Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Part I: Before You Begin
Part II: Document Essentials
Part III: Object Essentials
Part IV: Text Essentials
Part V: Graphics Essentials
Part VI: Getting Down to Business
Part VII: Printing and Multimedia Essentials
Part VIII: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Before You Begin
Chapter 1: Understanding InDesign Ingredients
Understanding Global and Local Control
Choosing the right tools for the job
Specifying measurement values
Mastering Basic InDesign Vocabulary
Discovering the Document Window
Rulers
Zero point
Pasteboard
Application frame and bar
Pages and guides
Page controls
Opening Multiple Document Windows
Tooling around the Tools Panel
Using the Selection tools
Using the Type tool
Using the object-creation tools
Using the navigation tools
Working with Panels, Docks, and Workspaces
Working with panels
Working with docks
Working with workspaces
Surveying the Menus
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
Setting Document Preferences
Type preferences
Composition preferences
Measurement preferences
Document defaults
Modifying Defaults for Text and Objects
Text defaults
Object defaults
Modifying Defaults for Views
Adding Default Colors and Styles
Part II: Document Essentials
Chapter 3: Opening and Saving Your Work
Setting Up a New Publication
Opening documents
Saving documents
Exporting document content
Recovering from Disaster
Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work
Understanding the Pages Panel
Adding pages
Selecting pages
Copying pages
Deleting pages
Moving pages within documents
Moving pages among documents
Starting documents on a left page
Working with Page Numbers
Dividing a document into sections
Removing a section start
Navigating Documents and Pages
Navigating with the Pages panel
Navigating with the menus and shortcuts
Adjusting Page Layouts and Objects
Using Layers
Layer basics
Working with layers
Customizing layers
Working with objects on layers
Manipulating entire layers
Chapter 5: The Joys of Reuse
Building and Using Templates
Creating templates
Modifying templates
Creating documents from templates
Building and Using Master Pages
Creating a new master page
Importing a master page
Deleting a master page
Applying a master page to document pages
Changing master items on document pages
Building and Using Libraries
Creating a library
Putting items into a library
Copying library items onto document pages
Managing library panels
Chapter 6: Working with Color
Working with Colors
Creating color swatches
Using Kuler colors
Creating mixed colors
Defining Tints
Working with Gradients
Creating gradient swatches
Understanding the Gradient panel
Managing Swatches
Editing swatches
Copying swatches
Deleting swatches
Importing swatches
Exporting swatches
Applying Swatches
Part III: Object Essentials
Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements
Working with Frames and Shapes
Creating frames and shapes
Reshaping frames and shapes
Creating Lines and Paths
Drawing a straight line
Understanding paths
Drawing your own paths
Applying Strokes
Setting stroke appearance
Creating stroke styles
Chapter 8: Manipulating Objects
Selecting Objects
Resizing and Scaling Objects
Resizing objects
Scaling objects
Moving Objects
Deleting Objects
Preventing Objects from Printing
Transforming Objects
Rotating objects
Shearing objects
Flipping objects
Repeating transformations
Replacing Object Attributes
Making Fancy Corners
Using Transparency and Lighting Effects
Basic transparency
Drop shadows and inner shadows
Feathering and other lighting effects
Chapter 9: Organizing Objects
Combining Objects into a Group
Locking Objects
Working with Object Styles
Creating object styles
Managing object styles
Applying object styles
Managing object styles
Managing Links
Chapter 10: Aligning and Arranging Objects
Positioning Precisely with Coordinates
Lining Up Objects with Guidelines and Grids
Using ruler guides
Working with column guides
Working with smart guides
Using document grids
Using baseline grids
Aligning Objects to Each Other
Stacking Objects
Creating Inline and Anchored Frames
Working with inline frames
Working with anchored frames
Part IV: Text Essentials
Chapter 11: Putting Words on the Page
Working with Text Frames
Creating master text frames
Creating individual text frames
Setting up automatic page creation
Making changes to text frames
Importing Text
Import options for Microsoft Word and RTF files
Import options for Microsoft Excel files
Pasting text into an InDesign document
Dragging and dropping text
Threading Text Frames
Breaking and rerouting threads
Working with Columns
Specifying columns in master frames
Changing columns in text frames
Wrapping Text around Objects
The Text Wrap panel
Setting text-wrap preferences
Chapter 12: The Ins and Outs of Tex t Editing
Editing Text
Controlling text view
Navigating through text
Highlighting text
Undoing text edits
Using the Story Editor
Searching and Replacing Text
Replacing text
Replacing formatting
Changing special characters
Working with saved queries
Checking Spelling
Checking spelling as you type
Correcting mistakes on the fly
Using the Check Spelling dialog box
Changing the spelling and hyphenation dictionaries
Chapter 13: The Styles of Text
Creating Styles
Getting Fancy with Nested Styles
Managing Styles
Updating styles
Sharing styles with others
Using style groups
Other management options
Applying Styles to Text
Paragraph particulars
Character characteristics
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
Applying Paragraph Formats
Specifying Alignment and Indents
Adjusting indent controls
Inserting space between paragraphs
Controlling space between lines
Controlling where paragraphs break
Adding Drop Caps
Controlling Hyphenation and Justification
Manual hyphenation
Automatic hyphenation
Controlling justification
Composing text
Ruling Your Paragraphs
Chapter 15: Finessing Character Details
Specifying Character Formats
Modifying Font, Type Style, and Size
Changing font family and font style
Changing type size
Using Other Character Formats
Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale options
Baseline shift
Skew (false italic)
Capitalization options
Superscript and Subscript
Underline and Strikethrough
Ligatures
Turning off hyphenation and other breaks
Controlling Space between Characters and Lines
Kerning
Tracking
Leading
Chapter 16: Tricks with Text
Using Bulleted and Numbered Lists
Labeling Paragraphs
Adding Special Type Treatments
Reversing type out of its background
Creating sidebars and pull-quotes
Formatting fractions
Optical margin alignment
Custom underline and strikethrough options
Adjusting character strokes
Converting Text into Shapes
Making Text Follow a Path
Part V: Graphics Essentials
Chapter 17: Importing Graphics
Preparing Graphics Files
Importing and Placing Graphics
Specifying Import Options
Import options for bitmap graphics
Import options for vector file formats
Import options for placed InDesign files
Working with Image Layers
Working with layers during import
Working with layers after import
Using Other Ways to Import Graphics
Chapter 18: Fitting Graphics and Setting Paths
Cropping Graphics
Figuring out the Fitting Commands
Working with Graphics in Irregular Shapes
Using a graphic’s own clipping path
Creating a clipping path in InDesign
Part VI: Getting Down to Business
Chapter 19: Working with Tabs and Tables
Setting Tabs
Setting Up Tables
Adjusting tables
Formatting tables
Using table and cell styles
Modifying and managing table and cell styles
Converting Tabs to Tables (and Back)
Chapter 20: Working with Footnotes, Indexes, and TOCs
Adding Footnotes
Creating Indexes
Choosing an indexing style
Inside the Index panel
Adding index items via the Index panel
Polishing and generating the index
Creating Tables of Contents
Chapter 21: Working with Automatic Text
Automating Page Numbers
Using Section Markers
Using Text Variables
Editing and managing text variables
Inserting text variables
Using Conditional Text
Chapter 22: Publishing Books
Creating a Book
Working with Book Chapters
Finding out about chapter status
Taking advantage of style sources
Synchronizing formatting
Printing Chapters and Books
Working with Sections in Chapters
Numbering pages consecutively
Numbering pages with sections
Setting chapter numbers
Part VII: Printing and Multimedia Essentials
Chapter 23: Printing Your Work
Checking Your Document before Printing
Identifying and fixing errors
Telling InDesign what to check for
Setting Up Booklets
Calibrating Color
Choosing Print Options
The General pane
The Setup pane
The Marks and Bleed pane
The Output pane
The Graphics pane
The Color Management pane
The Advanced pane
The Summary pane
Creating a Document Package
Chapter 24: Multimedia Project Basics
Using Hyperlinks
Creating hyperlinks
Modifying and deleting hyperlinks
Working with cross-references
Adding Sounds and Video
Adding Buttons, Rollovers, and Other Actions
Exporting Flash Files
Exporting PDF Files
The General pane
Security pane
Exporting to eBook Format
Exporting to the Web
Part VIII: The Part of Tens
Chapter 25: Top Ten New Features in InDesign CS4
Smart Guides, Spacing, and Dimensions
Cross-References
Flash Export
Nested Lines
Dynamic Autoflow
Pointer Information
Spread Rotation
Conditional Text
Automatic Preflighting
PDF Page Rotations
Chapter 26: Top Ten Resources for InDesign Users
Web Sites
InDesignCentral
The Adobe Web site
InDesign User Group
Creativepro
Magazine Resources
InDesign Magazine
Layers magazine
Macworld magazine
Recommended Books
InDesign® CS4 For Dummies
by Galen Gruman
InDesign® CS4 For Dummies®
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River St.
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, 317-572-3447, fax 317-572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.
For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936634
ISBN: 978-0-470-38848-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Author
Galen Gruman is the principal at The Zango Group, an editorial and book production firm. As such, he has produced several books for Wiley Publishing and is a regular contributor to Macworld and CIO. He is author or coauthor of 22 other books on desktop publishing.
Gruman led one of the first successful conversions of a national magazine to desktop publishing in 1986 and has covered publishing technology since then for several publications, including the trade weekly InfoWorld, for which he began writing in 1986 and of which he is now executive editor; Macworld, whose staff he was a member of from 1991 to 1998; and, most recently, Layers Magazine.
Dedication
To the talented designers I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the years, who have shown me what real artists can do to engage readers effectively and creatively: Kevin Reagan, Dennis McLeod, Sylvia Chevrier, Tim Johnson, Arne Hurty, Richard Merchán, Peter Tucker, and John Anane-Sefah.
Author’s Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to several people for making this book the best guide possible for InDesign beginners and those wanting a quick tour of the program: Barbara Assadi was co-author of several previous versions of this book, and some of her valuable contributions remain in this edition. Similarly, Jonathan Woolson was tech reviewer on previous versions of this book, and several how-to suggestions based on his production savvy also remain for your benefit. Thanks are also due to the current edition’s editor, Kelly Ewing, for making the book as clear and direct as possible. Most of the photographs you see in this book’s example layouts were taken by Ingall W. Bull III (and used with permission). Last, thanks are due to the many talented people at Adobe who continue to refine InDesign to the advantage of us all.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development
Project Editor: Kelly Ewing
Previous Edition: Linda Morris
Acquisitions Editor: Bob Woerner
Technical Editor: Dan Ogle
Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen
Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth
Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case
Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)
Composition Services
Project Coordinator: Katherine Key
Layout and Graphics: Stacie Brooks,
Reuben W. Davis, Christin Swinford
Proofreaders: Context Editorial Services, Amanda Steiner
Indexer: Ty Koontz
Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies
Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher
Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director
Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director
Publishing for Consumer Dummies
Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher
Composition Services
Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services
Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services
Introduction
What is Adobe InDesign, and what can it do for you? In its more than a decade in existence, InDesign has become the most powerful publishing application, one that lets you work the way you want to work. You can use InDesign as a free-form but manual approach to layout, or as a structured but easily revised approach. The fact that you can choose which way to work is important for both novice and experienced users because there is no single, correct way to lay out pages. Sometimes (for example, if your project is a one-time publication, such as an ad), creating a layout from scratch — almost as if you were doing it by hand on paper — is the best approach. And sometimes using a highly formatted template that you can modify as needed is the way to go: You don’t need to reinvent the wheel for documents that have a structured and repeatable format, such as books and magazines.
InDesign can handle sophisticated tasks, such as glossy magazines and high-impact ads, but its structured approach to publishing also makes it a good choice for newspapers, newsletters, and books. InDesign is also a good choice for corporate publishing tasks, such as proposals and annual reports. In all cases, you can design for printing on paper or electronic distribution as Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Plug-in software from other vendors adds extra capabilities.
Plus, you can use InDesign as the starting point for Web and Flash documents. These electronic documents can include interactive features, such as page transitions, hyperlinks, and buttons to play sounds or a movie.
About This Book
After you get the hang of it, InDesign is quite easy to use. At the same time, it’s a powerful publishing program with a strong following among the ranks of professional publishers — and the latest InDesign CS4 version is certain to reinforce that position. Part of its success is due to the fact that its interface is like that of its sister applications, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, which are also components of the Adobe Creative Suite.
If you’re just getting started with InDesign, welcome! I hope you’ll find the information in these pages to be helpful in getting you started.
Conventions Used in This Book
This book covers InDesign on both Macintosh and Windows. Because the application is almost identical on both platforms, I point out platform- specific information only when it’s different — and that’s very rare. I’ve used Macintosh screen shots throughout; Windows screen shots are usually identical, except for the dialog boxes to open, save, and export files — these are arranged differently on Macs and PCs (for all programs, not just InDesign), but the relevant options to InDesign are the same. If you’re a Windows user, a quick look at Adobe’s documentation, which shows Windows screens, can show you how the interfaces are nearly identical. So don’t worry about them.
Here are some other conventions used in this book:
Menu commands: They’re listed like this: Window⇒Pages. That means go to the Window menu and choose the Pages option from it. In almost every case, the menu command sequences are the same for Mac and Windows users; in a very few cases, they differ (such as the Preferences menu option and the Configure Plug-ins menu option), so I note these differences where they exist by putting the Mac menu sequence first and then the Windows one.
InDesign CS4 has an annoying new feature of hiding menu options from you. The goal is to be less intimidating, but it also means that if you don’t know what InDesign can do, you won’t find out by looking at the menus. Fortunately, you can tell InDesign to show you all the menus all the time so that no features are hidden. Here’s how: Choose Window⇒Workspace⇒Show Full Menus. This book assumes you’ve turned the menus all on.
Key combinations: If you’re supposed to press several keys together, I indicate that by placing a plus sign (+) between them. Thus, Shift+Ô+A means press and hold the Shift and Ô keys and then press A. After you’ve pressed the A key, let go of all the keys. I also use the plus sign to join keys to mouse movements. For example, Alt+drag means to hold the Alt key when dragging the mouse.
Note that the Macintosh sequence comes first, followed by the Windows equivalent.
Pointer: The small graphic icon that moves on the screen as you move your mouse is a pointer (also called a cursor). The pointer takes on different shapes depending on the tool you select, the current location of the mouse, and the function you are performing.
Click: This means to quickly press and release the mouse button once. Many Mac mice have only one button, but some have two or more. All PC mice have at least two buttons. If you have a multibutton mouse, click the leftmost button when I say to click the mouse.
Double-click: This tells you to quickly press and release the mouse button twice. On some multibutton mice, one of the buttons can function as a double-click. (You click it once, but the computer acts as if you clicked twice.) If your mouse has this feature, use it; it saves strain on your hand.
Right-click: A feature first implemented on Windows, but present on Macs since the late 1990s, this means to click the right-hand mouse button. If your Mac has only one button, hold the Control key when clicking the mouse button to do the equivalent of right-clicking in programs that support it. Mac OS X automatically assigns the right-hand button on a multibutton mouse to the Control+click combination; if your mouse came with its own System Preference, you can often further customize the button actions.
Dragging: Dragging is used for moving and sizing items in an InDesign document. To drag an item, position the mouse pointer on the item, press and hold down the mouse button, and then slide the mouse across a flat surface.
What You’re Not to Read
If you see any text in this book that has this icon next to it, feel free to skip right over to the next paragraph. This icon alerts you to geeky information that you don’t need to know to use InDesign. I just couldn’t help giving you a little extra-credit information in case you were a budding geek like me.
Foolish Assumptions
Although this book has information that any level of layout artist or production editor needs to know to use InDesign, this book is primarily for those of you who are fairly new to the field, or who are just becoming familiar with the program. I try to take the mystery out of InDesign and give you guidance on how to create a bunch of different types of documents.
I don’t assume that you’ve ever used InDesign (or any publishing program). But I do assume that you have a basic knowledge of Macintosh or Windows — enough to work with files and applications. And I assume that you have basic familiarity with layout design, such as knowing what pages, margins, and fonts are. But I don’t expect you to be an expert in any of these areas — nor do you have to be!
How This Book Is Organized
This book contains eight parts. I also include some bonus content on the InDesignCentral Web site (www.InDesignCentral.com).
Part I: Before You Begin
Designing a document is a combination of science and art. The science is in setting up the structure of the page: How many places will hold text, and how many will hold graphics? How wide will the margins be? Where will the page numbers appear? You get the idea. The art is in coming up with creative ways of filling the structure to please your eyes and the eyes of the people who will be looking at your document.
In this part, I tell you how to navigate your way around InDesign using the program’s menus, dialog boxes, panels, and panes. I also explain how to customize the preferences to your needs.
Part II: Document Essentials
Good publishing technique is about more than just getting the words down on paper. It’s also about opening, saving, adding, deleting, numbering, and setting layout guidelines for documents. This part shows you how to do all that and a lot more, including tips on setting up master pages that you can use over and over again. You also find out how to create color swatches for easy reuse in your documents.
Part III: Object Essentials
This part of the book shows you how to work with objects: the lines, text frames, graphics frames, and other odds and ends that make up a publication. You also discover how to apply some really neat special effects to them.
Part IV: Text Essentials
When you think about it, text is a big deal when it comes to publishing documents. After all, how many people would want to read a book with nothing but pictures? In this part, I show you how to create and manipulate text, in more ways than you can even imagine.
Part V: Graphics Essentials
Very few people would want to read a book with nothing but text, so this part is where I show you how to handle graphics in InDesign — both importing them from the outside and creating your own within InDesign.
Part VI: Getting Down to Business
InDesign is really good at handling the many kinds of documents that tend to be used in businesses, such as manuals, annual reports, and catalogs. This part shows you how to create tables, handle footnotes, create indexes, manage page numbering across multiple chapters in a book, and use text variables to make InDesign update text as needed based on the document’s current context.
Part VII: Printing and Multimedia Essentials
Whether you’re printing a publication or simply creating a PDF file for readers to download from a Web site, you still need to understand the basics of outputting an InDesign document. This part is where I show you how to set up your output files, manage color, and work with service bureaus. You also find out about creating multimedia documents — those with movies, sound, hyperlinks, and buttons — for distribution as PDF files, Flash files, and Web pages.
Part VIII: The Part of Tens
This part of the book is like the chips in the chocolate chip cookies; you can eat the cookies without them, but you’d be missing a really good part. It’s a part that shows you some important resources that can help you make the most of InDesign.
Icons Used in This Book
So that you can pick out parts that you really need to pay attention to (or, depending on your taste, to avoid), I use some symbols, or icons, in this book.
When you see this icon, it means I am pointing out a feature that’s new to InDesign CS4.
If you see this icon, it means that I’m mentioning some really nifty point or idea that you may want to keep in mind as you use the program.
This icon lets you know something you’ll want to keep in mind. If you forget it later, that’s fine, but if you remember it, it will make your InDesign life a little easier.
If you skip all the other icons, pay attention to this one. Why? Because ignoring it can cause something really, really bad or embarrassing to happen, like when you were sitting in your second-grade classroom waiting for the teacher to call on you to answer a question, and you noticed that you still had your pajama shirt on. I don’t want that to happen to you!
This icon tells you that I am about to pontificate on some remote technical bit of information that may help explain a feature in InDesign. The technical info will definitely make you sound impressive if you memorize it and recite it to your friends.
Where to Go from Here
If you’re a complete beginner, I suggest you read the book’s parts in the order I present them. If you haven’t used InDesign before but you have used other layout programs, do read Part I first to get in the InDesign frame of mind and then explore other parts in any order you want. If you have used InDesign before, peruse them in any order you want, to see what’s changed.
As you gain comfort with InDesign, you’ll be surprised how much you can do with it. And when you’re ready to discover more, take advantage of the wealth of resources out there to go the next level. The InDesignCentral Web site (www.InDesignCentral.com) can help you do that.