Overview

InDesign is a layout software built on a grid, images, and typography. It is not built for experimentation, but rather for a final printed product, though it is capable of wireframes and placeholder text. It is important to speak to your printer before setting up specific formats and options on your InDesign file, as many printers would like specific additions like crop marks, inside bleed, and registration markers.

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The Basic Rules

1. Try your best not to break links
2. Everything is built on a grid system
3. Do your image groundwork and sizing in Photoshop
4. Everything starts on the right side
5. Try your best not to scale up or down
6. Printer colors are duller than web
7. Always save constantly, InDesign is very hard to recover files from
8. Always speak to the printers about your project and what settings you should use

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Notes

• Important
  • The option or control bar at the very top
  • Pages Panel

• The Process
  • Know what you want your final product to look like
  • Create roughs and mockups
  • Gather your images and text
  • Open InDesign

• Booklets
  • Minimum of eight pages
  • Always in multiples of four

• Color and Resolution

	Print	Web	Digital
Resolution	300 DPI	72 DPI	240 DPI
Color Mode	CMYK	RGB

• Margins and Columns
  • Create guides
    • Movable
    • Lockable
  • Set margins and columns
    • Includes gutters
    • Enter them when you open InDesign
    • Can access them through the margins and columns options

• Bleed and Slug
  • Bleed is used so the image extends to the edge of the page
  • Some printers ask for the inside bleed to be turned off because it messes with the image
  • Slug is where you put notes for specifics like color and cutting

• The Grid
  • Show document grid for the more extensive squares
  • Go into preferences to change the grid scale and size
  • Snap to grid for exact placement

• Images
  • ALWAYS link and file and place
  • If you adjust the aspect ratio, you can fill the frame proportionally
  • You can .indd files into .indd files

• Letters and Letterpress Terminology
  • Underline options
    • Drop down menu on the right hand side of the type option panel
  • Leading
    • Space between lines of text
  • Tracking
    • Justification and changing the space between all letters
  • Kearning
    • The spacing between individual letters
  • Useful for fonts like script
    • Try two or three letters at a time
    • To change letter kearning
      • Shift and any keys to select
      • Alt and left and right keys to change spacing
• Exporting
  • Check printing marks
  • InDesign is set to American standards
  • PDFX – 2001
  • Save as pages
  • Use document bleed settings
  • Uncoated FOGRA29

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Terminology

• Furniture
  • The constant grid for elements like headers and page numbers which are present on every page
  • Can be placed on Master Pages
• DPI
  • Dots per inch
  • Dots are a little smaller than pixels

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Standard Dimensions

• Bleed is usually 3 mm
• A4 is 210mm x 297mm (and multiples)
• Margins are usually 12.7 mm
• Gutter 4.233 mm
• You can save your own document presets

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Shortcuts

• Control 0 -> Fit to Screen
• Control D -> Place Image
• Shift alt is scale proportionally from middle
• If you go to the font family drop down menu, and use your arrow keys, it updates your text in real time so you can see what it looks like

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Comments

• Everything starts from the right, but is it the same in other languages and countries?

Classwork