OUGD405 - Adobe Indesign tutorials

Adobe InDesign tutorials

InDesign is mainly used for layout of designs for mass produced print. There are multiple pages options and is a lot more powerful than Photoshop and Illustrator for processing both type and image.

• Page size = size of the finished product artwork. For commercial print, you must make the size the size of the artwork, not the desired paper size.
• Number of pages = applicable when making a book.
• To decided whether you need to check facing pages, ask yourself if your final product is going to be a book. If yes, facing pages will appear next to each other in InDesign. 

'More Options' 

• Changing the number of columns creates guides for text columns. If you do not want columns, then leave the number as 1. 
• Gutter number determines the size of gap between columns.
• Margins are for assistance and will not restrict outcome of print. IE it wont crop off or restrain artwork. They can be set for multiple pages for a unified design.
• Bleed size is the guide for the extension of the artwork to leave for cropping of a bleeded ink edge, giving a piece of artwork that bleeds to the edge of the page.
•  Slug area is larger than the bleed area, used to contain the printers marks such as crop marks, text and information. Usually for commercial print. They are trimmed off when cut to size.

After 'OK': 

• Black line is trim line.
• Purple line is margin.

The Pages palette allows you to manage pages within the document. A small thumbnail is given of the page:

Click the new page icon (new layer logo) to add a new page. Drag a page thumbnail to the bin to delete it. 

If you want to view a page, double click it's thumbnail in the pages palette. This document has facing pages, as you can see in the palette. The first and last page are always by themselves, as you would see if you were looking through a book.

If you need to edit your document after creation, go to Layout in the top left corner. 

If you need to add guides to the page, drag them from the rulers around the edge, like in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

To add more specific guides choose the create guides option in the Layout tab:

To add content, you must create a frame.

Clicking on the text tool and dragging a box will create a text frame:

To add sample text, go to Type tab, then fill with Placeholder text for Lorem Ipsum... 

To access fonts, you can either go to Type tab, then font...

Or the Character palette. (Type tab > Character)

A frame can be resized at any time using the black cursor tool.

To get a preview while you're dragging, hold the mouse in one place for a few seconds before dragging.

As you're dragging frames around the page, some guides will flash up accordingly. Purple guides show that the frame is in the middle of the page, and white guides show that the frame is aligned with another object. These grey guides sometimes appear when drawing frames, too to help with accuracy and consistency when drawing for ultimate precision.

You can import text given as a file straight into InDesign. You need a text frame ready to accept your imported text.

Locate the text folder you wish to use and click OK/ place:

 The red cross tool indicates that the text overflows the frame. You can flow text from one frame to another by clicking on the red overflow button and dragging another frame. 

 This is particularly helpful when creating column based designs. You can test if this is working by resizing alternate frames and the text will overflow into one or the other. If you were to select all of the text in one of these frames, it will select it in both, because it is the same piece of text.

 Adobe Photoshop in correspondence with InDesign:

• Pictures should be actual size that they will be on the page in InDesign
• Pictures should be in CMYK colour mode or Greyscale for black and white. NEVER RGB because InDesign is for print.
• Resolution must be 300 dpi.
• Files should be save as a .tiff file or a .psd file. Not .jpeg files for print

Adobe Illustrator in correspondence with InDesign:

• Colour modes should be in CMYK colour mode.
• Can be saved as an Illustrator file .ai . 

To import images into Indesign is the same as text import : File > place. 1 click is needed when the image has loaded to place in the desired location. The image can be cropped at any time by clicking and dragging the frame size.

By clicking the CD-like icon, you can select the image independent from the frame edges. This is particularly useful for creating borders around an image. You can resize the image by using the white arrow tool in this independent setting. You shouldn't really resize the image because this will change either the resolution or cause problems during the printing process. (Photoshop images)

You must draw a frame ready to receive an Illustrator document : 

Go to file > place and locate the vector image:

The vector image can be re-sized because this won't affect the resolution.