Adobe InDesign

Explore the InDesign Workspace
• The document window is where you work.
• The pasteboard is where you store objects for
later use in your document.
• Objects on the pasteboard do not print but
are saved with the file.

Explore the InDesign Workspace

Rulers Margin
guides
Ruler
guide
Frame
edges
View and Modify Page Elements

Frames are shapes that you fill with
color, text, or graphics.
You can opt to hide or show frame
edges.
If you show frame edges, they will be
highlighted when a frame is selected.
View and Modify Page Elements

View and Modify Page Elements
Screen modes are options for viewing your documents.
In Normal mode, you can see all page elements, including
margin guides, ruler guides, frame edges, and the
pasteboard.
Preview mode shows what your page looks like with all
non-printing elements removed.
Presentation mode presents your document full screen
against a black background.

Navigate Presentation Modes

Preferences
Select to open
documents as tabs
in Interface preferences

Double-click
page icon to view
page
Double-click
page numbers to view
spread in window
Navigate Through a Document
• Create multi-page
documents, such as
magazines.
• Left and right pages that
face each other are called
spreads.
• Navigate through spreads
by clicking the page icons
on the Pages panel.
• You can apply color labels
to thumbnails in the Pages
panel - Color labels are
useful for organization
and collaboration

• Objects are text or
graphic elements,
such as images or
blocks of color or
lines, that are placed
in a document.
• Objects have frames,
and frames have
handles that you click
and drag to affect
how the frame and
contents look.
Work with Objects and Smart Guides

Objects
Hide objects and they won’t print.
Lock objects to make them
immovable.
Group objects to protect relationships
between multiple objects.

Smart Guides
If activated, smart guides
appear automatically when you
move objects in the document.
Smart guides give you visual
clues to position objects
precisely.

Smart guides align
the top edges of
two objects
Work with Objects and Smart Guides

Format Text
Use the Character
panel to:
• Modify leading
• Track and kern text
• Apply horizontal or
vertical scale
• Perform baseline shift
• Skew text

Spacing
Leading is the vertical space between lines of text,
measured from the baseline of one line of text to the next
Baseline is the imaginary line on which text sits.
Kerning means to increase or decrease the space between
a pair of characters.
Tracking is like kerning but it is applied to an entire word,
sentence or paragraph.

Example of a
superscript
Superscript
• Superscript characters
are small characters
positioned to the
upper-right of a word.
• A footnote is a
superscript.
• Subscript characters
rest below the word.

Rules
You can underline text and create
horizontal, vertical, or diagonal
lines, which are called rules.
You can scale text horizontally and
vertically to add dimension to the
font size you’ve chosen for your
text.

Format Paragraphs
• The Paragraph
panel is the
command center
for modifying
paragraphs or
blocks of text
also known as
body copy.
• The Paragraph
panel controls
text alignment,
indents, space
before and after
paragraphs and
drop shadows.

Format Paragraphs
A drop cap is a design element in which the first letter or
letters of a paragraph are increased in size to create a
visual effect.
A pull quote is a paragraph in which both the left and
right indents are larger than the other paragraphs in the
same document.
Widows and orphans are words or single lines of text that
become separated from the other lines in a paragraph.
Orphans are left alone at the bottom and widows at the
top of a page. Use the Paragraph panel to manage widows
and orphans.

Returns
A paragraph return, also called a
hard return, moves text down
and creates a new paragraph.
A soft return moves words down
to the next baseline but does not
create a new paragraph.

Styles
• A style is a group of formatting attributes, such as
font, font size, color, and tracking, that you can apply
to text.
• Using styles saves time and keeps a consistent look in
a document.

Using Styling
Use the Character Styles panel to create styles for individual words
or characters, such as a footnote.
Use the Paragraph Styles panel to apply a style, such as indents and
drop caps, to a paragraph.
You can make formatting choices or changes to a style in the New
Character Style dialog box or the New Paragraph Style dialog box.
You can set up which style you want to use in the Paragraph Styles
panel.
You can use the Quick Apply button on the Control panel to access
character and paragraph styles easily.

Set
options for
styles in
the New
Character
Style
dialog box
Create and Apply Styles

Glyphs
• Type characters that you won’t find on your
keyboard—characters such as trademark and
registration mark signs, arrows, cent signs,
boxes, and so forth
• Click Type on the Menu bar, then click Glyphs
to display the Glyphs panel.
• Click the document window with the Type
tool, then double-click the glyph on the
Glyphs panel that you wish to insert.

Type what you want to find
Type what you want to change it to
Find and Replace
• Use the
Find/Change
command to find
text in a document
and change it to
something else.

Misspelled word
Suggestions
Spelling
– Use the Check Spelling
dialog box to find and
replace misspelled words.
– Use Dynamic Spelling to
allow InDesign to
underline words that are
misspelled.
– Use Autocorrect to allow
InDesign to correct
misspelled words.

Bulleted and Numbered Lists
• Select a bulleted or
numbered list to change
its formatting.
• Use bulleted and
numbered lists to
organize information.
• Each item in a bulleted
list is a paragraph.