Pages is selected,
Left and Right will change to Inside and Outside. Click on the chain
icon to make all settings the same; unclick it to allow different values
for each setting.

BLEED AND SLUG

The Bleed and Slug section in the right dialog allows you to specify
prepress settings for print documents. Click the expansion triangle to
expose the settings. You will see separate sections labeled Bleed and
Slug, and your options in each are Top, Bottom, Inside, and Outside.
You can set each one using your chosen unit of measurement. As is
the case with the Margins settings, click on the chain icon to make all
settings the same and unclick it to allow different values for each
setting.
If you are not familiar with the terms bleed and slug, here’s a short
explanation:
Bleed is used to extend the contents of a document past the trimmed
edge of a page. When page content is intended to run to the edge,
extra paper is needed at printing to make sure the ink extends beyond
the edge of the page and doesn’t show a white edge. The content is
printed past the edge of the page on larger paper, and then the larger
sheet of paper is trimmed to the size of the page after printing.
Slug is an additional area beyond the edge of the bleed that is used to
add marks or text for printing purposes. It can be text that provides
identification for the document or other information needed for printing
on a press, such a color bars or registration marks.

PRESET NAME
Once you have gone through the list of Preset Details and have
specified all of your preferences, you can ensure that it will be easy to
create new documents with those same features in the future by
saving all of the settings as part of a named Preset document. To
create a new Preset that will be available for reuse, enter a name in
the box at the top of the list where the word “Untitled” appears and
then click on the icon to the right to save the preset.

SAVING A DOCUMENT AS A TEMPLATE

Building a document with all of your preferred settings is the first step
in creating a template.
In future chapters, we will review the additional options that will help
you fully flesh out a solid template. They include settings such as Type
Styles, Object Styles, and Swatches, to name a few. Once you define
all of those items, you can save the document as a template by using
the File>Save As command and choosing InDesign Template from
the Format drop-down list in the Save As dialog.
Adobe also offers a number of stock InDesign templates that you
could use in lieu of creating your own custom template. You can
search for those by clicking the Go button next to Find templates on
Adobe Stock at the bottom of the New Document dialog. The stock
templates create documents with predefined type and object styles
and swatches styles. You can also download the Adobe Stock
templates and customize them and save them as new templates as
described above.

DOCUMENT SETUP DIALOG

After creating your new document, there may be settings you defined
that you wish to change. To do this, select the File>Document Setup
menu item. Note that if you choose the Preview checkbox, any
changes that you make to the settings will be immediately visible in
the document even though the Document Setup dialog is still open for
editing.
You can change the following settings via Document Setup:

Intent (This will change the units of measurement for the type of
output selected—print, web, or mobile.)
Facing Pages
Primary Text Frame
Number of Pages
Start Page #
Page Width and Height
Orientation
Bleed and Slug sizes

Adjust Layout Settings

The button for Adjust Layout Settings is situated on the bottom right of
this dialog. Click on this to define the options you want applied when
making changes.
BOOK FILES
What Is A Book File?
A book file can take your template workflow to the next level of
efficiency, especially if you are dealing with multiple documents that
work together, like those that are part of a book, a magazine or a
catalog. Book files are very effective when using InDesign documents
created using a well-built template.
A book file gives you the ability to easily change page numbering
across multiple documents, as well as change and update styles,
swatches, and master pages globally in all documents that are part of
the book file. Think of a book file as an intelligent table of contents that
connects all of your InDesign documents and keeps them in order and
in sync with your most recent desired settings.
To create a book file, select File>New>Book. We recommend naming
book files using a convention that ensures that users will easily
recognize them as book files and won’t confuse them with actual
working InDesign documents. Clicking OK will create the book file,
which will have an .indb file extension. The file will be displayed via
the Book Panel when it is open. Closing the Book Panel closes the
book file. To reopen the book file, you must choose File>Open and
select the file.
A book file is separate from the documents you add to it. Use the
Book Panel menu to add InDesign documents that you want the book
file to manage. You will find a number of commands listed in that
menu, including commands that enable you to Add, Replace or
Remove documents. Using the menu, you can save a book file under
a new name or close it (clicking the standard X icon will also close the
panel and the file).

The Book Panel

You can use the book file to gain easy access to all of the InDesign
documents you have added to it. They will be listed in the panel, and
you can select and open them directly with a double-click.

You can control everything that happens with your book file via the
Book panel. You will see a list of the InDesign documents that are part
of your book file there, and when you open a document it will have an
icon next to it to indicate its current status. From the panel, you can
reorder the documents in the book file, save and print the book file,
add and delete documents, and synchronize documents.
You will find many management tools in the Book panel menu. The
numbering, printing, and synchronization options are the most
important for creating and using book files, but there are many others.
Here’s a rundown of all of the commands in the Book panel menu,
with brief explanations of how they will help you manage settings
across all of the documents in the book file.
BOOK PANEL MENU
Preflight Book
You can use the preflight feature to check the InDesign files for errors,
such as overset text or missing fonts, images, and linked text files.
You can define additional preflight profiles to check for things like
specific color modes, image resolutions, and style overrides.
Package Book (Selected Documents) for Print
As its name implies, this feature packages all of the elements of the
documents in a book that you need to send to the printer. It creates a
new folder and then automatically collects all of the images and fonts
used in the documents, along with print-ready PDFs of individual
pages and spreads, or a PDF of the entire book, and puts them in the
folder.
Note: When packaging an entire book, make sure no documents are
selected.
Export Book (Selected Documents) to PDF
You can use the Export Book functionality to create PDFs of individual
pages and spreads or a PDF of the entire book. Just select the files
you want to export as PDFs in the Book panel beforehand. If
necessary, you can also use the Export to PDF feature to create
custom PDFs based on a profile that meets your printer’s preferred
specifications.
Note: When exporting an entire book, make sure no documents are
selected.
Export Book to EPUB
If you are creating an ebook, use this command to export the book to
the reflowable or fixed layout EPUB format.
Print Book (Selected Documents)
The Print command in the Book panel menu simplifies the process of
printing out your InDesign documents. You can choose specific
documents to print or export, or select no documents and print the
entire book.
Document Information
This feature displays all of the details you may need to know about a
particular document: its name, status, modification date, size, page
range, and location. It also gives you an option to Replace the
selected document with another document, and it has navigation
buttons that allow you to check the document information for the
Previous document or the Next document.
Reveal in Finder
You can use this command to open a Finder window that shows you
where the selected document is stored.
Synchronize Book
This is one of the most powerful features of a book file. It gives you
the ability to update design and structural elements of all of the
documents in the book by matching them with those of a document
you designate as the style source. The synchronize dialog allows you
to select items that you want to be copied from the style source to the
selected book documents. The selected items will replace those with
the same name in the other documents; if items with the same name
are not found in the other documents, the selected items will be added
to those documents.
Synchronize Options
This dialog gives you a list of options and allows you to choose the
ones that you want to be updated when you synchronize the book.
The choices include table, cell, object, TOC, character, and paragraph
styles and swatches. Other options include conditional text, numbered
lists, cross-reference formats, text variables, master pages, and trap
presets. You can synchronize the book from this dialog as well.
Update all Cross References
If you are using cross references and change the order of documents
in the book file, you can use this command to update the cross
references. This is important, because the cross-reference links will
break if you change the order of the documents.
Update Numbering
If you change the order of the documents in the book, use this feature
to update the page numbering.
Book Page Numbering Options
This feature lets you decide how pages are numbered from one
document to the next. You can choose to continue the numbering from
the previous document or resume the numbering on the next odd
page or the next even page. It also gives you the option of inserting a
blank page when skipping to the next even or odd page.
Document Numbering Options
This dialog allows you to determine how pages and chapters are
numbered in a selected document. Page numbering options include
the number to start with, section prefix, style, and marker. Chapter
numbering options include style, automatic page numbering, and
starting chapter number; you can also choose to use the same
chapter number from the previous document.
Automatic Document Conversion
If you choose this setting, the system will update documents in the
book that were created in earlier versions of InDesign and overwrite
the originals during the conversion process. Deselect this option if you
want to keep the original files along with the converted documents.
Merge Identically Named Layers on Export
Use this command to remove layers with the same name in your
documents. With this option selected, the system will delete any
duplicates and merge the content without deleting any layout objects.
Small Panel Rows
This option decreases the size of the text in the documents list,
allowing more information to fit in the panel.
Shortcut Buttons

At the bottom of the Book panel, you will find the following handy
shortcut buttons:
Synchronize Styles and Swatches With Style Source
 Save the Book
Print the Book
Add Documents
Remove Documents

Best Practices For Defining a Style Source and

Synchronizing
Using a book file to manage multiple documents is key to making the
most effective use of InDesign, because book files give you the ability
to define a style source and synchronize documents. And a well-built
template can play a major role in ensuring that the processes of
defining a style source and synchronizing documents go as smoothly
as possible.
When you synchronize documents in a book, the specified styles,
swatches, and masters from the style source will replace those with
the same name in the other documents in your other book file. You
just have to make changes once, in your style source document, and
then synchronize. And if you have a well-built template, the
synchronization process will run especially smoothly because many of
the elements in the style source will have been predefined in the
template.

DEFINING THE STYLE SOURCE

Defining the style source is a fairly simple process: Just designate one
document in the book file as the style source by clicking the box next
to the document’s name in the panel. Then any changes you make in
the style source document can be applied to other documents in your
book file when you synchronize. Note: It’s important to double-check
to see what document is selected as the style source before you
synchronize.

SYNCHRONIZE DOCUMENTS IN A BOOK FILE

After you make changes to the style source document that you want
reflected in the other documents in the book file, the next step is
synchronization. Use the Synchronize Options dialog box to select
what features you would like synchronized — styles, master pages,
and cross-reference formats, for example.
Note: The book file can be synchronized while the documents in the
book are closed. InDesign will open the closed documents, make
changes, and then save and close the documents.

DOCUMENTS WRAP-UP
Understanding the structure of documents as the foundation for an
efficient and productive approach to working with InDesign files is an
essential skill for a template creator. You can use the many options
available in InDesign to fine-tune files for quick and easy production.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Invest the time in deciding what parameters your document
should have when doing the initial setup. Getting these right
saves time and extra work later on.
Understand how to use Book Files to manage large projects that
contain multiple InDesign documents, such as books,
magazines, or directories.

Now that we have discussed the appropriate way to create

documents, let’s move on to the next tier of our layered approach and
talk about the pages within our documents.
CHAPTER 3: OPTIMIZING YOUR
DOCUMENT DISPLAY
YOUR WORKING WINDOW DISPLAY
Once you have created a document, learning how to set up and use
the document window environment is key to working smoothly and
effectively in InDesign.
You can set up the standard tools and display options within and
around the document window whether a document is open or not.
Choosing the options that are most helpful to you will help ensure that
you work efficiently.
Here’s a rundown of standard items that can be displayed.

Tools Panel
You can hide or display the Tools Panel by selecting it from the
Window menu. By default, the Tools Panel will display to the left of the
Document Window, in a single vertical column. Clicking on the small
double arrows on the top of the Tools Panel will convert it into a two-
column panel. It can also be docked at the top or right edge of the
screen by dragging it to the edge of the screen. Clicking on the double
arrows when the Tools Panel is docked at the top edge will toggle it to
display horizontally.

Control Panel
The Control Panel, which is available across the top of the screen,
displays a number of shortcut icons. The icons are contextual —
different ones will appear in the Control Panel depending upon the
type of object you have selected on a page. The Control Panel menu
lists any options that can’t be displayed because of screen real estate
limitations. It also lists options for customizing the display of the
Control Panel itself.
Other Panels
You will find almost every other panel that is available for working on
InDesign documents listed under the Window menu, and they will
display along the right edge of the screen by default. You can choose
what panels you want to display or hide. To best accommodate your
working needs, you can dock, re-order, or resize any of those that you
want to display.

WORKSPACES
The Workspaces feature in InDesign gives you a way to capture one
or more arrangements of panels on your screen. This allows you to
quickly reset your screen setup if, for example, you have closed or
moved panels and you want them back the way they were.
InDesign includes the following standard workspaces, which are
tailored to specific types of tasks or projects: Advanced Features,
Book, Digital Publishing, Essentials, Interactive for PDF, Printing and
Proofing, and Typography.
You can also capture your own custom workspace. After you have
things arranged the way you like, use the Window>Workspace>New
Workspace command to save the current configuration and give it a
name. named workspace. You will now be able to easily select and
use your new workspace in the future.
DOCUMENT WINDOW
When you have a document open, the Document Window provides
numerous types of information about the current document. You have
a number of options for determining what is displayed and how it is
displayed.
First, the document window itself can be displayed in one of two ways.

Application Frame
You can enable or disable the Application Frame function from the
Window menu.
If Application Frame is enabled, then the window of each document
you have open will be represented by a tab within the frame, and you
can switch from one document to another by clicking on the tabs. The
active window will have a white tab, and inactive windows will have
darkened tabs. Each tabbed window also contains a close icon (X)
that you can use to close a document from the screen.
You can move and resize the Application Frame while you work, and
any docked panels will move with the application frame.
If you disable the Application Frame, a single open document window
will be displayed with a title bar at the top of the window containing the
document name. If you have more than one document open, each
document will have a separate document window, and you will need to
switch between document windows to see different documents. There
are a few ways to do this. You can minimize the document you’re
currently working on by double-clicking on the title bar. You can also
resize and move the current document’s window to see the windows
of the other documents behind it, or you can use the document
window list at the bottom of the Window menu.
We think the most efficient way of working with multiple open
documents is to enable the Application Frame.

Application Bar
The InDesign Application Bar sits on top of the Control panel. It has
buttons that let you launch Adobe Bridge, access the Adobe Stock
web page, change the Zoom Level of the document, set your
preferred View Options (by choosing whether to show or hide frame
edges, rulers, guides, smart guides, the baseline grid, or hidden
characters), change the Screen Mode (your options are Normal,
Preview, Bleed, and Slug), and choose how you want to arrange open
documents. The application bar also has a button that you can use to
publish your document online and a window with a drop-down menu
where you choose the workspace you want to use.

Status Bar
The status bar on the bottom left of the document window shows the
following:

PAGE NAVIGATION
The page navigation area contains an open field where you can enter
a page number. InDesign will take you to the page you enter there.
The page navigation area also has arrow keys that you can use to
move to the first page, the previous page, the next page, or the last
page of a document.
Note: In the Mac OS version of InDesign, the status bar will display
the document’s zoom percentage when the application bar is hidden
(Window>Application Bar).

PREFLIGHT STATUS
To the right of the page navigation area, InDesign’s Status Bar has a
window that displays the preflight status of the document.
Preflighting is the process of checking a document to make sure that it
is properly prepared and ready for printing or another output process.
InDesign’s preflight system checks for conditions such as missing
links or fonts, low-resolution images or unlinked images, and overset
text.
If everything is OK, the preflight area will display a green dot and the
words “No errors.” If there are problems, it will display a red dot and
the number of errors. If the red light is on, you can double-click on it to
open the Preflight panel, which will give you more information about
the errors.

DOCUMENT DISPLAY WRAP-UP

The setup of your document window working environment will have a
big impact on your productivity when you’re working InDesign, so you
should put some thought into it and come up with an arrangement that
works for you.
Key things to consider as you choose what panels you want and
where you’d like them to be are your working methods and the amount
of real estate available on your screen.
Moreover, as a template creator, you should keep in mind what those
options will be for your users. In some cases, you may want to
standardize the screen workspace, but in others, you may want to let
your users set up their display arrangements in whatever way works
best for them.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Configure your working window to best support the InDesign
work you need to do.
Select the panels you will use most and arrange them to your
liking, then save them as a reusable workspace.
Consider creating more than one workspace if you use many
panels or perform different types of tasks.
Understand all of the visual cues that are available to you around
the document window to help accelerate your work.
CHAPTER 4: BUILDING PAGES
Now that we’ve covered the foundational elements of the InDesign
environment and document setup, we can move up to the next level in
the InDesign hierarchy — the page.
The page is the container of information that is the vehicle for building
and presenting the content objects of InDesign — layers, guides, text,
images, rules, and even interactive elements. Pages have a number
of properties and attributes that, if well thought out, can really help to
fast-track a design or content creation process.
As an InDesign user, you interact with pages in a number of ways.
First and foremost, of course, via the visibility of the currently active
page in the document window. The majority of your work with pages
occurs here, through panning, scrolling, resizing of a page, and of
course, working with objects on a given page.
But beyond that, you will need to be familiar with the following three
major InDesign features in order to fine-tune your page interactions,
especially when you are creating templates that will be used
repeatedly:

The Pages Panel

The Layout Menu
The Layers Panel

PAGES PANEL
The Pages panel displays the pages contained within a document.
You will use it to manage both document pages and Master Pages.
What’s the difference between a document page and a Master Page?
A Master Page is a base page that you use to create the pages you
use in your documents. It’s a major component of a template that
stores all of the default information you want to capture and reuse
when creating documents and pages. The beauty of Master Pages is
you can have many of them, and they can each be structured for
different purposes within an overall document.
If your document will have pages with several layout variations that
you will likely use repeatedly, you may want to create a separate
Master Page for each one. For example, you might want a Master
Page that features a special design that you created for the first pages
of chapters, or a Master Page with a specific column setup for the
pages you use for continuations of long articles. You can even create
Master Pages with different dimensions, which is helpful if your design
calls for pages of different sizes within a single document.
Here are some best practices that we recommend when creating
Master Pages.

Create A Foundation ‘Based-On’ Master Page

Even though your document will probably have a variety of differing
page designs — and you therefore may want to have a specific
Master Page for each design — it’s helpful to have one foundation
page that contains elements that will be common to all of your pages.
For example, footers, folios, and even headers will often be the same
across all pages. So if there’s a late change to, say, the date of
publication that appears in a footer, you can change the date just in
the base Master Page and that change will trickle throughout all of the
pages that use it. To make that possible, all you have to do is tie new
Master Pages to the foundation page using the Based on Master
setting; that designates the foundation Master Page as one place
where you can manage all kinds of updates.

AUTOMATIC PAGE NUMBERING

While we’re discussing functionality made possibly by the “based on
Master Page” setting, we should mention that we strongly suggest
using InDesign’s automatic page numbering feature. When you set up
the page numbering feature on your Master Pages, you can add or
shuffle pages and InDesign will update individual page numbers
accordingly.
You can use the Numbering and Section Options feature to set
automatic page numbering and, optionally, the numeral format. You
can find it under the Pages panel menu or by selecting
Layout>Numbering and Section Options.
Use the section start feature to denote the page that is the first of a
range of pages that will be numbered in sequence; you can also use it
to set the starting number (or letter) for the series. The Current Page
Number marker must be set on pages in order to use this feature. The
Current Page Number is a special character that can be inserted in a
text frame on a master page where you would like the page number to
appear. You can do that by selecting Type>Insert Special
Character>Markers>Current Page Number.

Design On A Document Page First

It can be difficult to make definitive decisions about Master Page
settings if you are still in the process of developing a template design.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to experiment with various design
options on a working document page before creating templates and
Master Pages. That’s what we do at Technology for Publishing when
we help publishers that are working through major redesigns. That
approach gives you the flexibility to fine-tune all the foundational
elements of your design and the templates and Master Pages that will
support the new design — elements such as preferences, document
setup, margins, grid lines, baseline grid, and placement of objects.
Once you have finalized your design, you can then clean up the page
and save it as a Master Page using the Save As Master command in
the Pages Panel menu.

One Template Document Or Separate Template

Documents?
One topic that sparks a lot of discussion and opinions is whether to
create individual document files for each page or template type, or
whether to try to put all page types into one document with multiple
Master Pages.
Obviously, having all of the pages in one document creates a larger
file, but there’s a great benefit to maintaining just one template file,
because then you have one set of styles, swatches, and pages to
update when you need to make changes. That’s especially helpful in
the early stages of working with the new design, when you’re likely to
realize that there are various details that you need to adjust. If you find
that there are Master Pages that you don’t need, it’s a simple step to
delete them using the Select Unused Masters from the Pages Panel
menu (yes, this requires changing habits, but it’s well worth it).

Use Master Items

When you use a Master Page to create a document page, all of the
items that were part of the Master Page are “locked” by default on the
document page — meaning you can’t modify them. If you need to
modify one or more of the items that came from the Master Page, you
can unlock them. When you unlock an object — or “override” its
connection to the Master Page — it then becomes a local object that
exists on that specific page only and will no longer be linked to the
Master Page, and therefore it will not be linked to changes you make
to the original version of that item on the Master Page. However,
those items that remain locked are still linked to the Master Page and
can be linked to the Master Page — so any updates you make to
objects on the Master Page will propagate to all of the corresponding
objects on document pages that have not been unlocked from the
Master Page.
When you’re creating templates, it’s a great idea to put items on the
Master Page that can benefit from being updated centrally. That helps
you avoid the manual effort of updating everything individually on each
page and, more importantly, ensures that changes are made
consistently throughout the entire document.

Create a Master Page ‘LIBRARY’

Libraries of reusable items are a useful feature of InDesign but
managing reusable items in concert with a template can be a
challenge, especially when you’re trying to keep styles and swatches
in sync across a workgroup.
One of the practices we recommend, especially when you are still in
the process of adjusting and fine-tuning type styles within a new
template, is to create a separate Master Page as a dedicated
repository for the various reusable elements that you might normally
store in a library when you’re working on stand-alone pages in a
document for a one-off project. That way, you have an easily
accessible place where you can grab, for example, preformatted
sidebar boxes or banner elements — and you know that they have up-
to-date formatting.

Primary Text Frames

A Primary Text Frame is intended to be the document’s main text
frame — the one that flows across all pages and holds the document’s
“primary” text.
The benefit of including a Primary Text Frame in a template or Master
Page is that, even though they are Master Page Items, Primary Text
Frames do not have to be unlocked, or overridden, for you to use
them on working document pages. So you can flow text directly into a
primary text frame without overriding its link to the Master Page, and
therefore elements of the Primary Text Frame can still be controlled by
the Master Page.
In addition, if you decide to apply a different Master Page to a
document page (even one that was originally based on a different
Master Page), the appearance and behavior of the primary text will
adapt to the Primary Text Frame on the newly applied master.
A primary text frame on a Master Page cannot contain text and will
automatically change to a regular Master Page text frame if you add
text to it on the Master Page.
When you select a Primary Text Frame on a regular working page, an
icon will appear in the top left of the frame to indicate that it is a
Primary Text Frame.
There can be only one primary text flow in a document. When pages
are reflowed, or when a primary text frame is moved or resized on a
document page, the master can be reapplied without duplicating text
frames or adding empty Master Page text boxes that you then need to
delete.

Save Time and Work with Alternate Layouts

Instead of creating new layouts when you’re repurposing previously
published content, you can adapt a primary layout to other formats or
sizes within the same document. This process is called creating an
alternate layout.
You could use the Alternate Layout feature to, for example, create
multiple sizes of an ad, all based on the original version, within a
single document. You could also adapt a print layout for use in, say, a
tablet platform — and, again, do it within the same document that you
used to create the print content.
You can find the Alternate Layout feature under the Layout menu and
in the Pages panel menu. In the dialog, you will give the new layout a
name and select the source pages that you want to use as the basis
of the new layout. Either way, when you create an Alternate Layout,
InDesign will add a new column to the page display section of the
Pages panel and new masters at the top of the panel.
In most cases, you will need to tweak the design of the new masters
and reposition objects on the page because the new document has a
different size, and often a different orientation, from the original. To
facilitate that process, the Alternate Layout dialog gives you the option
of using a feature called Liquid Page Rules to figure out the best way
to position and format content for multiple page sizes and orientations.
The Alternate Layout dialog also lets you determine if the placed
objects should be linked between the original layout and the new one,
whether the text styles from the original should be copied to a new
style group, and if Smart Text Reflow (explained below) should be on
or off in the new layout.
If you know in advance that you will be repurposing your content for
different print formats or different device platforms, you can build
Alternate Layouts into your template, thus creating a more automated
workflow.

Smart Text Reflow

As we discussed in the chapter on Application Preferences, InDesign
includes an automated page-generation feature called Smart Text
Reflow, which adds or removes pages within a layout as users make
changes that increase or decrease the length of the text in the
document.
For example, typically, if two pages contain threaded text frames and
you insert a block of text that is too long to fit within those two frames,
InDesign will indicate that there is overset text with a red plus sign in
the out port in the lower right-hand corner of the last frame. But if you
enable Smart Text Reflow, InDesign will automatically create a third
page with a text frame on it and will automatically thread the overset
text into that new text frame. Note: The Smart Text Reflow feature is
only triggered when text is threaded across two or more pages.
By default, Smart Text Reflow is limited to pages that contain primary
text frames, but you can enable this feature on pages containing
standard text frames by deselecting the Limit to Primary Text
Frames option under Type Preferences (InDesign
CC>Preferences>Type).

LAYOUT MENU
The Layout menu is another location from which you can add, insert,
move, duplicate, or delete pages or print spreads, and apply masters
to pages. It is also the one place where you can alter certain aspects
of your pages.

Margin and Column Settings

As the name implies, this is where you go if you need to do things like
change the size of the margins or adjust the column settings for a
document, Master Page, or document page that you created. Just
select the page(s) or Master Page(s) that you want to change and
then go to Layout>Margins and Columns and make the adjustments
you want to make.

ADJUST LAYOUT
Within the Margins and Columns dialog, you will find a feature called
Adjust Layout, which will help you avoid the need to manually
rearrange and refit page elements in a document with newly defined
margin widths and column settings. It uses an algorithm to
automatically modify image and text frames and, if you desire, the
type size.

Ruler Guides
Ruler Guides are movable hairline guide rules aligned with specific
points on the horizontal or vertical page rulers that you can use as,
well, guides when you need to precisely place items on a page or
align multiple items. At Technology for Publishing, we use these non-
printing Ruler Guides heavily when creating templates to mark
placement and alignment points for a design. You can create Ruler
Guides by hand or have InDesign generate them automatically.
There are two kinds of guides: page guides, which appear on the page
on which they were created, or spread guides, which span across the
pages and the pasteboard of a multiple-page spread. When you
create a guide, keep in mind that it will appear only on the target page
or spread, which is the page or spread you currently have selected.
For example, even if several spreads are visible in your document
window, a new guide that you drag into the window will become visible
only on your target page or spread.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind regarding Ruler Guides:

You can choose the color of your document’s Ruler Guides,

along with their view percentage, via the Layout>Ruler Guides
command.
You can move, cut, copy, paste, and delete Ruler Guides by
selecting them on the page or pasteboard. You can also move
them with the arrow keys or via the Transform command.
When you cut or copy a ruler guide, you can be paste it onto
other pages or even other InDesign documents.
You can edit the X and Y placement coordinates of ruler guides
in the Control Bar.
If you want to check the placement of Ruler Guides when you
are adjusting their values, look in the Preview box in the Create
Guides dialog.
You can remove existing guides via the Create Guides dialog by
selecting the Remove Existing Ruler Guides box.
To select multiple Ruler Guides, hold down the Shift key while
clicking guides with the Selection tool. Alternatively, you can also
select multiple guides by clicking and dragging across a section
of the page to “lasso” all of the guides in that area.
 To select all of the Ruler Guides on a target spread, press CMD-
OPT-G on a Mac or CTL-ALT-G on a PC.
To snap a guide to a ruler tick mark, press Shift while dragging
the guide. Or select the guide, hold down the Shift key, and click
the mouse.

Lock Ruler Guides

There may be times when you want to lock ruler guides so users can’t
select or delete them. To do that, go to View>Grids and
Guides>Lock Guides, where you will be able to enable or disable the
command. If you select Unlock Guides, users will be able to select
and delete them.

Baseline Grid
As we noted in the chapter on Application Preferences, the baseline
grid is a valuable tool for managing the alignment of text to a specific
position on the page and in relation to other objects. It’s rare that we
see a text-driven layout (or a design-driven layout, for that matter) that
doesn’t benefit from the use of the Lock to Baseline Grid feature.
Remember that the baseline grid can be changed from document to
document, so if you want the appearance of text to be consistent
within a publication or other series of documents, be sure to set the
baseline grid and save it as part of your template. It is also worth
noting that it’s possible to define additional baseline grids that deviate
from a document’s templated baseline grid within individual text
frames using the Object>Text Frame Options dialog.

SMART GUIDES–BONUS INDESIGN FEATURE

You can use smart guides to align objects as you create or move
them. Smart guides are enabled by default in InDesign, but you can
enable or disable them in View>Grids and Guides>Smart Guides.
Smart guides appear dynamically when you create or move objects on
a page. They show the object’s dimensions, angle of rotation, and X
and Y coordinates, depending on what you are creating or moving.
The guides disappear from the screen when you release the object.

LAYERS
All InDesign documents are created with one layer, and all items can
exist in that layer. But you can choose to add layers to a document for
various purposes, and those added layers can contain one or more
objects or guides. They can be made visible or invisible, locked or
unlocked.

Additionally, all of the objects in each layer appear in a “stacking

order” in relationship to one another — in front, at the back, or
somewhere in between.
Here are some uses for layers:

Placing document guides.

Including notes about the document setup.
Experimenting with different layouts in the same document.
Creating two or more versions of a document, each with its own
alternate version of the text (which is something you might want
to do if, for example, you are working on a book that comes in
separate editions for teachers and students).
Keeping objects separate from one another in complex
documents for easier editing.

Layers Panel
The Layers panel has options for creating, re-ordering, deleting,
locking, unlocking, and hiding layers. Layers are essential to a well-
managed template, and we often recommend building templates with
separate layers for text, images and, in some cases, guides.
We have worked with many publishing companies that manage
column guide variations with layers rather than Master Pages. It’s an
interesting approach, but you should do some testing with it first to
determine if it really suits your needs.
Here are some things to know about the Layers panel:

The Layers panel displays a disclosure triangle for each layer

that can be expanded to reveal the objects and their stacking
order on a given layer.
You can change the stacking order within the panel by clicking
and dragging on an object in the panel and moving it to the
desired position. Individual objects within a group can also be
viewed that way. Don’t forget that the objects within a group or
layer have a stacking order, just like each layer does. When you
have a complex document, it can be tricky to work out the best
stacking order, but once you do, the layering setup works fluidly.
You can move items on one layer to a completely different layer.
After you do that, the frame edges around the item you moved
will match the color of the layer to which it was moved.
The Layers panel also gives you the ability to show or hide, and
lock or unlock, individual objects on a layer, not just the layer
itself.
You can tell which items are locked on the document page
because they will be marked with padlock icons.
If you want to lock or unlock an item, you can just click the
padlock icon directly on the page instead of going into the Layers
panel to do it.
If items are grouped on a single layer (which adds yet another
level of hierarchy in the Layers panel) and you want to add
another item to the group (or remove an item from the group),
you can go to the Layers panel, drag the item out of the group in
that panel and drop it within another group on the layer.
BUILDING PAGES WRAP-UP
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when planning the page
structure of InDesign templates. If you follow the guidelines we’ve
discussed here, you should be able to build templates that support
smooth and efficient project workflows by saving you the hassle of
repeatedly making manual adjustments to page objects.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Design your document first, then create master pages to support
that design. Learn how to use master page components
effectively, including Base Folio masters and automated page
numbering.
Remember that individual page parameters like size, margins,
columns, gutters, and guides can be modified page by page.
CHAPTER 5: CREATING OBJECTS
In discussing the building block approach to template constructions so
far, we have reviewed the importance of Application and Document
Preferences as the foundation for any successful template. We also
discussed the efficiencies of setting up the InDesign environment –
windows, panels, and workspaces to best suit working with the
documents being created. And then, there was the framework of the
page structure and how it should be tailored to best support the needs
of the template.
Now we are ready to get InDesign objects on our pages. There can be
just a few objects, or in some cases, quite a lot depending upon the
complexity of a design. When we are training new- or expert-level
InDesign users, we talk about how there can sometimes be 5 different
ways to do the same thing in InDesign, which is a positive thing, but
often also the challenge. If you are using a template for a workgroup,
across multiple users, it’s likely that each user has a slightly different
approach to building their files. This is where understanding the best
practices and industry standard methods for InDesign templates will
set you and your team apart from others.
This chapter will help you to understand those best practices, and how
to work with your team to be consistent and successful as you create
shared files based upon templates.
As InDesign users we interact with objects in a number of ways,
creating them on the page.

We create objects through the Tools Panel.

We create objects by placing content (text, images, etc.)
We interact with objects that come with the application of a
master page.
We change and tune objects through the Object menu, the
Control Panel, and object-specific panels.
We adjust and manage reusable settings for Objects via Object
 Styles.
When creating a template, it is important to consider the defaults
set for all objects within the file, so that when a user starts to
work with an object in a template, the initial settings are what
they would need as a standard.
Examples of these standard settings are:
Setting the default stroke and fill for frames and lines
Setting the default paragraph style when creating a new text
frame, including the setting for what is selected by default in the
paragraph and character styles panel.
Any selections set in the Control Panel when all objects are
deselected – again, this defines the default values.

While there are MANY ways to tune options as default settings in a

template, we cover a few of those we consider to be most helpful for
templates.

TOOLS PANEL
The Tools panel, also called the Toolbar, has all of the necessary
tools to create, select, and edit text frames, graphic frames, and lines,
as well as content within frames.
Consider the arrangement and location of your Tools panel when
defining the InDesign environment for your template. The Tools panel
can be set to be vertical in a single- or double- column format or a
single horizontal row. By default, the Tools panel is positioned at the
left edge of the screen, but as with any panel it can be positioned or
docked at any edge (top, left, right, bottom)—just keep in mind the
positions of other panels and where they should be that is most
convenient for you. Also remember that the Tools panel can be easily
shown and hidden by clicking the TAB key with nothing selected. The
Tools panel and all of its options are covered in great detail in our
Using Adobe InDesign CC 2019 handbook.
OBJECT MENU
The Object menu is essential for helping a user get under the hood of
any object that has been created and is packed with handy and often
under-utilized tools that help build pages with ease and efficiency.
In general, the Object menu is used for various layout functions, such
as:

Setting the stacking order of frames and lines

Grouping items
Locking objects on a page
Managing the properties of a text frame including setting the
number of columns and the text inset within a frame
Interaction with Photoshop and Illustrator-like functions such as
clipping paths and vector controls

The following Object menu items are those we think are worth an
extra look to potentially integrate into your template settings and page
building practices. Consider these settings when creating master page
text or image frames so they start with the appropriate settings. Plan
for your template users to know these commands and to use them
effectively when building their documents.

Arrange & Select

As discussed in the previous section on Layers, managing the
stacking order of objects on a page is key to being able to get to
desired objects quickly. Mastering the Arrange commands is essential
to working on pages with overlapping objects.
TEMPLATE BEST PRACTICE: A good template creator avoids
overlapping frames unnecessarily—frames align to a grid or guidelines
where possible, and to communicate intentional size and placement to
others using the file.
You can use the Arrange command to move overlapping objects
forward and backward in their stacked order on the page. If things get
really tricky use the Select command to help navigate through objects
in the stack. Learn the keyboard shortcuts to work with these functions
quickly.

Group/Ungroup
Grouping objects is very useful when trying to maintain special
placement relations between multiple objects. It keeps the intended
design and placement of objects intact so that users can create
content on pages created from templates without risking modification
of the template settings. (Though the ability to ungroup as needed is
always there.)
Remember that groups are recognized within the Layers panel, so
managing the stacking order of groups and the stacking order of
objects within groups is also an option that provides easy access to
design elements on a page.

UNGROUP REMEMBERS LAYERS

A very useful feature to be aware of is when a user selects multiple
objects from multiple layers and groups them, the resulting group gets
created in the top layer. When it is then ungrouped, all the items of the
group are placed back on their original layers. This feature, available
as an option in the Layers panel menu, is turned on by default and is
an application-level preference.

Lock/Unlock All On Spread

We’ve already talked about Master Page items when we reviewed the
Pages panel, and how Master items can remain locked on a page.
That is useful at a global document level, but the ability to manually
lock and unlock certain objects on a page is also very helpful.
With the Lock command a user can “hold” an object in place while
working on other objects around it to ensure that the locked object will
not be moved or interfere when trying to select other objects.
Remember the keyboard shortcuts for fast and easy work:
CMD-L (CTL-L on a PC) will lock selected items.
OPT-CMD-L (ALT-CTL-L on a PC) will unlock all locked items on a
spread.

TEXT FRAME OPTIONS

Text Frame Options is one of our favorite dialogs in InDesign because
it is packed with functions that can define the way a text frame and its
content behave, and in many ways can alter the text frame with
options that supersede all other settings driven by the document.
There are four panes within the Text Frame Options dialog:

General
Baseline Options
Auto-Size
Footnotes

General
The Text Frame Options>General tab is where we can define
settings for a Text Frame that differ from document-level settings. This
includes such as the number of columns and the gutter spacing within
a text frame. This dialog also controls a text frame’s inset spacing and
vertical justification.
COLUMNS
There are three options under the Columns drop-down menu:
Fixed Number
Ensures that the number of columns stays the same regardless of the
size of the frame.
Fixed Width
Ensures that the column widths stay the same regardless of the size
of the frame.
Flexible Width
Ensures that when the size of the text frame is changed, the number
of columns stays the same until the width of the columns exceeds the
maximum size specified. When the maximum is reached, a new
column is added.

BALANCE COLUMNS
Enabling this option will even out the text across columns in a text
frame so that they are all the same number of lines, or close to it.

INSET SPACING
Managing insets on frames in relation to other frame settings via the
Text Frame Options allows you to manage all of these settings in one
convenient place. Enter values to set the distances between the frame
to text for Top, Left, Bottom, and Right. Click the chain icon to
constrain all values to the first entered. Note: Non-rectangular text
frames can only have one inset value applied.

VERTICAL JUSTIFICATION
Vertical Justification defines how text will align at the top and bottom
of a text frame. Setting this value appropriately is important in order for
a text box’s behavior to function as needed within a template.
Align
Options under the Align submenu include Top, Center, Bottom,
Justify.
Paragraph Spacing Limit
When using an Align>Justify setting, a value should be specified for
the Paragraph Spacing Limit. The space between paragraphs will
expand up to the value specified, but if the text still doesn’t fill the
frame, the leading is adjusted until the frame is filled.

IGNORE TEXT WRAP

The Ignore Text Wrap setting allows the layering order of text frames
over other frames to determine whether text wrap is honored or not.
From a layout process, it’s logical to place a caption text frame over a
photo, and in that case for the photo’s text wrap to not have an effect
on the caption frame. To accomplish that, the caption frame would
have the Ignore Text Wrap option enabled.
See the section on Object Styles for further info on how to utilize this
feature.

PREVIEW
Click the Preview checkbox to see what the text frame will look like
before applying the settings.
Baseline Options
The Baseline Options tab is where users can set the First Baseline
Offset for a frame or create a custom baseline grid for a selected
frame that differs from the document’s overall baseline grid.

FIRST BASELINE
Defining the offset for the first baseline within a text frame can be set
in a number of ways:
Ascent
The ascent height of a character is equal to the height of ascender
characters such as “d” in a given font. When this option is selected,
the height of the ascender is used as the value for offset from the top
of the frame to the first baseline.
This option makes sure that the top of a lowercase “d” fits inside the
frame, however, the height will vary depending on the font you’re
using.
Cap Height
The cap height of a character is the height of the uppercase
characters in a font. When this option is selected the cap-height is
used as the value for the offset from the top of the frame to the first
baseline.
Leading
This option uses the leading value defined for the text as the offset
from the top of the frame to the first baseline.
X Height
The “x” height of a character is the body height of a lower-case
character in relation to the baseline, so as in the height of the x in a
font. When this option is selected the x-height is used as the value for
the offset from the top of the frame to the first baseline.
Fixed
This option allows the user to define a specific value as the offset
space to be used from the top of the frame to the first baseline.

MIN
This option allows a minimum value to be defined for the space from
the top of the frame to the first baseline. If the formatting of text results
in a larger value, such as from leading, it would honor that larger
value, but never reduce it to less than the minimum defined space.

CUSTOM BASELINE GRID

A custom baseline grid can be defined within a text frame that differs
from the overall document baseline grid which would allow text within
to be locked to that baseline grid.
Start
The Start value is used to define the location where the baseline grid
should begin in relation to the top of the page, the top margin of the
page, the top of the frame, or the top inset of the frame, depending on
what is chosen from the Relative To menu.
Relative To
Defines where the baseline grid will begin relative to the Top of Page,
the Top Margin, the Top of Frame, or the Top Inset.
Increment Every
The value for the spacing between grid lines, which most often equals
the body text leading.
Color
Select a color for the grid lines or choose (Layer Color) to use the
same color as the layer on which the text frame appears.

Auto-Size
With the Auto-Sizing option enabled for a text frame, text boxes are
automatically resized using parameters set in the Auto-Size pane.
Text can be added or deleted from a text frame and the size will
increase or decrease accordingly. This eliminates the need for manual
tweaking for smaller, individual text boxes like credits or pullquotes.

The following Auto-Size options tell InDesign how to grow the text
frame when text is added:

Off (By default, the Auto-Size feature is turned off.)

Height Only
Width Only
Height and Width
 Height and Width (Keep Proportions)

REFERENCE POINT
Use the visual indicator below the Auto-Size options to define the
reference location from where the text frame resizes and in what
direction.

CONSTRAINTS
Setting constraints for the Minimum Height and Minimum Width
means that a text box won’t get any smaller than the specified
measurements when text is deleted.
Selecting No Line Breaks restricts lines from breaking even if a text
box is resized.

Footnotes
Footnotes have been welcome addition to the InDesign feature set!
Think of footnotes as extra text that trails along with a text frame.
Overall document-level Footnote options are set under the Type
menu. This option within the Text Frame Options allows those settings
to be overridden at the individual frame level.
ENABLE OVERRIDES
Checking this option with set the override for the currently selected
frame.

SPAN FOOTNOTES ACROSS COLUMNS

Once enabled, this span option will allow the footnotes to flow across
columns. Disable to contain them to a single column.

SPACING OPTIONS
Set the Minimum Spacing Before First Footnote to set the offset from
the frame. Set Space Between Footnotes to define the gap from
footnote to footnote.

FITTING
The Fitting commands (Object>Fitting) are used to make sizing
adjustments when a graphic is either too large or too small for the
frame into which it was placed. When considering this option, it’s the
time to think about how much time is spent resizing graphics every
time they are placed, and what can be done to reduce that extra work.
The Fitting commands are in the Control panel, in the Object menu,
and also have keyboard shortcuts to expedite their use.

Fill Frame Proportionally

Resizes a graphic to fill the entire frame while maintaining the
content’s proportions. A portion of the graphic might be cropped by a
frame edge.

Fit Content Proportionally

Resizes content proportionally to fit the frame, which can result in
extra space between the graphic and one frame edge.

Content-Aware Fit
Evaluates an image along with the frame’s dimensions and aspect
ratio and intelligently fits the best part of the image into the frame. The
feature is not enabled by default but can be selected in the General
pane of the Preferences dialog box and applied automatically to all
placed images.

Fit Frame to Content

Enlarges or reduces a frame, depending on the size of the graphic.
The frame’s proportions will change to match those of the graphic.

Fit Content to Frame

Resizes a graphic to fill a selected frame. If the frame is larger than
the graphic, the graphic gets larger. If it’s smaller, the graphic is
reduced. Note that the graphic will be distorted if the frame and
graphic have different proportions.

Center Content
Centers a graphic in its frame. The graphic or frame will not be
resized.

Clear Frame Fitting Options

Clears the options that have been selected.

Frame Fitting Options

InDesign’s Frame Fitting Options allow placed images to be resized
automatically based on an existing frame in a document. This feature
can be enabled on a document-by-document basis or set as an
application-wide preference when no InDesign documents are open.

AUTO-FIT
Activates the Auto-Fit option for the frame. Select this option to resize
a placed image automatically when the frame is resized. Note: This
can be enabled via the Control panel as well.

ALIGN FROM
Specifies a reference point for cropping and fitting actions. For
example, by selecting the upper-right corner for a reference point and
Fit Content Proportionally, the image may be cropped on either the left
or bottom side (away from the reference point).

CROP AMOUNT
Specifies the location of the image’s bounding box in relation to the
frame.

Use positive values to crop the image.

Use negative values to add space between the image’s
bounding box and the frame.

The fitting action is applied only when content is placed into a frame. If
the frame is resized, the fitting option is automatically reapplied only if
Auto-Fit is selected.

OBJECTS WRAP UP
In this chapter we covered how to successfully work with InDesign
objects using the Tools Panel, the Object menu, and specifically Text
Frame Options and Fitting.
The majority of the work you will do in InDesign will involve managing
the different objects on a page and fine-tuning them to appear as
desired. Learning and understanding the expansive options available
for objects in InDesign can make or break a solid, well-functioning
template and the amount of time spent effectively using that template.
Consider the major objects that will be used in your template and how
you can use Object options to standardize and streamline work.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Use the Object menu’s Arrange, Group, and Lock options to
manage objects on a page.
Use Text Frame Options to set default behaviors and settings for
text frames you create for various purposes such as main text,
captions, and sidebars.
Use the Fitting options to help expedite the placing of images in
frames.
CHAPTER 6: WORKING WITH
TEXT
You’ve set your preferences, established your document and working
settings, and defined the structure for your pages and objects. Now
you’re ready to dig into the content you want to put on your pages. By
content, we mean text, photos, graphics, and more.
In this chapter, we will introduce you to the fundamentals of handling
text within templates, helping you to work toward a fluid, streamlined
approach to generating InDesign documents. We are going to get a bit
geeky on you here, because there are a lot of details to know and
understand about type, but feel free to skim parts and come back to
them later in order to get what you need to build your knowledge.
Since there’s A LOT to explain and understand about text formatting
options, we’ll cover other types of content in the next chapter.

LET’S TALK ABOUT TEXT

Text, and the type attributes applied to it, will account for the largest
share of your preparation work when you’re considering how to build a
template structure. Organizing the approach that will best support the
text you need to create, and how to format it, is at the heart of
effective templates and efficient work methods.

PLACING TEXT
To work with text, you first need to get text into your document. You
can, of course, type in text manually, without placing it or copying and
pasting it from somewhere else. But it’s unlikely that you’d be doing
that very often if you’re in a situation where you will be working with
templates on a regular basis.
Most commonly, text will be prepared outside of InDesign, usually in a
text editor such as Microsoft Word. Of course, text can be formatted in
Word and other text editing tools, so you will need to decide what to
do with that formatting as you bring text into your InDesign files.
NOTE: You could choose to use Adobe InCopy as your word
processor. Because InCopy seamlessly integrates with Adobe
InDesign, you can use it in a workflow that allows writers, editors, and
designers to work simultaneously on the same InDesign document.
With that type of approach, users can check files out and in and make
edits to the same file without overwriting one another’s work. To get
an overview of Adobe InCopy, check out our handbook Using Adobe
InCopy CC 2018.
One common way to place text on an InDesign page is to use the
Place function (File>Place, or CMD-D on a Mac or CTRL-D on a PC).
The Place dialog allows you to choose a Word document or other text
file and import it to your InDesign document.
If you’re importing text from Word, there are a few things to be aware
of.
If you are familiar with Word, you know that it contains basic out-of-
the-box styles, such a Normal, Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. You may
also know that Word allows you to create your own styles for
formatting text elements.

When importing Word text, you need to decide what you want to do
with those Word styles in relation to the styles within InDesign
documents that you create from your template. Here are some options
to consider:
Import Word Text without any styles

1. Select File>Place.
2. In the Place dialog, select the Show Import Options checkbox.
3. Select the file you want to import, then click Open.
4. In the Import Options dialog, under the Formatting section select
Remove Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables.
5. Click OK.

Import Word Text with Word Styles

1. Select File>Place.
2. In the Place dialog, DO NOT select the Show Import Options
checkbox.
3. Select the file you want to import, then click Open.

Import Word Text but use InDesign Styles

1. Select File>Place.
2. In the Place dialog, select the Show Import Options checkbox.
3. Select the file you want to import, then click Open.
4. In the Import Options dialog, under the Formatting section select
Preserve Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables. Uncheck
other boxes in this section.
5. The Import Styles Automatically option should be selected, with
the option set to Use InDesign Style Definition.
6. Click OK.

IMPORTANT: In order for this to work, the stylesheet names in Word

need to match the spelling and case of the stylesheet names in your
InDesign template. Importing with this method allows users to tag the
text with a style name in Word but use the formatting of the InDesign
style with the matching name.

Import Word Text but use InDesign Styles, customizing

the mapping

1. Select File>Place.
2. In the Place dialog, select the Show Import Options checkbox.
3. Select the file you want to import, then click Open.
4. In the Import Options dialog, under the Formatting section select
Preserve Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables. Uncheck
other boxes in this section.
5. Select the Customize Style Import option and choose Style
Mapping.
6. Map the Word styles on the left to the InDesign styles on the
right that you want to use to format that text.
7. Click OK.

You can store any of the above options as a Preset Import Option that
you can save as part of your template.

HOW TO WORK WITH IMPORTED TEXT

There are two ways to get text to flow into a particular location on a
page.
First, if you have selected an existing text frame, you can flow text
directly into the selected box by using the Place command and
selecting the file to be placed.
Alternatively, if you have not selected a text frame, the Place
command will “load” the text into your cursor. (You will be able to tell
that this has happened because the cursor icon will change into an
icon that looks like a small block of text.) If you click your “loaded”
cursor anywhere on the page, a text frame will be created at that
location and the text will flow into it. You can then select the frame to
move it and drag it to the size and shape you desire. You can also
click and drag to create a text frame of a specific size and shape and
then release the button to flow the text into the frame you dragged out.
Lastly, you can place your cursor within an existing text frame and
click to flow the text into that frame.
If you are structuring a template to support text placement, you will
likely have existing text frames applied from master pages ready to
receive the text. You will also likely have pre-existing character and
paragraph styles ready to be applied to your text.
Now let’s talk about the different methods for applying attributes and
styles to text in order to format it.

TYPE MENU
We’ve said that there are at least three ways to do anything in
InDesign, and working with text is a perfect example of that. One way
to access many of the tools that you can use to format text in InDesign
is via the Type menu. We will begin teaching you the many things you
can do with text in InDesign by walking you through the numerous
panels and functions available in the Type Menu.
Add Fonts from Adobe Fonts (formerly called TypeKit)
When you use the Adobe Creative Cloud, you can do more than just
access and download software. For example, you can also download
fonts via a service called Adobe Fonts. In a manner that’s similar to
the way you might install a font locally, Adobe Fonts makes it simple
and easy to add fonts in InDesign directly from the cloud.

FONT MENU
Use the Fonts menu to select any installed font and choose the style
to be applied to selected text. Each font name is preceded by a drop-
down menu that lists all of the styles available for the font.
A sample of the selected font is displayed to the right of the font name,
with a list of the weights available for that font .

SIZE MENU
The purpose of the Size menu is pretty obvious — it allows you to
choose the point size of selected text. It gives you a number of
predefined point sizes to choose from, but also allows you to enter a
custom size by selecting Other.

TYPE PANELS
The next several items in the Type menu actually open panels. These
are the same panels that you can access via the Window menu. If
they are closed, you can access them from either the Type menu or
the Window menu. You can dock panels along the edge of your
screen so that they remain open permanently while you are working,
and they can be expanded and collapsed as needed. You can save
specific arrangements and groupings of panels as custom
workspaces, so you can easily access or reset them from the
Window>Workspaces menu. Consider creating one or more custom
workspaces to go along with the templates you create so that all the
panels needed for working on your documents are readily available.
Note: In all panels, checking the Preview option when modifying
options will show changes to text as the style is modified.

Character Panel
Use the options in the Character panel to apply specific font selections
and type stylings to a single character or string of characters but not to
an entire paragraph. When you are working with the Character panel
and other type-related panels, the styling options you select will be
applied to the text that is currently selected. If no text is selected, any
selections you make will change the standard setting for the panel,
and when you next insert text into a text frame, that text will take on
the settings that you previously input.
FONT
The Font field in the Character panel includes options for controlling
how fonts are displayed, searched for, filtered, and selected, whether
those fonts were installed with the system or added via Adobe Fonts.
Fonts are displayed in alphabetical order.
youse options:
Clicking the arrow in the Font field will reveal the font drop-down list.
Fonts listed are preceded by a drop-down menu that lists all styles in
the font. A sample of the font is displayed to the right of the font name,
followed by an icon that indicates the font type (OpenType, etc.)

FIND MORE
This option, which appears at the top of the fonts list, reveals a list of
additional Adobe Fonts that are available to activate and use.

FILTER FONTS
Filter Fonts by Classification
Filtering fonts by classification will narrow down the number of fonts in
the list so that it includes only those that are of similar types. You can
filter fonts by choosing from the following classifications in the Filter
drop-down menu: Serif, Slab Serif, Sans Serif, Script, Blackletter,
Monospace, Handwritten, and Decorative.
Show Favorite Fonts
You can mark fonts as “favorites” by clicking the star icon to the left of
a font in the Font menu. Then, if you select the star icon in the bar at
the top of the Font menu, InDesign will filter the list to display only
your favorite fonts.
Show Recently Added Fonts
Choosing this filter will reveal a list of the fonts that were added most
recently.
Viewing Similar Fonts
Clicking the Apply Similarity Filter symbol creates a list of fonts that
are similar to the chosen font. When you choose this option, InDesign
will search for visually similar fonts and place the most similar font on
the top.
Filter Active Adobe Fonts
This filter reveals all Adobe Fonts that have been activated via the
Creative Cloud website.
In addition to the options available in the Font menu, the following
basic options are available from the Character Panel:

STYLE
The Style menu provides a list of the weight variations available within
an installed font. The list will differ from font to font, but the most
common styles include Roman, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. Other
variations might include Condensed, Expanded, Semi-Bold, Black, or
Oblique.

SIZE
The Size menu presents a list of commonly used font sizes for
convenience, but it also allows you to enter a value for a custom size
by selecting Other.

LEADING
Leading, in its simplest definition, is the distance from one baseline of
text to the next. The Leading menu provides a list of commonly used
values, but it also allows you to enter a custom value.
Auto-Leading is the default leading value InDesign will use if you do
not select or enter a leading value manually. Auto Leading values,
which display within parentheses in the Leading field, are calculated
automatically based on a percentage of the type size. You can set the
Auto-Leading percentage in the Application or Document Preferences.

KERNING
Kerning is the typographic practice of removing (or adding) small
amounts of space between letters to help fit text within a line or to
make headlines more readable and aesthetically pleasing. With the
text cursor placed between two characters, you can enter kerning
values as positive or negative numbers to increase or decrease
spacing. The values can be whole numbers or decimals.

TRACKING
Similar to kerning, tracking is the feature that allows you to
incrementally increase or decrease spacing across a selected range
of text to reduce or expand the amount of interletter and interword
spacing. You would generally do this to better fit text within a limited
amount of space or for aesthetic purposes. Tracking varies by font
based upon the metrics built into the font.

VERTICAL SCALE
The Vertical Scale option allows you to expand or reduce selected
characters vertically based upon a percentage of the font size.
Tweaking the Vertical Scale is one way to create a condensed-width
font if a condensed style is not one of the standard options available
for a particular font.

HORIZONTAL SCALE
The Horizontal Scale option allows you to expand or reduce selected
characters horizontally based upon a percentage of the font size.
Tweaking the Horizontal Scale is one way to create an expanded-
width font if an expanded style is not one of the standard options
available for a particular font.

BASELINE SHIFT
The Baseline Shift function is a very handy option that allows you to
nudge a character or group of characters up or down in relation to the
standard baseline of the text. Designers often adjust the Baseline Shift
for characters such as bullets or symbols if they don’t think the
standard positioning of those characters is exactly where it needs to
be. Values are entered in points.

SKEW
The Skew option allows you to slant text to create a false italic look for
fonts that do not have an italic style as a standard option. The amount
of skew is expressed in degrees, with zero degrees representing the
standard upright position of a font’s characters. The characters will
slant to the right if you enter a degree value higher than zero.

LANGUAGE
The Language menu is important because it allows you to select the
proper character sets for specific languages. Most of the time, the text
you’re working with will probably be in English, but if you’re designing
a version of a document that has been translated to a different
language, or if an article written in English includes a quote in a
different language, you will want to ensure that the proper characters
are used for the languages in question, so you should select the
appropriate language from the Language menu for non-English text.

Character Panel Menu Options

Just about every panel in InDesign has a menu icon in the upper right
corner of the panel. When you access those menus, you’ll find that
they provide additional, less frequently used options for each specific
panel.
For the Character panel, the menu contains the following options:

HIDE/SHOW OPTIONS
This feature offers a toggle that allows you to hide or show additional
options in the Character panel. When visible, the additional options
include Language, Skew, Baseline Shift, and Vertical and Horizontal
Scale. Hiding those options make the panel more compact, leaving
more space on the page for the document view.

OPENTYPE
We could write an entire book about the use of OpenType fonts and
all of the options that entails, but here’s a short explanation: The
OpenType font option will expose the extensive features available in a
given font so that they can be applied to characters (and captured in
styles, which we will talk about shortly).

ALL CAPS
Select this option to convert all selected text to all caps.

SMALL CAPS
Select this option to convert all selected text to small caps.

SUPERSCRIPT
Select this option to convert selected characters to superscript.

SUBSCRIPT
Select this option to convert selected characters to subscript.

UNDERLINE
Select this option to apply an underline to selected text.

STRIKETHROUGH
Select this option to apply a strikethrough to selected text.

LIGATURES
Ligatures are typographic replacement characters for certain
sequences of two or more letters in which the characters are joined
together. Examples include “fi” for “fi” and “fl” for “fl.” If you select the
Ligatures option, InDesign will automatically replace strings of the
relevant characters with the ligature characters if available in the font
you are using. Ligatures can be edited and are not flagged by the spell
checker.
UNDERLINE OPTIONS
You can use Underline Options to customize the appearance of
underlines, defining them by weight, offset, color, type, and gap for a
selected set of characters.

STRIKETHROUGH OPTIONS
Strikethrough Options allows you to customize the appearance of
strikethroughs, defining them by weight, offset, color, type, and gap for
a selected set of characters.

NO BREAK
Applying this option to a selection of characters or words prevents a
word from being hyphenated or a string of text from breaking at the
end of a line.

Paragraph Panel
The options you choose in the Paragraph panel will be applied to all of
the text in an entire paragraph, which is defined as the block of text
from one hard return to the next. You do not have to select text for
paragraph styling options to take effect; you just have to have your
cursor somewhere within the paragraph you want to style. When you
create a new text frame, the text you insert into that frame will take on
the settings that you last input in the paragraph panel.

The top of the Paragraph panel contains a number of symbols to

define these paragraph alignment options:
 Align Left
Align Center
Align Right
Justify With Last Line Aligned Left
Justify With Last Line Aligned Center
Justify All Lines
Align Towards Spine
Align Away From Spine

The middle section of the Paragraph panel includes these paragraph

indent, spacing, and drop cap controls:

Left Indent
First Line Left Indent
Right Indent
Last Line Right Indent
Space Before
Space After
Drop Cap Number of Lines
Drop Cap One or More Characters
The bottom section of the Paragraph panel includes options for
the following:
Paragraph Shading
Paragraph Border
Hyphenate
Do Not Align to Baseline Grid
Align to Baseline Grid
Paragraph Panel Menu Options
The Paragraph panel menu contains additional formatting options for
paragraphs of text:

HIDE OPTIONS
You can use this toggle to hide or show additional options in the
Paragraph panel. When the options are hidden, the panel is more
compact. If you choose to show the additional options, you will see
this list:

Space Before
Space After
Drop Cap Number of Lines
Drop Cap One or More Characters
Paragraph Shading
Paragraph Border
Hyphenate
Do Not Align to Baseline Grid
Align to Baseline Grid

ADOBE WORLD-READY SINGLE-LINE COMPOSER

Use this option to apply hyphenation and justification (H&J) settings
based on a single line of text, taking into account characters used for
languages other than English. InDesign will adjust word spacing,
hyphenation, and line breaks in the selected line of text.

ADOBE WORLD-READY PARAGRAPH COMPOSER

Use this option to apply H&J settings for an entire paragraph of text
rather than doing it line by line, taking into account characters used for
languages other than English. InDesign will adjust word spacing,
hyphenation, and line breaks in the selected paragraph.
ADOBE PARAGRAPH COMPOSER
Use this option to apply H&J settings for an entire paragraph rather
than doing it line by line. This is a more sophisticated approach than
that of the Single-line Composer.

ADOBE SINGLE-LINE COMPOSER

Use this option to apply line-by-line H&J settings to the selected
paragraph.

ONLY ALIGN FIRST LINE TO GRID

Use this option to if you only want the first line of a paragraph to be
aligned to the baseline grid.

BALANCE RAGGED LINES

This feature ensures that ragged text is balanced. You can use it to
make headlines and display text more visually appealing.

IGNORE OPTICAL MARGIN

Use this option to turn off the optical margin alignment feature for a
selected paragraph.

JUSTIFICATION
Use this option to set the justification for a selected paragraph.

KEEP OPTIONS
This controls how InDesign manages paragraphs when text breaks
across columns and pages.

SPAN COLUMNS
This feature gives you the ability to span headlines across multiple
columns or create subcolumns of text within a single column.

HYPHENATION
Use this option to set the hyphenation rules for a selected paragraph.

DROP CAPS AND NESTED STYLES

Use this option to create a drop cap or nested style.

GREP STYLES
This feature allows to you to create and apply character styles to
individual characters or strings of text that match predetermined
patterns, such as phone numbers. (GREP is a Unix command line
utility that stands for globally search a regular expression and print.)

PARAGRAPH RULES
Use this option to create horizontal rules within text that will move with
the text.

PARAGRAPH BORDERS AND SHADING

Use this option to add borders around and shading behind the text in a
paragraph.

BULLETS AND NUMBERING

Use this option to convert a list to either a bulleted list or numbered
list.

RESTART/CONTINUE NUMBERING
Use this option to reset a numbered list so that it either starts at the
number 1 or continues numbering with the number following the
number at which a previous list left off.

CONVERT BULLETS AND NUMBERING TO TEXT

If you have paragraphs with bullets or numbering applied, you can use
this option to convert those characters to text, so you can edit and
manipulate them.
DEFINE LISTS
Use this option to create a numbered list style that offers the ability to
continue numbering across stories in a document or to continue them
from previous documents in a book.

TYPE STYLES PANELS

The styles panels incorporate many of the functions within the
character and paragraph panels, but they give you the ability to save
groups of settings with names so that the you can reuse the settings.

Character Styles Panel

Character Styles capture character-specific formatting settings in
reusable style sets.
Using styles (for characters or paragraphs) allows you to document
and save commonly used formatting settings so you and your team
can apply them throughout the document, thus ensuring that the
design remains consistent from section to section, even if different
users work on different sections.

Defining standard character styles needed for a document’s design is

one of the main tasks you will undertake when you are building a
template.
The Character Styles panel by default contains the character style
“None,” which is the state of all text before any character style is
applied. In other words, unless you create a specific character style
and then apply it to text, the default character style will be None, or no
style.
Once you have defined one or more character styles, the panel will list
those styles and anyone working on your document will be able to
apply them to selected text. If a previous user has already applied
character styles to text, subsequent users will see the names of those
styles highlighted in the Character Styles panel when they select the
styled text.
There are icons at the bottom of the Character Styles panel that offer
shortcuts that you can use when you want to create new style groups
or new character styles, or delete existing styles. These options and
others are also found under the Character Styles panel menu.
In addition to the shortcuts at the bottom of the Character Styles
panel, there is an icon that you can click to add selected character
styles or style groups to the current (active) CC Library, making those
styles or groups shareable and available through the Creative Cloud.

Character Styles Panel Menu

The Character Styles Panel Menu, which is located at the top right of
the panel along with other panels, displays all options for creating and
managing character styles. It offers the following options:

NEW CHARACTER STYLE

Use this option to create a new Character Style and open the Style
Options dialog.

DUPLICATE STYLE
Use this option if you want to duplicate the currently selected style in
the Character Styles panel.

DELETE STYLE
If you decide you no longer want one of the styles in the Character
Styles panel, just select it and use this option to delete it.

REDEFINE STYLE
Use this option to change the formatting a particular Character Style
applies to text. Just select some text that has been styled using the
Character Style in question, then manually change the local formatting
and click the Redefine Style option. That will update the definition of
the Character Style to include any additional local formatting that you
applied. It will update the Character Style based upon the current state
of the selected text.

TOGGLE STYLE OVERRIDE HIGHLIGHTER

The [+] icon at the top right of the Character and Paragraph Styles
panels toggles the Style Override Highlighter on and off. Overrides
occur when users apply additional local formatting attributes to text
that has been styled using a Paragraph or Character Style. The
Highlighter feature draws attention to those deviations from defined
styles.
Highlights at the beginning of sentences in a paragraph indicate that a
user has made changes to paragraph formatting, and highlighted
words indicate changes to character formatting.

STYLE OPTIONS
Use this option to open the Character Style Options dialog box to
update the definition of a character style. This dialog will also open
when you select the New Character Style menu option. This is THE
place to create and manage the definitions of styles.
Here are the options you will find in the Style Options dialog:
General
This is where you can enter or alter the name of a style.
Based On
This option enables you to create a new character style that starts
with, and links to, the attributes of an existing character style that is
selected in this field. One important point to note is that any changes
you make to the original, or “Based On,” style will affect the newly
created style.
Shortcut
This handy option allows you to define a keyboard shortcut for a style
you’ve created.
Style Settings
This section displays a summary of all character attribute settings for
the style for review and reference.
Apply Style to Selection
If you have selected text before opening Character Style Options
dialog, you can use this option to apply the new style to the selected
text.

BASIC CHARACTER FORMATS

Font Family
This option displays a list of all of the fonts that have been installed on
or downloaded to your computer that can be selected and defined in
the style.
Font Style
The Font Style menu provides a list of all of the variations available
within an installed font. The options will differ from font to font, but the
most common styles include Roman, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. Other
variations might include Condensed, Expanded, Semi-Bold, Black,
and Oblique.
Size
The Size menu presents a list of commonly used font sizes for
convenience, but it also allows you to enter a value for a custom size.
Leading
Leading, in its simplest definition, is the distance from one baseline of
text to the next. The Leading menu provides a list of commonly used
leading values, but it also allows you to enter a custom value.
Kerning/Tracking
Kerning is the typographic practice of removing (or adding) small
amounts of space between letters to help fit text on one line or to
make headlines more readable and aesthetically pleasing. With your
text cursor placed in between two characters, you can insert kerning
values in positive or negative numbers to increase or decrease the
space between letters; you can use whole numbers or decimals.
Tracking is similar to kerning, but it refers to the space between words
or other groups of letters. InDesign’s Tracking feature allows you to
incrementally increase or decrease the amount of interletter and
interword spacing across a selected range of text. You would
generally adjust tracking for a better fit or for aesthetic purposes.
Tracking varies by font based upon the metrics built into the font.
Case
This option allows you to automatically define the case setting of
individual words or whole sentences. You can choose from
uppercase, lowercase, title case, and sentence case.
Position
The Position option allows you to set the vertical positioning of a letter.
You can choose from Superscript, Subscript, or Normal. And you
can define the look of superscript and subscript characters by
changing the percentages for size and position in the Advanced Type
pane in the InDesign Preferences dialog.
Underline, Strikethrough, Ligatures, No Break
This dialog gives you check boxes to set the status of each of these
options — they can be either on or off. If you choose to use underline
and strikethrough, you will need to define additional settings.

ADVANCED CHARACTER FORMATS

Horizontal Scale
The Horizontal Scale option allows you to expand or reduce selected
characters horizontally based upon a percentage of the font size.
Tweaking the Horizontal Scale is one way to create an expanded-
width font if an expanded style is not one of the standard options
available for a particular font.
Vertical Scale
The Vertical Scale option allows you to expand or reduce selected
characters vertically based upon a percentage of the font size.
Tweaking the Vertical Scale is one way to create a condensed-width
font if a condensed style is not one of the standard options available
for a particular font.
Baseline Shift
The Baseline Shift function is a very handy option that allows you to
nudge a character or group of characters up or down in relation to the
standard baseline of text. Designers often adjust the Baseline Shift for
characters such as bullets or symbols if they don’t think the standard
positioning of those characters is exactly where it needs to be. Values
are entered in points.
Skew
The Skew option allows you to slant text to create a false italic look for
fonts that do not have an italic style as a standard option. The amount
of skew is expressed in degrees, with zero degrees representing the
standard upright position of a font’s characters. The characters will
slant to the right if you enter a degree value higher than zero.
Language
The Language menu is important because it allows you to select the
proper character sets for specific languages. Most of the time, the text
you’re working with will probably be in English, but if you’re designing
a version of a document that has been translated to a different
language, or if an article written in English includes a quote in a
different language, you will want to ensure that the proper characters
are used for the language in question, so you should select the
appropriate language from the Language menu for non-English text.

CHARACTER COLOR
Fill or Outline
The icons beside the color swatch list allow you to toggle between the
fill and the outline of a character. Select one and define the related
settings.
Color
This option allows you to select a color from the swatches list.
Tint
Use this option to define a percentage of the selected color to use.
Weight
This option allows you to define the thickness of the outline by
choosing a weight from the drop-down menu or entering a custom
value.
Miter Limit
This option specifies the limit of point length to stroke width before a
mitered join becomes a beveled square join.
Join
The Join option specifies the stroke appearance for corner points. You
can choose Miter Join, Round Join or Bevel Join.
Stroke Alignment
To use this option, click an icon to specify the position of the outline’s
stroke in relation to its path. It can either be the divided equally on
both sides of the path or sit outside of the path.
Overprint Fill and/or Stroke
This option enables you to choose to overprint the fill and/or stroke to
prevent knockout during printing.

OPENTYPE FEATURES
If you are working with OpenType fonts that have expanded character
sets, you can define what types of characters are substituted and
used in your text. Select from the following features: Titling
Alternates, Swash Alternates, Contextual Alternates. Ordinals,
Fractions, Discretionary Ligatures, and Slashed Zero.

UNDERLINE OPTIONS
You can use Underline Options to customize the appearance of
underlines in your document. The attributes that you can define in the
Underline Options dialog are Underline On, Weight, Offset, Color,
Type, Tint, Overprint Stroke, Gap Color, Gap Tint, and Overprint
Gap.

STRIKETHROUGH OPTIONS
You can use Strikethrough Options to customize the appearance of
strikethrough lines in your document. The attributes that you can
define in the Strikethrough Options dialog are Strikethrough On,
Weight, Offset, Color, Type, Tint, Overprint Stroke, Gap Color,
Gap Tint, and Overprint Gap.

EXPORT TAGGING
InDesign allows you to associate XML export tags with character,
paragraph, and object styles when you create or edit the styles. Export
Tagging settings determine how text and objects will be marked up in
HTML, EPUB, or tagged PDF output. You can also add CSS class
names to apply variations to an exported style.

More Character Style Menu Options

BREAK LINK TO STYLE

This option allows you to remove an applied style from selected text
but retain the formatting.

LOAD CHARACTER STYLES

You can use this option to load character styles from another
document.

LOAD ALL TEXT STYLES

You can use this option to load all text-related styles from another
document.

SELECT ALL UNUSED

You can use this feature to determine if there are any styles you
haven’t used in a document. It highlights unused styles in the
Character Styles panel. Designers usually use this tool when they
want to purge unnecessary styles from a completed document to
make the document file size smaller.

EDIT ALL EXPORT TAGS

This option opens a single dialog in which you can assign export tags
to all character, paragraph, and object styles in a document.

NEW STYLE GROUP

You can use this option to organize your Character Styles by creating
style groups into which you can place related styles.

OPEN ALL STYLE GROUPS

This option expands all of the style group folders in the Character
Styles panel.

CLOSE ALL STYLE GROUPS

This option collapses all of the style group folders in the Character
Styles panel.

COPY TO GROUP
This option helps you organize your styles. Just select one or more
styles in the Character Styles panel, then use Copy to Group to copy
the selected styles and place them into a style group.

NEW GROUP FROM STYLES

This option offers an easy way to create a style group. Just select one
or more styles in the Character Styles panel and use New Group From
Styles to create a new style group made up of the selected styles.

SORT BY NAME
This function puts the list of character styles in the Character Styles
panel in alphabetical order. You can manually drag and drop the
names to rearrange the list and put the styles in a custom order.

SMALL PANEL ROWS

Selecting this option will decrease the size of the type in the Character
Styles panel, so it will display more information on your screen. Toggle
this off if you prefer larger type.

Paragraph Styles Panel

Paragraph Styles capture formatting settings for entire paragraphs in
reusable style sets.
Using styles (for paragraphs or characters) allows you to document
and save commonly used formatting settings so you and your team
can apply them throughout the document, thus ensuring that the
design remains consistent, even if different users work on different
parts of the document.

The Paragraph Styles panel by default contains the paragraph style

“Basic Paragraph,” which is the state of all text before any paragraph
styles are applied. In other words, unless you create a specific
paragraph style and then apply it to text, the default style is a
paragraph style of Basic Paragraph.
Once you begin defining paragraph styles, those styles will be listed in
the Paragraph Styles panel and anyone working on the document will
be able to apply them to selected text. If a previous user has already
applied a paragraph style to text, subsequent users will see the names
of those styles highlighted in the Paragraph Styles panel when they
select the styled text.
There are icons at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel that offer
shortcuts that you can use when you want to create new style groups
or new paragraph styles, or delete existing styles. These options and
others are also found under the Paragraph Styles panel menu.
In addition to the shortcuts at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles
panel, there is an additional icon that you can click to add selected
paragraph styles or style groups to the current (active) CC Library,
making those styles or groups shareable and available through the
Creative Cloud.

Paragraph Styles Panel Menu Options

The Paragraph Styles Panel Menu, which is located at the top right of
the panel along with other panels, displays all options for creating and
managing paragraph styles. Additional details for many of the options
described here are available in the Paragraph Panel section.

NEW PARAGRAPH STYLE

Use this option to create a New Paragraph Style. It will open the Style
Options dialog. This option is available whether you have text selected
or not.

DUPLICATE STYLE
You can use this option to create a duplicate of a style that you have
selected in the Paragraph Styles panel. A copy of the style will appear
in the panel; you can edit and rename it by double-clicking on it.

DELETE STYLE
If you decide you no longer want one of the styles in the Paragraph
Styles panel, just select it and use this option to delete it.

REDEFINE STYLE
Use this option to change the formatting a particular Paragraph Style
applies to text. Just select some text that has been styled using the
Paragraph Style in question, then manually change the local
formatting and click the Redefine Style option. That will update the
definition of the Paragraph Style to include any additional local
formatting that you applied.

STYLE OPTIONS
Use this option to open the Paragraph Style Options dialog box to
update the definition of a paragraph style. This dialog will also open
when you select the New Paragraph Style menu option.
This is THE place to create and manage the definition for a style.
Here are the options you will find in the Style Options dialog (details
for many of the options listed below are available in the Character
Styles Panel section):
General
This is where you can enter or alter the name of a particular style.
Here are some of the additional options that are available: Based On,
Next Style, Shortcut, Style Settings, and Apply Style to Selection.
Basic Character Formats
Options for Basic Character Formats are Font Family, Font Style,
Size, Kerning/Tracking, Leading, Case, Position (Superscript,
Subscript, Normal), Underline, Strikethrough, Ligatures, and No
Break.
Advanced Character Formats
Options for Advanced Character Formats are Horizontal Scale,
Vertical Scale, Baseline Shift, Skew, and Language.
Indents and Spacing
Options for Indents and Spacing are Alignment, Balance Ragged
Lines, Ignore Optical Margin, Left Indent, Right Indent, First Line
Indent, Last Line Indent, Space Before, Space After, and Align to
Grid.
Tabs
Options for Tabs are Left-Justified, Center-Justified, Right-
Justified, Align To, X, Leader and Align On.
Paragraph Rules
Use this option to define a Rule Above and/or a Rule Below a
paragraph. Your options are Weight, Type, Color, Tint, Overprint
Stroke, Gap Color, Gap Tint, Overprint Gap, Width, Offset, Left
Indent, Right Indent, and Keep in Frame.
Paragraph Border
Basic options for Paragraph Border are Stroke, Type Color, Tint,
Gap Color and Tint, Cap (Butt Cap, Round Cap, Project Cap), and
Join (Miter Join, Round Join, Bevel Join).
Additional options are Corner Size and Shape, Offsets, Top Edge
(Ascent, Baseline, Leading), Bottom Edge (Descent and Baseline),
Width (Text, Column), Display Border if Paragraph Splits Across
Frames and Merge Consecutive Borders and Shading With Same
Settings.
Paragraph Shading
Options for Paragraph Shading are Color, Tint, Overprint, Offsets,
Top Edge (Ascent, Baseline, Leading), Bottom Edge (Descent and
Baseline), Width (Text, Column), Clip to Frame, and Do not Print or
Export.
Keep Options
This function controls how InDesign manages paragraphs when text
breaks across columns and pages. Your options are Keep With
Previous, Keep With Next (# Lines), Keep Lines Together (All Lines
in Paragraph, At Start/End of Paragraph, Start, End), Start Paragraph
(Anywhere, In Next Column, In Next Frame, On Next Page, On Next
Odd Page, On Next Even Page).
Hyphenation
Options for hyphenation are Words with at Least (# letters), After
First (# letters), Before Last (# letters), Hyphen Limit (# hyphens),
Hyphenation Zone, Better Spacing/Fewer Hyphens, Hyphenate
Capitalized Words, Hyphenate Last Word, and Hyphenate Across
Column.
Justification
Controls available for Justification are Word Spacing, Letter
Spacing, Glyph Scaling, Auto Leading, Single Word Justification,
and Composer.
Span Columns
Options for Span Columns are Paragraph Layout (Single, Span,
Split), Span (# Columns), Space Before Span, and Space After
Span.
Drop Caps and Nested Styles
Options for Drop Caps are # lines, # characters, Character Style,
Align Left Edge, and Scale for Descenders. Additional options allow
for the addition of Nested Styles and Nested Line Styles.
GREP Styles
Use this option to create and apply character styles to individual
characters or strings of characters that match predetermined patterns,
such as phone numbers.
Bullets and Numbering
Options for Bullets and Numbering are List Type (None, Bullets,
Number).
The Numbering dialog provides these additional options: Continue
Numbers Across Stories, Continue Numbers From Previous
Document, and Levels.
Numbering Style
Options for Numbering Style are Format, Number, Character Style,
Mode (Continue From Previous, Start at), and Restart Numbers at.
Bullet or Number Position
Options for defining Bullet or Number position are Alignment, Left
Indent, First Line Indent, and Tab Position.
Character Color
Options for Character Color are Color (Fill/Outline), Tint, Overprint
Fill/Stroke, Weight, Miter Limit, Join, and Stroke Alignment.
OpenType Features
Options for OpenType Features are Titling Alternates, Contextual
Alternates, Swash Alternates, Ordinals, Discretionary Ligatures,
Fractions, Slash Zero, Figure Style (Default, Tabular Lining,
Proportional Old Style, Proportional Lining, Tabular Old Style),
Positional Form (General Form, Automatic Form, Initial Form, Medial
Form, Final Form, Isolated Form), and Stylistic Sets.
Underline Options
Settings for Underline Options are Weight, Type, Offset, Color, Tint,
Overprint Stroke, Gap Color, Gap Tint, and Overprint Gap.
Strikethrough Options
Settings for Strikethrough Options are Weight, Type, Offset, Color,
Tint, Overprint Stroke, Gap Color, Gap Tint, and Overprint Gap.
Export Tagging
Options for Export Tagging are EPUB and HTML Tag, Include
Classes in HTML, Class, Emit CSS, Split Document, and PDF Tag.

More Paragraph Style Menu Options

CLEAR OVERRIDES
Using this command will undo any local formatting that a user has
applied manually and return selected text to its original paragraph
style.

TOGGLE STYLE OVERRIDE HIGHLIGHTER

The [+] icon at the top right of the Character and Paragraph Styles
panels toggles the Style Override Highlighter on and off. Overrides
occur when users apply additional local formatting attributes to text
that has been styled using a Paragraph or Character Style. The
Highlighter draws attention to those deviations from defined styles.
Highlights at the beginning of sentences in a paragraph indicate that a
user has made changes to paragraph formatting, and highlighted
words indicate changes to character formatting.

CONVERT BULLETS AND NUMBERING TO TEXT

If you have paragraphs with bullets or numbering applied, you can use
this option to convert those characters to text, so you can edit and
manipulate them.

BREAK LINK TO STYLE

Use this command to remove an applied paragraph style from
selected text but retain all local attribute formatting.

LOAD PARAGRAPH STYLES

Use this option to load paragraph styles from another document.

LOAD ALL TEXT STYLES

This option will load all text-related styles from another document.

SELECT ALL UNUSED

Use this option to highlight unused styles within a document.
Designers usually use this tool when they want to purge unnecessary
styles from a completed document to make the document file size
smaller.

EDIT ALL EXPORT TAGS

This command opens a single dialog in which export tags can be
assigned to all character, paragraph, and object styles within a
document.

NEW STYLE GROUP

Use this option to organize all of the styles listed in the Paragraph
Styles panel by creating style groups into which you can place multiple
related styles.
OPEN ALL STYLE GROUPS
This option expands all of the style group folders in the Paragraph
Styles panel.

CLOSE ALL STYLE GROUPS

This option collapses all style group folders in the Paragraph Styles
panel.

COPY TO GROUP
This option helps you organize your styles. Just select one or more
styles in the Paragraph Styles panel, then use Copy to Group to copy
the selected styles and place them into a style group.

NEW GROUP FROM STYLES

This option offers an easy way to create a style group. Just select one
or more styles in the Paragraph Styles panel, then use New Group
From Styles to create a new style group made up of the selected
styles.

SORT BY NAME
This option puts the list of styles in the Paragraph Styles panel in
alphabetical order.

SMALL PANEL ROWS

Selecting this option will decrease the size of the type in the
Paragraph Styles panel, so it will display more information on your
screen. Toggle this off if you prefer larger type.

A NOTE ABOUT STYLE CREATION METHODS

There are two approaches to creating Character or Paragraph styles.
One is to make them from scratch by creating a new blank style via
the panel and entering all values for the style parameters. The other is
to select text with character or paragraph attributes already defined
and create a new style based on those attributes.
Additionally, as noted above, selecting the Apply Style to Selection
checkbox in the General category will apply the newly created style to
any text that is selected while creating the style.

Create a Character/Paragraph Style From Formatted Text

1. Select some text and modify its attributes — choose a font,

select a point size, make it bold or italic if you like, define the
paragraph alignment, or apply any other character- paragraph-
specific settings.
2. With the text selected, hold the OPT key on a Mac (ALT on a
PC) and click the New Style icon on the Character or Paragraph
Styles panel.
3. In the Style Options dialog box, give the style a name. Any of
the attributes that you applied manually to the selected text will
be picked up and incorporated into the style definition. A new
style will appear in the panel with the name that you chose.
4. Click OK when you’re done.

Add New Style to CC Library

An option in the New Character/Paragraph Style dialogs allows you to
add new styles directly to an existing CC Library selected from the
drop-down menu in the CC Library panel, or to a newly created CC
library. Note: This option is only available when you’re creating a new
style. You can add an existing style to a CC Library from the list in the
style panel by clicking the Add to CC Library icon.

MORE ABOUT THE TYPE MENU

Now that we’ve taken you through the extensive character and
paragraph formatting and style options, let’s discuss the rest of the
Type Menu.
Tabs Panel
Tabs are used to create defined stop intervals in text. You can use
them to, for example, align numbers or text at specific points. To open
the Tabs panel, select Type>Tabs.

The buttons at the top left of the panel offer four options for tabs, and
insertion fields give you the ability to define the location and behavior
of the tab. Here are the four options:

LEFT-JUSTIFIED TAB
Select this option to align text to the left of the tab stop.

CENTER-JUSTIFIED TAB
Select this option to center text on either side of the tab.

RIGHT-JUSTIFIED TAB
Select this option to align text to the right of the tab stop.

ALIGN TO
Select this option to align to a specified character in the text, such as a
comma for numbers.s

X
Use the X field to specify a tab stop position by entering a numeric
value.

LEADER
Use the Leader field to define a character to fill the white space
between tabs, such as a period.

ALIGN ON
Use the Align On field to choose the character on which a tab should
be aligned.

MAGNET ICON
Click the magnet icon to automatically position the tab ruler above the
text frame.
You can relocate tabs by manually dragging the tab marks on the
ruler.

Tabs Panel Menu

The Tabs Panel menu includes the following options:

CLEAR ALL
Select this to clear all of the defined tabs from the tab ruler.

DELETE TAB
Select this to clear selected tabs from the tab ruler.

REPEAT TAB
You can use this option to create multiple tabs that are a uniform
amount of space from one another. The space between tabs will be
based on the distance between the selected tab and the left indent or
the previous tab stop.

RESET INDENTS
Selecting this option will reset right, left, and first-line indents that have
been modified, moving them back to the edges of the tab ruler.

GLYPHS
Glyph is a term that encompasses the various characters that make
up a font, including letters, numerals, symbols, punctuation marks,
and alternative letter forms such as ligatures and swashes. The
Glyphs panel in InDesign initially shows all of the characters available
in the font that is used in the text where your cursor is located, but you
can use the Show Subset drop-down menu to see smaller groups of
glyphs in various categories, like punctuation marks, math symbols,
and fractions.
Using the Glyphs Panel is one of the easiest ways to find, preview,
and apply stylized OpenType characters such as fractions and letters
with accent marks in InDesign. You can also use context menus that
appear when you select text or search for the characters you want.

Glyphs Panel
When your cursor is placed in text, you can use the Glyphs Panel to
insert special characters from a desired font. Here are the options you
will see in the panel:

RECENTLY USED
The top of the Glyphs Panel displays characters you have recently
used so you can access them easily.

SEARCH
Use the Search field to find fonts by name, Unicode or Glyph ID.

SHOW
The Show option will display all of the characters in the font you’re
currently using, and it has filters that you can use to see subsets of the
font organized by character type.

FONT
Use the Font menu in the Glyphs Panel to select the font whose glyph
characters you want to see.

STYLE
Use the Style menu to display characters of a particular weight for the
selected font.
ZOOM
Use the Zoom In and Zoom Out icons to increase or decrease the size
of the characters in the panel.

Glyphs Panel Menu

The Glyphs Panel menu displays the following options: Hide Options,
New Glyph Set, Add to Glyph Set, Edit Glyph Set, View Glyph Set,
Delete Glyph Set, and Sort Glyphs.

TYPE MENU WRAP-UP

We’ve covered all of the Type Menu options that are applicable to the
creation of templates in InDesign. However, there are many more
options in the Type Menu that you will generally use as part of page
production. For tips and best practices on general use of InDesign for
page production, see our handbook Using Adobe InDesign CC 2019,
which is available via our website.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Take the time to learn the extensive options available for
character and paragraph formatting, and how these can be
saved as reusable styles. And remember that these can be
accessed in a number of ways — via the Type Menu, Style
Panels, and the Control Panel.
Use Style Groups to organize and manage type styles.
To make style creation easy, design with type attributes first,
then save the formatted text into a style when it’s to your liking.
CHAPTER 7: MORE OPTIONS FOR
OBJECTS AND CONTENT
We are into the home stretch here with respect to covering the various
components needed for successful templates. This chapter focuses
on a few specific panels and features that may not have fit neatly into
the previous chapters but will certainly prove useful to you as you
work with objects and content in InDesign.
Specifically, we will cover these features:

Text Wrap
Control Panel
Stroke, Color, and Swatches Panels
Object Styles

TEXT WRAP
Text Wrap is the function that causes text to flow around objects on a
page. The simplest and most common example of a situation where
you would use text wrap is when you place a photo frame within a
column of text. Without text wrap, the text would flow over the front of
the photo or behind the photo, depending upon the layering of items.

There are a few different places in InDesign where you can manage
Text Wrap.
Text Wrap Panel
First and foremost, the Text Wrap panel is THE place to define the
boundaries of an object that text will flow around.
You can access the Text Wrap panel via the Windows>Text Wrap
menu. You might want to consider docking the Text Wrap panel with
your other working panels and saving it as part of your workspace. If
you have the panel open when you select an object on a page, you
will have easy access to InDesign’s options for managing text wrap
settings.

NO TEXT WRAP
The first button in the Text Wrap panel sets text wrap to off, which is
the default text wrap setting. When text wrap is off, text will flow over
or behind the object, depending upon the layering arrangement.

WRAP AROUND BOUNDING BOX

The second button will activate a text wrap around the edge — or
“bounding box” — of the object frame that you have selected.

WRAP AROUND OBJECT SHAPE

The third button will create a text wrap around the contours of the
content within the object’s frame, as opposed to the frame itself. So if
you had a picture of, say, a tree in a picture frame, you could wrap the
text around the shape of the tree instead of around the rectangular
picture box.

JUMP OBJECT
The fourth button sets a selected frame for wrapping text above and
below the object frame.

JUMP TO NEXT COLUMN

The fifth button will allow text to flow above an object but will push any
text below an object frame to the next column.
INVERT
You can use the Invert checkbox, which you will find to the right of the
buttons listed above, in conjunction with the Object Shape text wrap
option to flow text within defined boundaries rather than around
boundaries, as is the more common use of text wrap.
Below the top buttons in the Text Wrap panel, you will find a section
with controls that you can use to set the size of the text wrap — in
other words, the amount of white space you want between the text
and the edge of the object frame. The spacing values available will
display in relation to the text wrap option you have selected.

OFFSET VALUE
The Offset is the amount of space between an object and the wrapped
text. If the text wrap option you selected only allows you to set one
value for all of the object’s edges, you will only have one value
available for editing. If you have chosen a text wrap option that allows
you to set offset values for all sides of an object, you will have four
values available for editing. Selecting the chain icon will constrain the
values of the four fields, and all of the values will automatically match
whatever value you insert in any of the fields. Unclick the chain icon if
you want to set different wrap parameters for the top, bottom, left, and
right edges of the object.

WRAP OPTIONS
The Wrap Options menu lets you define the behaviors for the text
wrap being defined.
Your options are Right Side, Left Side, Both Right & Left Sides,
Side Towards Spine, Side Away From Spine, or Largest Area.
These options are available only if Wrap Around Bounding Box or
Wrap Around Object Shape have been selected.

CONTOUR OPTIONS
The Contour Options menu provides settings for determining how you
can use the shape of an image placed within a frame to define a text
wrap.
Your options are Bounding Box, Detect Edges, Alpha Channel,
Photoshop Path, Graphic Frame, or Same As Clipping.
To let text appear inside the “holes” of an image, select Include
Inside Edges.

Text Wrap Preferences

You can set Text Wrap preferences in the Composition section of the
InDesign Preferences dialog, so that they are the default for your
template.

JUSTIFY TEXT NEXT TO AN OBJECT

If you choose this option, InDesign will justify text against objects for
which text wrap is enabled.

SKIP BY LEADING
If you choose this option, the behavior of the text wrap above and
below an object will be based on the text leading, so there will be at
least a full line space between the text and the object, even if the
object’s text wrap settings would allow less space.

TEXT WRAP ONLY AFFECTS TEXT BENEATH

This is one of our favorite options, and we think you should choose it
in almost every template!
When you consider the layering of the objects you place on a page,
you will realize that there will be times when you want text to run over
certain frames. For example, you may want to be able to have text run
over photos as a caption or label. Enabling this option will prevent text
frames that you place in front of an object from being affected by the
object’s text wrap — only text in text frames behind the object frame
will wrap. So selecting the Text Wrap Only Affects Text Beneath
option, gives you the flexibility to determine whether text is affected by
the wrap or not simply by managing the layering of boxes on the page.
Ignore Text Wrap
If you need to ensure that a particular object will not be affected by
text wrap settings, remember to click the Ignore Text Wrap checkbox
in the Text Frame Options section of the Object menu. (You can also
find that checkbox in the contextual menu, which you can call up by
right-clicking on the object.)

CONTROL PANEL
We touched on the Control Panel briefly in the chapter on Optimizing
Your Screen Display, but let’s talk more about how you can use the
features in this panel in relation to content and objects.
The Control Panel is a contextual panel that changes based upon the
objects or content that you have selected, displaying functions that are
also in other panels or menus in one handy location. This panel is
intended to provide quick access to many of these major functions; it
also provides details about object geometry so you can quickly adjust
the X and Y axes locations and the width and depth of selected
frames. Additional options in the Control Panel include tools for
flipping or skewing objects.

For image content, the Control Panel provides scaling controls to

adjust the sizing of placed content. Shortcuts for fitting options are
also available.
For text content, most of the components of the Character and
Paragraph panels are available in the Control Panel, as are easy
drop-down menus for Character and Paragraph Styles.
The Control Panel menu displays a wealth of additional options for
quick access and editing, again depending upon the context of what
you have selected.

WORKING WITH STROKE AND COLOR

You will use tools in the toolbars to draw text and image frames as
well as lines and paths. Then you can use options in the Stroke and
Swatches panels to define stroke attributes for borders and apply
color to those borders or the fills within objects.

Stroke Panel
Choose Window>Stroke to display the Stroke panel. You can use the
options in the Stroke panel to define all stroke attributes except for
stroke color. To change the color, you need to use the Swatches
panel.

Here are the options you will find in the Stroke panel:

WEIGHT
This option sets the weight of the stroke line, defined in the current
measurement. You can choose values from the menu or enter a value
manually.

CAP
The Cap option defines what the end of a stroke looks like —
specifically for open-path lines. You can choose from the following
options:
Butt cap
This options applies squared ends that stop at the endpoints.
Round cap
This option applies semicircular ends that extend half the stroke width
beyond the endpoints.
Projecting cap
This option applies squared ends that extend half the stroke width
beyond the endpoints.

MITER LIMIT
Use this option to specify the limit of point length to stroke width
before a mitered join becomes a beveled square join.

JOIN
Use this option to specify the stroke appearance for corner points. You
will have the following choices:
Miter join
This option creates pointed corners that extend beyond the endpoint
when the miter’s length is within the miter limit.
Round join
You can use this option to create rounded corners. It will create
corners that extend half the stroke width beyond the endpoints.
Bevel join
This option creates a standard corner, where the squared corner stops
at the endpoints.

ALIGN STROKE
This option lets you define where the stroke will be positioned in
relation to the path. Your options are Center, Inside, or Outside.

TYPE
The stroke Type option defines the style of line to be used — solid,
dashed, dotted, double, or combinations of thick and/or thin lines.

START/END
If you are creating a stroke that is intended to be an arrow, use this
option to define the type of arrow you want. The arrowhead can be at
one end or both ends.

SWAP
If you are creating an arrow with a point at just one end of the stroke
but inadvertently put the point on the wrong end, you can use the
Swap function to switch ends. It’s a lot quicker than redefining which
end has the arrowhead. The Swap icon is located between the start
and end fields.

SCALE
Use this option to choose a percentage at which to scale the applied
start and end arrowheads. Note: This does not affect the weight of the
stroke.

ALIGN
This option gives you two choices for how the arrowhead will be
aligned on the stroke. You can choose to have it start at, and extend
beyond, the end of the stroke path, or you can set it so that its end is
even with the end of the stroke path.

GAP COLOR
If you choose a stroke type that is not solid but rather dotted or
dashed or made up of more than one parallel line, you can use this
option to choose a color for the space between the dashes, dots, or
parallel lines. Remember that you must set the color of the stroke itself
in the Swatches panel (or via the Control panel).

GAP TINT
If you do define a Gap Color, this option lets you apply a tint
percentage to the color if you want a slightly faded appearance.

Swatches Panel
The Swatches panel is where you manage colors as saved items in
much the same way you use other panels to manage Character
Styles, Paragraph Styles, and Object Styles (which we talk about later
in this chapter). You can use the Swatches panel to create and
maintain named colors for an InDesign document, and you can even
organize them into groups, just as you would set up style groups in the
Character and Paragraph Styles panels.
Open the Swatches panel by selecting Window>Color>Swatches.
You will find various icons that visually identify the type of color and
color mode, making it easy to review and select colors. The icons
represent the following types or states of defined swatches: CMYK
color, Non-editable, Registration color, Spot color, and RGB color

The following icons appear across the top of the Swatches panel:

FILL (T)
Choose this option, which is represented by a capital T icon, to apply
a color to the fill of the selected object.

STROKE (RED DIAGONAL LINE)

Choose this option, represented by a red diagonal line, to apply a
color to the stroke of the selected object.

SWAP FILL AND STROKE (CURVED ARROW)

You can use this option, represented by a curved reverse-direction
arrow, to toggle between the stroke and fill colors for a selected
object.

CONTAINER (SMALL SQUARE)

Use this option, represented by a small square, to apply a color to the
container.

TEXT (SHADED T)
Use this option, represented by a shaded T, to apply a color to the
text.

TINT
Use the tint option to specify the percentage of the tint to be applied.
The following icons appear across the bottom of the panel:

ADD TO CC LIBRARY
You can click this option to add any swatch(es) you have selected to
the current (active) CC Library.

SWATCH VIEWS
When you click the Swatch Views icon, you will be presented with the
following options:
Show All Swatches
As its name implies, this option will show you all of the swatches in the
Swatches panel, including colors and gradients.
Show Color Swatches
Use this option to display only color swatches in the Swatches panel.
Show Gradient Swatches
Use this option to display only gradient swatches in the panel.
Show Color Groups
Use this option to display only the color groups you have set up, but
not the individual swatches.
NEW COLOR GROUP
Use this option to create a new color group.

NEW SWATCH
Use this option to create a new swatch.

DELETE SWATCH
Use this option to delete a swatch. You must select the swatch before
deleting it.

Swatches Panel Menu

The Swatches panel menu offers a variety of options for working with
colors. The available options vary depending on whether you selected
a swatch or a color group from the panel list before accessing the
menu.

NEW COLOR SWATCH

Use this option to create a new color swatch.

NEW TINT SWATCH

Use this option to create a new tint percentage swatch.

NEW GRADIENT SWATCH

Use this option to create a new gradient swatch.

NEW MIXED INK SWATCH

Use this option to create a new mixed ink swatch.

NEW MIXED INK GROUP

Use this option to create a new mixed-ink group.

NEW COLOR GROUP

Use this option to create a new color group.

DUPLICATE SWATCH
Use this option to duplicate a swatch you have selected.

DELETE SWATCH
Use this option to delete a swatch you have selected.

UNGROUP COLOR GROUP

When you use this option, the color group you have selected will be
deleted and the individual swatches that were included in the group
will be added to the root list of swatches.

SWATCH OPTIONS
The Swatch Options dialog displays the same information as the New
Swatch dialog, along with additional options that enable you to
rename an existing swatch or change its settings.

COLOR GROUP OPTIONS

This option opens a dialog that you can use to rename a selected
color group.

LOAD SWATCHES
Use this option to load swatches from external files generated by other
Adobe applications. You can export and import swatches to and from
InDesign documents in the same way that you import and export files.

SAVE SWATCHES
Use this option to save swatches to an external file from which you
can load the colors into other Adobe applications.

SELECT ALL UNUSED

If you choose this option, any swatches that you didn’t use in your
document will be highlighted in the Swatches panel, making it easy for
you to delete them if you like.

ADD UNNAMED COLORS

You can use this command to identify any unnamed colors and add
them to the Swatches panel so they will be readily available for reuse
within the document. The colors that the Unnamed Colors feature
finds would include colors that you created with tools like the
Eyedropper.

NAME, SMALL NAME, SMALL SWATCH, LARGE

SWATCH
You can use these options to change the appearance of the Swatches
panel.

SORT
Use this option to choose the way swatch names are sorted in the
panel. You can sort by name or by color value, and you can sort the
whole list or just a selection of swatches.

MERGE SWATCHES
When you import swatches or copy items from another document, you
may end up with duplicate swatches. When that happens, use the
Merge Swatches command to combine duplicate swatches.

INK MANAGER
When it’s time to send your document to your print service provider,
you can use the Ink Manager to control how inks will be handled
during output. For example, you can choose to have spot colors
converted to CMYK process colors and you can set trapping controls.

HIDE/SHOW OPTIONS
As its name implies, this toggle allows you to hide or show the top
toolbar options that are available in the Swatches panel. If you don’t
need the options, turn them off and you’ll have more room for
swatches.

New Color Swatch Dialog

When you select New Color Swatch from the Swatches panel menu,
the dialog will present the following options:

NAME WITH COLOR VALUE

When this option is selected, InDesign will use color values as the
names of swatches. Deselect this option if you want to give your
colors descriptive names.

COLOR TYPE
This option gives you two choices: Process or Spot.

COLOR MODE
With this option, you can choose from CMYK, RGB, Mixed Ink, Lab, or
a variety of other modes.

COLOR SLIDERS
This option allows you to create a custom color in a swatch either by
clicking and dragging the color sliders or by changing the percentages
listed to the right.

ADD
Choose Add to continue creating swatches without leaving the dialog.
Click OK to complete the swatch creation process and close the
dialog.

Add New Color Swatch to CC Library

The New Color Swatch dialog has an option that allows you to add
new color swatches directly to an existing CC Library that you can
select from the drop-down menu, or to a newly created library.
Note: This option is only available when you are creating new color
swatches. You can add an existing color swatch to a CC Library from
the list in the swatches panel by clicking on the Add to CC Library
icon.

Color Groups
You can create color groups in the Swatches panel in the same way
you create style groups in the Paragraph and Character Styles panels
(as discussed in Chapter 6). This feature helps you organize swatches
inside the Swatches panel.
Here’s a look at the various options that InDesign gives you for
creating and managing color groups.
Note: You can find these options in the swatches panel menu and in
contextual menus.

NEW COLOR GROUP

Use this option to create color groups. As noted, it is available via the
contextual menu or within the Swatches panel, where you can click on
the New Color Group icon or by selecting “New Color Group.”

NAME THE COLOR GROUP

You can give a group a name at the time you create it, using either of
the two menu options or by pressing the OPT key on a Mac (or ALT
on a PC) and the New Color Group button to open the New Color
Group dialog.

ADD SWATCHES
You can add swatches to a group in one of three ways: by selecting
multiple swatches from the swatch list and then creating a color group,
by dragging swatches into a color group, or by selecting a color group
and then creating a new swatch.
DUPLICATE COLOR GROUP
Use this feature to make a copy of a selected color group and all of its
swatches. The duplicate swatches and groups will be listed in the
Swatches panel with “copy 1” added to their names.

UNGROUP COLOR GROUP

When you use this option, the color group you have selected will be
deleted and the individual swatches that were included in that group
will be added to the root list of swatches.

RENAMING OF COLOR GROUPS

You can rename color groups using the Color Group options in the
contextual menu that you can call up by right-clicking on a color group
name, and via inline editing after double-clicking on the color group
entries in the list.

CREATE COLOR GROUP WITH PAGE ITEM SELECTED

You can create special color groups that contain all of the swatches
used in a piece of art or other items on a page. With the item(s)
selected, select New Color Group from the Swatches panel menu.
Enter the new color group’s name in the dialog that opens, and make
sure the Create From Selected Page Item(s) option is chosen.
Note: If the selected artwork or an item on a page uses named
swatches, then duplicates of those swatches will be added to the
group.

New Gradient Swatch Dialog

A gradient color swatch is a graduated blend of two or more colors or
two tints of the same color. Gradients are defined by a series of color
stops in the gradient ramp in the New Gradient Swatch dialog. A stop
is the point at which a gradient changes from one color to another
color, and is identified by a color square under the gradient bar. By
default, a gradient starts with two colors and a midpoint at 50%.
When you select New Gradient Swatch from the Swatches panel
menu, the dialog will present the following options:

SWATCH NAME
Use this field to enter a name for the gradient swatch you’re creating.

TYPE
Use this drop-down to choose the type of gradient you want. Your
options are Linear or Radial.

STOP COLOR
The Stop Color section, which is enabled when you select the
Gradient Ramp at the bottom of the dialog, is where you can define
the color for each color stop box selected on the gradient ramp slider.
In the Stop Color drop-down, you can choose Swatches and select a
color from existing swatches, or you can choose CMYK, RGB, or Lab
and create and apply a new color.

GRADIENT RAMP
Click the color stop boxes on either side of the ramp slider to select
and configure the color for each stop, or change the percentages
listed to the right of each color in the Stop Color section to modify the
stop color swatch. Move the diamond-shaped icon to assign the color
transition point between the stop colors.

ADD
Click the Add button to add the gradient swatch to either the swatch
list or a preselected color group.
Note: You can select gradient swatches and drag and drop them into
an existing color group.

The Color Panel

You can use the Color panel to create “quick-use” colors. You can
access the color panel by selecting Window>Color>Color and then
use it to mix and apply colors. However, colors that you apply via the
Color panel will not appear in the Swatches panel and cannot be
applied to other objects in a document.

COLOR MODES
This panel lets you switch color modes. Your option are Lab, CMYK,
and RGB

ICONS
The left side of the Color panel features the icons representing the
various options for applying color: stroke, fill, container, and text.
To create a color, you can use the slider bars or type a value into each
color’s percentage field.
The colors you create using the color panel will be “unnamed colors”
and you will not be able to modify them in the Swatches panel. They
also will not print as spot colors unless you add them as swatches.
InDesign provides two ways to add unnamed colors to the Swatches
panel:

Choose Add to Swatches from the Color panel menu.

Choose Add Unnamed Colors from the Swatches panel menu.

OBJECT STYLES
You can use object styles to create and apply styles for frames, lines,
and other features of objects. InDesign allows you to create, maintain,
and update object styles in the same way you create, maintain, and
update paragraph styles and character styles. If you modify an object
style after you have applied it to objects in a document, all of the
objects with that object style will be updated with the new formatting
you defined.
The easiest way to create object styles is to define an object with the
desired parameters and then create the Object Style from that object.
Once you do that, we recommend that you review the options for the
object style to ensure that you have defined all settings exactly as you
desire.

Object Styles Panel

You can display the Object Styles panel by selecting
Window>Styles>Object Styles.

HOW OBJECT STYLES DIFFER FROM TEXT STYLES

When you open the Object Styles dialog, you will find that it is a bit
different from the Paragraph and Character styles dialogs. Like the
other style dialogs, the Object Styles options dialog has a list of
various categories of settings. But unlike the others, it allows you to
disregard some of the categories.
There’s a checkbox next to each category on the list, and you click the
ones you want to enable and then define specific parameters within
those categories. The categories you leave unclicked will be disabled,
and the object style you create will ignore them.
By allowing you to leave whole categories of settings disabled, the
Object Styles dialog saves you the hassle of setting defaults for every
single option
If a category is disabled, the checkbox will have dash in.
Note: If a category is enabled in an object style and is later disabled,
the attributes are not removed from the objects to which the style was
previously applied. For example, if the object style includes a blue fill
and the Fill category has been disabled, the objects to which the style
was applied still have a blue fill. To remove the blue fill, either select
the Fill checkbox and select None, or choose Clear Attributes Not
Defined by Style in the Object Styles panel menu for each object to
which that style is applied.

Object Styles Panel Menu

The Object Styles panel menu offers options for managing the setup
and application of saved formatting for different object types.
NEW OBJECT STYLE
This option creates a new object style in the Object Styles panel and
opens the Object Styles dialog.

DUPLICATE OBJECT STYLE

Use this option to create a duplicate of a selected object style.

DELETE STYLE
Use this option to delete a selected object style.

REDEFINE STYLE
Use this option to redefine an object style based new attributes that
you applied to an object locally.

STYLE OPTIONS
This opens the Object Styles option dialog.

CLEAR OVERRIDES
Use this option to clear style overrides on a selected object.

CLEAR OVERRIDES WHEN APPLYING STYLE

Use this option to clear style overrides on a selected object when
applying a style to that object.

CLEAR ATTRIBUTES NOT DEFINED BY STYLE

Use this option to clear an object of attributes that are not defined by
the style applied to it, even if the attributes are ignored in the style.

BREAK LINK TO STYLE

This option will remove a previously applied object style from selected
objects — though the objects will not lose any of the formatting they
acquired when the style was first applied.
DEFAULT TEXT FRAME STYLE
Use this option to redefine a document’s default text frame style.

DEFAULT GRAPHIC FRAME STYLE

Use this option to redefine a document’s default graphic frame style.

LOAD OBJECT STYLES

Use this feature to import object styles from other InDesign
documents.

SELECT ALL UNUSED

Use this option to identify any object styles that you haven’t used in a
document. The unused styles will be highlighted in the Object Styles
panel.

EDIT ALL EXPORT TAGS

This option opens a single dialog in which export tags can be
assigned to all character, paragraph, and object styles in a document.

NEW STYLE GROUP

Use this option to create a style group in the Object Styles panel,
allowing you to organize object styles into logical groups.

OPEN ALL GROUPS

This option opens all of the style groups you have created within the
Object Styles panel.

CLOSE ALL GROUPS

This option closes all of the style groups within the Object Styles
panel.

COPY TO GROUP
When you’re organizing your styles, you can select multiple styles in
the Object Styles panel and use this option to copy those styles and
place them into an existing style group.

NEW GROUP FROM STYLES

This is another option that’s helpful for organizing your styles. Just
select multiple styles in the Object Styles panel and then use this
option to create a style group and place the selected styles into the
new group.

SORT BY NAME
This option puts the list of object styles in alphabetical order.

SMALL PANEL ROWS

This option changes the appearance of the Object Styles panel.
You will find the following five icons at the bottom of the panel:

CREATE NEW STYLE GROUP

Use this option to create a style group within the Object Styles panel.

CLEAR ATTRIBUTES
Use this option to clear all attributes applied to an object, even if those
attributes are not included in a style.

CLEAR OVERRIDES
Use this option to clear any style attributes that have been manually
applied to an object and restore the attributes defined in the object
style.

NEW
Use this option to create a new object style.

DELETE
Use this option to delete a selected object style.
New Object Style Options Dialog Box
The New Object Style dialog becomes available only when you select
New Object Style from the Object Styles panel menu or when you
select the OPT key on a Mac (or ALT on a PC) while clicking on the
Create New Style icon at the bottom of the Object Styles panel.
The left side of the New Object Style dialog has a checklist of the
attributes that can be defined in an object style. Items that are in use
for the selected style will be checked. Unchecking an item in this list
will remove that attribute from the object style.
Once a category is checked, select the category name to display the
options that can be defined for that category.

APPLY AN OBJECT STYLE

To apply an object style, highlight an object on the page with the
Selection tool and then choose the appropriate style in the Object
Styles panel or from the Object Style option in the Control Panel.

HEIGHT/WIDTH/POSITION IN OBJECT STYLES

The options in the Size and Position category enable you to add
height, width, and position settings to an object style.
Here are the three options available for defining the Size of an object:

Width Only
Height Only
Height and Width

You can use these options to modify values for height or width or both.
Note: An icon that you can use to constrain proportions will be
available when you select the third option, Height and Width.
Here are the three options available for defining the Position of an
object:

X Only
 Y Only
X and Y

You can use these options to modify the values of an object’s X and Y
coordinates.
Additionally, there is an option to choose proxy for object Position. To
do that, choose the Reference Point and the Offsets, as well as the
origins, from either Page Edge or Page Margin.

OBJECTS AND CONTENT WRAP UP

In this chapter, we reviewed the remaining panels and tools that you
will need to use to quickly and easily format objects for templates, in
addition to discussing how to store various object settings for reuse on
new objects.
As we explained in the previous chapter, defining efficient ways to
work with the many types of objects that InDesign supports is key to
good templates practices.

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Understand how to use text wrap functions to apply a variety of
text offset options around objects.
Use the Control Panel as a quick way to access the features you
will need to adjust objects and content on pages.
Quickly define and adjust Stroke, Color, and Swatches for use
on objects.
Last but not least, use Object Styles to capture a variety of
reusable settings to make it easy to re-create objects and their
attributes.
CHAPTER 8: TEMPLATE BEST
PRACTICES
Once you understand the tools and options available for creating great
templates, true mastery comes from knowing how to apply those skills
to each design situation you encounter.
Each situation, and each combination of options, will differ based upon
your design. So having a clear strategy for how to approach templates
at a higher level to incorporate the desired design elements into
something that’s quick and easy to use is the final step to mastering
template creation.
But, as many creative directors will say, templates are made to be
broken. What that means is that templates are not intended (ever) to
constrain a designer; they are there to help designers succeed and
focus on what they do best — design, without getting bogged down in
manually intensive page layout tasks.
Templates should take the best of a design and make it easily
repeatable and consistent. They should provide a basis and a
standard for what a design should look like so that just about anyone
can repeat and execute the design. The less that needs to be taught
— and remembered — the better. A template is successful when it is
use is easy and obvious. And yes, if something needs to deviate from
the standard, or be enhanced, doing that with a template should also
be easy.
We’ve taught our template creation methods to many publishers,
design houses, and agencies, and they have incorporated them into
their standard procedures for using InDesign to implement new
designs. For those who are not overly familiar with InDesign, the
prospect of building a template can feel overwhelming at first. But
once we walk them through the steps we’ve presented in these
chapters, almost all of our clients have become believers and have
adopted our approach and taught our methods to others. Using
templates has brought them success.
We suggest the following approach to bringing designs to life with
InDesign templates. It embodies a strategy and process for putting the
ideas and knowledge in this book to work.

DESIGN THE LOOK

When you’re first trying to come up with a design at the outset of a
project, you probably engage in an iterative process in which you
consider many scenarios and examples and do a lot of mixing and
matching before you arrive at a final, approved look and feel. This is
not the time to be thinking about templates — yet.
We tell all of the designers we work with that it’s important to do the
creative work first, to generate the right look and feel before thinking
about the process of re-creating that work via a template.
So Rule No. 1 is this: Design first, template later. Understanding the
nuances of template creation will certainly be helpful, but it’s
counterproductive to try to combine template creation and creative
design activities unless you can easily combine both through
processes. After all, it is a right-brain/left-brain challenge.

DEFINE YOUR STANDARDS

Deciding to use templates and figuring out how to define your
templates is all about locking down your styles and standards so that
they are understandable, repeatable, and consistent. Templates must
serve you, your team, the design you have defined, and your
organization. So as you build your templates, you need to think about
what should your standards be.

File Organization
One common set of standards that we all have to deal with when
working with InDesign with clients or with an internal team is what we
will call things, and how we will organize and find them.
Take some time to define how you want your projects to be organized
within a folder structure, and think about where within that overall
structure it makes sense to store and maintain your templates for easy
access.
If designers start to create documents by picking up old files, or by
picking up the incorrect template, all of the work you put into creating
a design and building a template will be for naught. So take some time
to bake success into your file organization methods. Poll your work
teams to make sure everyone agrees on what will work best, and then
document that.

File Naming
Once you have figured out how to best organize your files, it’s time to
come up with a naming convention and nomenclature strategy.
There is no right or wrong way to name files, and there are many
schools of thought about the best way to do it, but our general
approach is to make the naming convention as consistent and as
informative as it can be.
In most cases, of course, users will find files in folders that are
organized hierarchically, and the folder names will support the
structure you have set up. But don’t forget that files often travel
outside of the folder structure (you might have to email a document to
a client or a reviewer, for example) and the file names will have to
convey enough information to ensure that people who aren’t directly
involved in the production process will be able to recognize what an
individual file is.
A good naming strategy identifies the client or the project and includes
the specific assignment or issue, a date and often a version. It also is
generally consistent in terms of the number of characters and the use
of spaces, underscores, or special characters.
Here are some examples that we propose to TFP clients:
For a magazine, use a three-character publication code and include
the issue date, a code that identifies the section and/or specific story,
and the page number and/or version of the document
(NGM_0219_03News_v1).
For a book, use a three-character book code and include the release
date or edition, the chapter, and the page number or version
(MHB_2019_Ch1_P2-10). (Keep in mind that using page numbers in
the name can become difficult if the page numbers change.)
You get the idea. Using structures like those makes it easy to search
and find files; it also makes it easy to sort files when viewing multiple
files in a folder structure.

Style Naming
The proper approach to naming Character, Paragraph, and Object
Styles, as well as swatches, is something that designers could argue
about, and there is not right or wrong — only what works best for your
team.
What’s important is to set up a naming convention and then make
sure that everyone is aware of it, agrees with it, and uses it
consistently. If you don’t adhere to a standard naming convention, you
could end up with identical styles that have different names, and
pages could be formatted incorrectly because the names didn’t clearly
indicate what styles were to be used where. In other words, your
workflow will start to break down and you won’t get all (or perhaps
any) of the benefits of using a template.
In our opinion, style names should clearly convey what type of content
a style is supposed to be used with. They shouldn’t be generalized or
abbreviated labels that lack clarity. For example, a Paragraph Style
called Big Red Type doesn’t really tell users what type of text it’s for
and gives little indication of what its formatting specifications are —
beyond the fact that it creates type that is big (a relative term) and
some shade of red.
A good text style naming convention uses a hierarchical format. We
like names with three or four components that begin with broad
descriptors — abbreviations of the names of the sections the styles
should be used in, for example — and get more specific. That way,
the names will be grouped together by section in the lists that appear
in panels.
For example, your naming convention could be Section _Component_
Variant_Descriptor, and style names could be TOC_Head_1_Italic,
COV_Tagline_Roman, or FEA_Body_Intro.
Sticking to a consistent structure in text style naming also allows
styles to be machine readable, which makes it possible for styles to be
read by content management systems and converted to other
presentation forms. That’s a capability that can be very valuable when
you’re trying to move content from one print template to another or
from print to digital. Even if using content in multiple formats is not an
objective for your project today, remind yourself that someday that file
could be used for other purposes, and the more you enrich it with
“intelligence” in its file and style names, the easier it will be to use that
content for other purposes down the road. Remember that your work
in creating electronic files is not single-purpose — you are creating a
digital file that will have legacy.

OBJECT STYLE NAMING

For object styles, the naming process can be a bit simpler, but
conventions are still useful. A simple approach that follows our
general-to-specific guideline would be a name that starts with a term
that identifies a basic type of frame followed by a term that refers to its
intended use. For example, names for graphics frames could be
Graphics Frame – Ads or Graphics Frame – Photos, and names for
text frames could be Text Frame – Caption or Text Frame – Credit.

SWATCH NAMING
Naming strategies for swatches can vary broadly. In general, it’s best
to start with a term that indicates what the color is used for followed by
a breakdown of the color’s composition. Examples are COV
Rule_90c0m20y10k or FEA_HEAD_Blue_70c.
Again, there is no right or wrong. What’s important is settling on a
naming convention that’s consistent and informative and offers a clear
indication of the style’s use. It’s also not a bad idea to use a naming
convention that can be expanded if your organization is successful
and your project grows to include more types of content.
FINALIZE THE DESIGN
Once you narrow down your design scenarios and have a finalist in
hand, it’s time to clean up the prototype to make it consistent and
accurate. Focus on finalizing the design and making it production-
ready, with all of the pages and components that you will need to
create a finished product. Use real content examples to be sure you
address all design scenarios.
When finalizing the design, go back through the InDesign layout-
building components we covered in these chapters.
Last but not least, remember to vet the design for production and
printing feasibility. File size, font weights, color space, bleeds,
gradients, transparencies, and hyphenation and justification settings
are all factors that you must take into account to ensure that
production goes smoothly.

Preferences
Make sure that both application- and document-level preferences are
what they should be to support the finalized design. Among other
things, you should decide whether you need a baseline grid, what
colors are best for the guides, what units of measure to use, and what
typographic defaults or cursor controls will work best. Consider all of
those factors in relation to the design, and adjust them accordingly.

Document Structure
Once you work out all of the variations and page requirements for your
design, revisit the foundational document structure. Check page sizes,
bleeds, and slugs to be sure they are accurate. Check the default
values for margins, columns, and gutters. The last thing you want is to
have to manually adjust margins or gutters every time you create a
new page because the defaults are inaccurate — that wastes time and
could lead to the introduction of errors in your final product. Review
each page’s requirements. Different pages will likely need different
column and gutter settings, as well as different page guides for
aligning objects and other elements of the design. Make sure all of
those elements are accurate for each designed page.

Document Workspace
While most designers generally have a preferred workspace and
panel arrangement that they like to use every time they work with
InDesign, consider whether there are specific panels that users might
need to easily execute the specific design you created. It might be
helpful to have one workspace for editorial users and another for
designers or prepress users. Store those panel arrangements in
saved workspaces. Consider what the default settings should be for all
tools and panels, and remember that what was last selected within
panels will often be the default, such as a Paragraph or Character
Style, or a Swatch. You should review all of those things when you do
the final cleanup of the template.

Page Structure
As you evaluate your design, begin to think about whether and how
pages and their elements will need to live on master pages, and
where one master page will differ from another.
Consider whether footers and page numbers will be the same on
every page, or whether different versions will be needed in certain
sections. Your requirements will determine whether you might need a
folio base master page.
You will also need to decide whether there will be text that needs to
flow from page to page and, if so, whether you want to use a Primary
Text Frame or perhaps the Smart Text Reflow feature.
And don’t forget that InDesign can accommodate documents that
have pages of different sizes. That’s rare, of course, but it may make
sense for some types of content, such as ads.
When considering page structures and how elements will appear on
pages, remember that you can use Layers to manage the components
on a page, including guides — notably page guides that are necessary
for ad placement but are not needed all the time. And even if you don’t
use multiple layers, remember you can still have stacks or layered
arrangements of objects.
Keep an eye on the Layers panel to see how components stack up,
and make sure their arrangement is easily workable.

InDesign Objects
The main components of any project you work on in InDesign are the
objects, such as lines and text and graphics frames. And there are a
multitude of attributes that you need to apply to objects before content
can be placed in them.
Review the objects that your design requires to determine the best
way to create and format them to ensure that they have a consistent
appearance. The goal is to standardize the appearance and behavior
of objects and thereby reduce or eliminate the need for users to
remember what formatting attributes they need to apply to objects as
they’re working on pages.
For text frames, consider the size, placement, fill, stroke, text wrap,
insets, offsets, and default type styles that need to be applied. Once
you finalize all of those parameters, consider creating object styles for
text frames, including styles for caption and photo credit text frames,
all named accordingly.
Consider the same options for graphics frames, especially front/back
arrangements and text wraps. You may also want to determine
whether object styles for graphics frames should include features such
as transparency effects and drop shadows.
Don’t forget to group frames together as units to maintain their
placement and spacing, and to make duplication easier. It is also
helpful to lock specific items that will not need editing but will need to
stay in standard locations, especially for busy pages that have many
design elements.

Swatches
Review the final swatches that will be used in your template. Ensure
that they are set up in the correct color space for the intended project,
and name them according to your standards.
Remember that you can select all unused colors when you are
finished designing and delete them. This helps to keep the file size of
documents as lean as possible, since swatches are elements that can
cause document size to balloon.

Text Styles
One of the longest chapters in this book focuses on the many options
you have for formatting text in InDesign, from simple to complex, and
how you can store formatting settings in Paragraph and Character
Styles. Take the time to understand those options and see how they
work well together, and then help your teammates or clients do the
same so they are prepared to use your template effectively. Identify
and name the design elements that need to be captured.
As you finalize your design, create Paragraph and Character Styles
from the final, designed text, naming each style according to your
predetermined naming convention. Remember that you can create a
new style from formatted text and immediately apply it to the selected
text. You can then apply that style to other examples of that text in
your document, and that will help you ensure that the style behaves
consistently wherever it’s applied. If the style doesn’t behave
consistently, fix it.
Create Paragraph Styles first, then create the Character styles.
Organize your styles in Group folders named by section, especially in
documents that require many different styles.

BUILD YOUR TEMPLATE

Now that you have defined what your standards are and have cleaned
up and prepped your document’s design, it’s time to create the
template. (Save backup versions of your approved design file and
your cleaned-up file before you begin building the final template so
that you have them for reference if something ends up looking
different in your final file.)

Strip Out Content

It’s always good to have some boilerplate text and other content within
a template to represent what the design should look like and to give
the template users something to start with. That said, it’s best to avoid
using anything that looks like real text because you will run the risk of
users missing it and using it accidentally in the final product.
We generally recommend replacing text that looks like real content
with the name of the style that should be applied to the text. If you do
that, you will ensure that the text is easily identifiable as placeholder
text that needs to be removed; you will also create a training aid that
reminds users what styles they should use for what text.
So as you begin to clean up your design file in preparation for
template creation, replace the text used for design purposes with
dummy text that can’t be confused with real content.

Create and Apply Text Styles

Review every text element that exists on your pages to make sure that
you have created a Paragraph Style and (if necessary) a Character
Style for each, and verify that you have applied the appropriate
style(s). In each case, ensure that there are no style overrides, which
are indicated by a plus sign that will appear in the panel next to the
applied style’s name when text is selected. If there is an override,
resolve it — either by removing it or updating the style to include it.
Then make sure that all other uses of that style on other pages are
correct.
Once you have done all of that, there may be leftover or duplicate
styles that have not been used and are unnecessary. In the panel
menu, use the Select All Unused option to highlight the unused styles,
then determine if any of them can be deleted. (As with swatches,
deleting text styles will help keeps the file size lean.)

Check Defaults
Default settings are the options that you last selected in each panel,
and they are the styles that will be applied to any new objects you
create, including text frames and graphics frames.
With no objects selected, check the following panels to make sure that
the correct defaults are selected.

Character Styles
Paragraph Styles
Object Styles
Layers
Swatches
Stroke
Text Wrap
Effects

You should also review all of the default settings in the Control Panel.
Font, Size, Baseline Grid on/off, number of columns, and origin points
are just a few of the defaults you may want to check.

Review All Page Objects

As you clean up the content and formatting within the design file and
name and apply styles, you should review the objects in the file for
consistency and accuracy.
Among other things, you should review whether objects are the
correct sizes and whether they snap to grids and guides. Also review
intended alignments to ensure that objects have been placed
accurately. This is a good time to make sure that guides, whether on
the default layer or added layers (don’t forget a naming strategy for
layers), are accurate and that they correctly enable the proper
placement of objects.
When you are reviewing the various objects throughout your
document, determine whether an Object Style should be applied, and
if so, apply it, making sure it works consistently.

CREATE MASTER PAGES

Once you are done with all of the cleanup, naming, and application of
settings on all of the document’s pages, it’s time to create Master
Pages.
This is where doing all of your designing first pays off in the template
creation process, because you can save fully designed pages as
master pages, and the master pages serve as the basis of your
template.

Base Master Page

First, determine if it would be advantageous to have a base folio
master page. Remember that a base folio master page is a very
simple page that other master pages can be based on, and its most
common use is to give you one place where you can manage footers
and page and/or folio numbers. The benefit of this is that it makes it
possible to update elements of the footer text — such as for issue
number, month, and date — in one place and have the changes
update across all of your master pages.
To build a base folio master page, first create a new document page
that is the correct size and has the standard primary text frames,
guides, etc., plus the footer and folio frames and text. Pay attention to
what the correct margin and column structure should be as a default
for most pages, even if it may be necessary to alter it for specific
pages.
When you are sure that all of the components are accurate, save the
page as the first master page in the template. To do that, select the
page in the Pages panel and then choose Master Pages>Save as
Master in the panel menu.
At that point, you will need to give the page a name. As with other
elements of your template, it’s a good idea to use a standard naming
convention for your master pages.
When naming a master page, the prefix is especially important, since
this is the identifier that will appear on a document page in the Pages
Panel and it will let users know what master page that document page
was created from. For the name, consider clear terms for the section
or component of the document that the master page will be used for,
such as Cover, TOC, Departments, Features, Chapter, Intro, etc.
Once you have created the base folio master page, use it as the
master that all other masters that contain folios are based on.

Create Master Pages

Once you have created the base folio master page and have applied it
to all of the document pages, check each document page to make
sure that all formatting and object placements are still accurate. If you
need to adjust margins or columns for a specific page, do so. (It’s best
to correct and resolve any differences when you apply the base folio
master, but you should review each page afterward to check for
inaccuracies.)
To save document pages as master pages, use the Master
Pages>Save as Master command in the Pages panel menu. Base
the new master on the base folio master when needed. Note: In some
cases, master pages may be based on other master pages that are
based upon the base folio master. This works as well, as you will still
have one spot to edit the folios throughout the template.
Review the results at each step of the way to make sure that the end
result matches the original design. If not, go back and correct any
discrepancies.

ONE OR MANY TEMPLATES?

Designers and template creators will often debate whether it’s better
to keep all master items in one document or put them in separate
documents, especially as a way to control file sizes.
At one point in time, it was necessary to keep them separate because
neither QuarkXpress nor InDesign stored all settings within files in an
efficient way. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that
workstations and networks used to be much slower than they are
today, so many designers had no choice but to break down templates
into individual files.
That was then; this is now. At TFP, we now recommend keeping
templates in one file. The benefit of doing that is that you will have just
one file to maintain and update, as opposed to many. This will prove
to be especially helpful early in the life of a template, when you will
likely need to make changes, corrections, and updates. It also will help
you avoid the errors and inconsistencies that come up when files are
created from multiple templates. It can be virtually impossible to keep
multiple templates updated and in sync.
And finally, it’s very easy to purge extra master pages once you have
built a file, so we recommend that you make this a standard practice in
your workflow. Create the file, choose the appropriate master(s) to
apply, and then purge the unneeded master pages. To do that, use
the Master Pages>Select All Unused command in the Pages panel
menu and voilà — all of the unused masters will be highlighted and
you can easily review them and delete the ones you don’t need.

Create Document Pages Based Upon New Master Pages

When you have created all of the master pages and checked them to
make sure they’re accurate, it’s time to create new document pages
based upon your new, clean master pages.
Leave your original document pages intact for now, until you have
created the new document pages. You can use them as a reference to
compare the new pages to, then you can delete them.
One by one, either drag a master page into the document section of
the pages panel or use the menu commands to create a new page
based upon the appropriate master. Create all of the document pages
you need in sequence.
Review each of the document pages, comparing them to the original
document pages and, if necessary, to the original approved design
document.
Once you have reviewed all of the document pages and ensured that
they look good, select and delete the former document pages.

Final File Check

We’re almost there!
At this point, the document you’ve created is just about ready to
become a template. Review all of the settings in the file to make sure
that everything is as it should be.
Here’s a final trick: Do a Save As of the file using a new, and final,
name. For InDesign, a Save As re-creates the file and should reduce
any remaining file bloat. Compare before and after file sizes just to
check. If there’s minimal difference, then you’ve built a very clean file.

Save the Template

An InDesign template document is slightly different from a normal
working document. When you open a template document, it will
automatically create a new untitled document from the template and it
will not allow the template document to be accessed or modified. It
protects users from accidentally working in the template file itself.
(That said, the InDesign open dialog allows users to open a template
document intentionally if they want to make changes, using the Open
Original option.)
When you are ready to save your template in final form, select
File>Save As, and in the resulting dialog, choose InDesign Template
from the Format drop-down.
Congratulations, you’ve just created your awesome new InDesign
template!