Adobe InDesign Tutorials

Get up to speed on some of the exciting new features in Adobe® InDesign® 2.0 with the following tutorials. Each consists of a Flash movie as well as step-by-step instructions and sample files for download, so you can follow along within InDesign. For demonstrations of key features, take a video tour in the InDesign 2.0 overview.

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Alphabetizing Menu Commands  

Ever forget the exact location of a menu command in InDesign? You can use this tip to make your menu commands easier to locate.

Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Bridging the Gap Between Design and Editorial

With both Adobe InDesign® CS and Adobe InCopy® CS in your publishing workflow, writers and editors can compose stories in InCopy at the same time designers are laying out the pages using InDesign—without overwriting each other’s work.

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Compound Paths for Text Holes  

You can use InDesign's compound paths and transparency features to create a recessed text compartment in an image.

Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Controlling Line Breaks with the Hyphenation Penalty Slider

Adobe InDesign 2.0 introduced a new feature that you can use to fine tune the way lines break in any given paragraph. You'll find the hyphenation penalty slider in InDesign's hyphenation dialog box. This document is meant to serve as an introduction to this feature so that you'll understand exactly how it works and how you can use it to control the way your lines break within paragraphs.

Cole, Tim. Creative Pro (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Create Custom Grids

Suppose you have a publication with set column widths. You may not want to reset your columns or drag out multiple guides just to create tables or gridded content. The guides and Step and Repeat features in Adobe® InDesign® 1.5 make it easy to quickly create a custom grid to structure your content. This tip tells you how.

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Creating Interactive Documents for PDF  

Learn how to add movies, sound clips, and interactive buttons to an Adobe InDesign CS document. When you export the document to Adobe PDF, readers can view movies, play sound clips, and activate buttons in Adobe Acrobat. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to add a movie and buttons that play, pause, resume, and stop the movie in the exported PDF document.

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Customizing Strokes Styles

With Adobe InDesign® you can create and edit custom dash, dot, and stripe stroke styles, giving you more control and freedom over how strokes look in your publications. You can also save the stroke styles you create, and then use them over and over again in other InDesign publications.

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Designing a Distinctive Table

When you're working with complex data, a table may be your best option. Often, a logical series of rows and col-umns can communicate more clearly than paragraphs. Adobe® InDesign® 2.0 introduces a robust table feature that makes it easy to line up those rows and columns—and to format them in striking ways. Here we show you how you can make an easy-to-read table while using the graphical power of InDesign to integrate it into the style of your document.

Cole, Tim. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Designing Text to Flow Around Objects

Wrapping text around objects—from basic shapes or frames to images with clipping paths—can give any publication a unique look and feel. In this tutorial, you’ll learn several ways to work with text wrap in Adobe InDesign® to achieve the look you want.

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Document Setup in Adobe InDesign CS

In this topic, you will set up a new document in Adobe InDesign CS.

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Dragging and Dropping

There are a number of ways in which you can use drag and drop to get content in and out of InDesign. Here are my favorites: If you ever get a lot of content for a layout delivered to you in a folder full of images, logos, text files, etc., there's a fast and easy way to get the files into InDesign that will enable you to avoid placing them one by one.

Cole, Tim. Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Dragging and dropping into InDesign  

There are a number of ways in which you can use drag and drop to get content in and out of InDesign.

Cole, Tim. Adobe Evangelists (2006). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Efficiency: It's Not Just for Production Monkeys

With a few free tools from software companies and other users, you can carve out more time for what you really love -- creativity.

Ashcroft, Sean. Creative Pro (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Get 100% Accurate Copyfitting

In the publishing world--when every word counts--knowing exactly how much space you have to work with is crucial. Because Adobe InDesign® 2.0 and Adobe InCopy 2.0 are tightly integrated and share the same composition engine, content.

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Get It Inline  

Inline frames in Adobe InDesign help you keep your text and graphic frames (or text frames or groups) sticking together.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Getting the Most out of Guides  

If you're used to other layout applications, you may be unaware of all the things you can do with ruler guides in InDesign. If you use guides in your work, read on.

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Import Text Without Surprises

With a little forethought, placing text in InDesign becomes almost effortless.

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InDesign CS Script Automation

Harness the power of scripts to automate common tasks in InDesign.

Kloskowski, Matt. Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

InDesign CS Scripting Changes

InDesign CS has introduced a large number of changes in scripting. Some things are new, some are simple changes in terminology, and some are changes that will break existing scripts. This is a guide to some of these changes, and is designed primarily to help in moving scripts written for version 2.0.2 to CS.

Stanley, Shane. Scripting Matters (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

InDesign Killer Tips  

If you approach InDesign as you did your former page layout application, you may be missing out on some features that will make your life easier.

White, Terry. InDesign User Group (2005). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

InDesign Tutorial: Advanced Typographical Controls

Find out how to use Adobe's single line and paragraph composer, hyphenation settings and other typographical controls.

Bruno, Elisabetta. Designorati (2005). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

InDesign Tutorial: Design With Character - Character Style Sheets

Character Style Sheets can be real time savers for designers especially in the creation of long or multi-page documents. Character Style Sheets are simply recorded format that you can then use in your design at will. Consistency is one of the principles that designers must follow. Character Sheets help the designer so he doesn't have to apply manually the same type of formatting over and over again throughout the document.

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InDesign Tutorial: Setting up a Document

Let's start with some basics. Here you will learn how to create a new document, add pages and other basic functions. A second tutorial will follow to complement this one.

Bruno, Elisabetta. Designorati (2005). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign