Adobe InDesign Basics Class

Free lessons for learning Adobe InDesign

InDesign CS is Adobe's latest layout program. It was to be a re-write of PageMaker, Adobe's layout program which is now discontinued, but it then became a different layout program on its own. Adobe InDesign is now one of the most powerful layout programs for professional desktop publishers and graphic designers. Beginners or Basics Course This is a free Adobe InDesign class for beginners, i.e., people who do not have much experience with InDesign and want to learn how to use this program. This InDesign class will give you the basics on which you can then develop further skills and become proficient at using this powerful layout program. Further articles will be written to develop some subjects that might need to be taken more in-depth. Meet the Teacher The bulk of the individual InDesign tutorials in this course are written by Elisabetta Bruno. Some lessons also refer to primary or supporting material written by Desktop Publishing Guide Jacci Howard Bear. Two Different Worlds One thing you may notice is that Elisabetta, uses British spellings such as colours and centre, while Jacci uses the American version of colors and center. Although she does a good job at it, Elisabetta is also not a native English speaker so you may find a few interesting turns of a phrase in her writing. Then again, Jacci speaks "Texan" which can be a bit non-standard as well. Elisabetta uses metric measurements such as mm (milimeters) but the lessons also include comparable (if not exactly equal) measurements in inches and picas & points for those who are more comfortable using those measurement systems. Learn the Terminology In studying this course make sure you don't pass any word you do not fully understand. If there is a word you don't know or you are unsure of, make sure you fully clear it up. Have you ever read through a whole page and then at the end of it you are totally blank about what you just read? That is because you have encountered a word that you did not fully understand and you didn't clear it up. If you were interested in a subject and all of a sudden your interest on that subject dropped, you most likely passed a word you did not fully understand. To help you in studying this course there is a glossary to which you can refer anytime you like. If the term giving you trouble is not found in the glossary, please post an inquiry in theDTP Classroom. Not asking will only make completing the course more difficult. How to Do Desktop Publishing Many of the lessons of this course are based on Jacci's "How a Desktop Publishing Document is Created" class. While you study the principles of Desktop Publishing you will learn how to put them into practice with InDesign CS. This is a better way to learn the program because, instead of just learning how to "make something look cool" with InDesign, you will also learn why you need to use the certain tools and when. It is a good idea to read that supplemental material before you get into the "how to" of InDesign. InDesign CS for Mac and Windows Even though the illustrations you will see here show the Mac version of InDesign CS, these lessons will hold also for Windows users. Some icons might look slightly different, but you will be able to recognize them in either platform. Open InDesign when you study this course and actually go through the steps described so you don't get lost while you are studying. This course is written for Adobe InDesign CS. If you are using an earlier version of InDesign some menus will appear or act somewhat differently and some CS features may be unavailable in InDesign 1, 1.5, or 2. Adobe InDesign Basics Course Outline The following outline is subject to change. Only lessons currently online are linked. Bookmark this page and check back regularly as new lessons are added. The pages linked in this outline describe each individual lesson (which may consist of one or

more tutorials) and how to navigate the lesson and may include an assignment to be completed and posted in the DTP Classroom for discussion. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. The Work Area, Tools, and Palettes How to Set Up a Document Working With Colour The Tools, Part 1 The Tools, Part 2 Text and Paragraphs, Part 1 Text and Paragraphs, Part 2 Text and Paragraphs, Part 3 Graphics and Images Prepress, Preflight, Printing More InDesign Features

Adobe InDesign Basics Detailed Outline

This outline of the Adobe InDesign Basics Class links to the lesson profiles and individual tutorials in each lesson as they are put online. 1. The Work Area InDesign's Work Area, Tools, and Palettes The Work Area The Menu Bar The Control Palette, Part 1 The Control Palette, Part 2 The Other Palettes, Part 1 The Other Palettes, Part 2 The Tools Palette The Tools Palette Swatches, Part 1 The Tools Palette Swatches, Part 2 A Few Words on Contextural Menus 2. How to Set Up a Document 0. The Document Area Slugs, Bleeds, and the Pasteboard Rulers Binding Spine 1. Setting Up the Page New Document and Page Settings Master Text Frames More Options 2. Setting Margins, Columns, and Grids Simple Margin Setup Perfect Margin Setup Changing Margins Setting up Columns and Grids, The Use of Guides 3. Master Pages in InDesign Using the Pages Palette More Ways to Add Master Pages Changing Items on Master Pages 3. Working With Colour 0. Colour Palette

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Colour Modes Using the Colour Palette No CMYK Equivalent When to Use RGB or CMYK 1. Swatches Palette Record Frequently Used Colours None and Paper Swatches Black and Registration Swatches CMYK, RGB, and Gradient Swatches Buttons in the Swatches Palette Creating New Swatches Editing Swatches Relationship Between Colour and Swatches Palettes 2. Gradient Palette Create Gradients Remove, Move, and Edit Gradients Gradients in the Swatches Palette The Tools, Part 1 0. The Tools: Selection, Type, Line Drawing Tools Selection Tools Selecting Objects in a Group Selecting Objects Under Other Objects Selecting Some or All Objects Pen Tool Use the Pen Tool to Draw Straight Lines (Animation) Use the Pen Tool to Draw Curves (Animation) Use the Pen Tool to Draw Shapes (Animation) Type Tool Pencil Tool The (Hidden) Smooth Tool The (Hidden) Erase Tool Line Tool 1. The Tools: Frame and Shape Tools Frame Tools Flyout Placing Image in a Frame Selecting and Resizing Objects Resizing Graphics with the Control Palette Resizing Graphics with the Context Menu Shape Tools Flyout Convert Shapes to Frames The Tools, Part 2 0. The Tools: Transform Tools Rotate Tool Scale Tool Shear Tool Free Transform Tool 1. The Tools: Eyedropper and Measure Tool Eyedropper Tool - Copy Colors Eyedropper Tool - Copy Character Attributes Measure Tool 2. The Tools: Gradient Tool and Gradient Palette Gradient Tool - Basic Use Gradient Palette vs. Tool: Angle Precision Gradient Palette vs. Tool: Linear, Radial, and Reverse Gradient Palette vs. Tool: Location (Middle Points)

Gradient Tool: Applying Gradients to Multiple Objects Gradient Palette: Applying Gradients to Multiple Objects 3. The Tools: Button Tool 4. The Tools: Scissors Tool Cut Straight Across a Shape Cut a Piece Out of a Shape Cut a Curved Piece Out of a Shape Cutting or Modifying Paths or Frames 5. The Tools: Hand Tool 6. The Tools: Zoom Tool 6. Text & Paragraphs, Part 1 Placeholder Text Text Frames and Text Threads Automatic & Not-Really-Automatic Threading The Not-Really-Automatic Method The Automatic Method Control Palette & Type Tool, Good Co-Workers Let's Study Some Typography The Character Palette The Paragraph Palette Text Composition The Paragraph Palette Hands On! Paragraph Rules 7. Text & Paragraphs, Part 2 An overview of InDesign's Typography Capabilities Style Sheets Character Styles Paragraph Styles Nested Styles 8. Text & Paragraph, Part 3 Embellishment and Fine-Tuning Text Acquisition Importing Text from Word Documents Importing Excel Documents Useful Typographical Tricks and Aids Spell Check Changing Case Find and Change Option Glyphs Creating Outlines from Text Handling Missing Fonts 9. Graphics and Images More on resizing Text and Graphics (text wrap) Graphics Formats that Can Be Imported in InDesign Handling of Adobe Illustrator (.ai) and Photoshop (.psd) Files in InDesign How to Add Colour to Grayscale TIF images Previews of Images in InDesign Clipping Paths Frames and Borders The Transparency Palette 10. Prepress, Preflight, and Printing Definition of Pre-flight and Pre-press Preflight What the Printer Wants - Difference Between Desktop and Outsourced Printing

The Preflight Option Convert Graphics and Swatches to CMYK Output Preview Palettes: Flattener and Separations Palettes The Flattener Palette The Separations Palette View Modes (bleed) The Links Palette Prepress Packaging Files The Print Window Printing with a Desktop Printer Printing to PostScript File Making Press Ready PDFs PDFs Made Directly with InDesign Using Third Party Applications to Make PDFs Transparency and Tints 11. More InDesign Features PDFs, Not Only Ready for Press Exporting Options Layers Tables Automatic Page Numbering Numbering and Section Options Setting up Preferences Features from the Menu Bar The Lock Option Shortcuts