Layout and design

Page Management

Page management is important if you are dealing with a document having multiple pages. InDesign provides a lot of easy ways to insert, remove, or duplicate pages. Most of these functions are accessed from the Pages menu under the Layout main menu. However, we will use the Pages panel in the Panel Bar as it is much easier.

The Pages Panel

Click on Window Menu > page (F12)

We see that this document has two pages in two spreads. Clicking the Pages button on the Panel Bar opens the flyout showing various options that are possible with this document. Let us explore some of the options available in this panel.

The bottom of the Pages panel has three buttons. The first button is called Edit page size. This lets you change the dimensions of the page, say from A4 to US Letter or A3. The second button is called Create a new page. This allows you to create a page right next to the page currently selected in the Pages panel. The third button is called Delete selected pages and allows you to delete the selected pages.

You can create pages and re-arrange them simply by dragging and dropping them as desired within the Pages panel. You can also select multiple pages by pressing Ctrl key

Options in the Pages Panel

You can also make use of some more options to work with pages. Clicking the menu button on the Pages panel opens up a menu, which allows you to have more control over page management.

If you want to insert more than 1 page in the document, click the Insert Pages… command in the menu. This opens up a dialog box wherein you can specify exactly how many pages you want to insert and where you want them to be inserted and right click ok page icon from page pannel.

Say, for example, you want to insert a page after page number 2, specify them in this box to insert the page. You can also choose to insert the pages before, after, at the start, or at the end of the document.

If you want to move a page after a particular page number, you can use the Move Pages… command in the same menu. You can specify the page number that you want to move and the page number that you want to either move after, before, or at the start or end of the document. Of course, you can also click and drag the pages to the desired position.

A neat feature is that you can also move pages from one open document to other.

Change The Page Dimensions

Go to File menu
Click on Document Setup
You can specify your new Width and Height values here
Do keep in mind that all the pages in the document will be affected by this.

Change The Single Page Dimensions

Select the required page from page panel (F12)
Click on edit page size from bottom of page panel
Click on custom, Custom page size dialogue box appear,
Now, you can specify your new dimension here,

Master Pages

A master page, like the name suggests, defines the overall layout of the document. Any changes to the size or number of pages on the master page affect the whole document. You can have any number of master pages, but the first master is called the A-Master. There is also a None master page which is devoid of the schema of the other master pages.

Master pages are very essential when working with books or magazines where the content flows from one page to the other.

Clicking the Pages panel opens the flyout where you can select the A-Master and None master pages. Double-clicking on the A-Master opens the two-page spread master page which is basically blank. Notice that the individual pages in the panel show an A symbol. That means that the A-Master master page is applied to them.

You can specify items on the master page such as header, footer, page numbers, or design layouts that would apply to all the other pages to which this master page is applied.

Don’t want a master page element on any of your subsequent pages? No problem. Simply drag the None master page in the Pages panel onto your desired page to remove any master page defined layouts.

Creating Page Numbers (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N)

Creating page numbers in InDesign is easy. Since you would want the page numbers to appear on every page, you need to specify the location of page numbers in the master page.

Open the master page,
Select a location for the display of your page numbers.
Draw a text bar by clicking the Type icon in the toolbar and dragging the textbox to the bottom of the page.
Go to the Type menu,
Go to Insert Special Character,
Select Current Page Number.

This will insert a symbol A in the textbox referring to the master page, A.

The key thing to remember is, you don’t enter any actual numbers here. What you do is, tell InDesign that you want page numbers to appear in that position.

Now, when you check the other document pages, you will have the page numbers at the exact position and with the same formatting you’ve specified in the master page.

Creating Different type of page number

Segregate the document into sections to specify different types of page numbers for different types of content. For example, if you’re creating a book, you might want to specify the beginning chapters such as Acknowledgements and Preface in Roman numerals, while the actual chapters have normal numbers.

To do this, you need to create “sections” of the document to tell InDesign that the numbering of each section is different. The section and numbering options can be accessed from the menu of the Pages panel.

Click on a required page from where you have to change page number
Click on layout menu or (Click on page panel menu )
Click on Numbering and Section Options, it will open a dialog box wherein you can specify the starting page number for the page that you’ve selected.
You can also choose the style of numbering. The pages will follow the numbering system that you have chosen until you select another page and repeat the same process.
The new section will start from the newly selected page and this time you can select another page numbering scheme.

Generate a table of contents

Go to Layout menu> Table Of Contents.
In the Title box, type a title for your TOC
Determine which content you want to include in the table of contents by double-clicking paragraph styles in the Other Styles list to add them to the Include Paragraph Styles list.
Click OK.
Click or drag the loaded text cursor on a page to place the new table of contents story.

Converting Shape Into A Text Frame

You can use the Type tool to create a text frame in which you can write the text. This frame can be adjusted on the fly or even later.
Draw the shape on to the document
Select the Type tool from the toolbar and click inside the shape.
Note that the cursor changes indicating that the shape is now being converted into a text frame. You can enter text into the shape.

Placing a Word Document as a Text Frame

It is possible to directly place a Word document as a text frame within an InDesign document.
Go to the File menu
Click on Place, This opens the Place dialog box.
Select any Word, RTF or text document that you want to insert into the document.
InDesign will analyze the document and show you a cursor with the text attached which you can click on a desired area to directly place on the document or drag the cursor to place it in a desired frame size.

Note: that some formatting changes might occur when you place the Word document.

Note: The Place command places the document within the defined text frame even if it contains many pages. If your document has multiple pages of text and you want everything to be imported into InDesign, press and hold the Shift key while using the Place command. You will notice that all the required pages are populated with your imported content.

Story Editor

InDesign has an effective feature that allows you to edit text without any distractions or the need to zoom in and zoom out of text frames. This feature is called the Story Editor. The Story Editor presents an easy to read, alternative layout for editing text.

Select text frame
Click on Edit menu
Click on Edit in Story Editor (Ctrl + Y)

Default Setting of Story Editor

Go to Edit menu
Click on preferences
Click on Story Editor Display
In this section, you can change the font, line spacing, text color, background, and the theme.

Note: The changes are limited only to the Story Editor window and will not affect the font in the actual text frame.

Changes made in the Story Editor reflect immediately in the text frame. The Story Editor also shows the entire text even if the actual text frame has only limited text in it.

Word Counting

Select the required text frame
Go to the window menu, Click on Info or press F8

The Info panel shows precisely the number of words and characters selected and can be very useful when working with large amounts of text.

Spell checking

Spell checking is often an important part of making the document look professional and error-free. Just like your regular word processor, InDesign also has integrated spell-checking capabilities with a few tricks up its sleeve.

Go to the Edit menu,
Select Spelling and click on Check Spelling or simply press Ctrl + I

The Check Spelling dialog box scans the entire document and lists all the potential corrections for a wrongly spelled word. You can either explore the corrections or skip the word or if you know it to be correct, you can add the word to the dictionary.

InDesign also has a feature called Dynamic Spelling, which shows all the miss-pelt words as you type. You can enable this by going to

Go to Edit menu
Click on preferences
Click on spelling
Click on Dynamic Spelling check box.

Sometimes, you might need to use words from a different language to enhance the vocabulary, which InDesign might interpret as a mistake. For example, something like Merci, which means thanks in French. Fortunately, you can tell InDesign that this is a different language by first selecting the word, then going to the Control Panel on the top and selecting the desired language.

Find/Change

Find/Change is one of those functions that is simple but extremely powerful. As the name suggests, the Find/Change function lets you find your query and change to something else. You can find and change literally anything – even obscure stuff such as finding multiple spaces and converting them to a single space or even changing frames from one type to the other.

You can find your search using these options to locked layers, hidden objects, footnotes, or even master pages. You can also limit your search to case sensitive words or search only for specific words.

Go to edit menu
Click on Find/Change (Ctrl +F)

Import images

InDesign offers more than a few ways to import images into your document. You can copy paste between image programs and InDesign but it is better to use the Place function instead, which offers more flexibility.

Go to file menu
Click on Place (Ctrl + D)
Select the image or images you want.
Then click anywhere inside the document where you want to insert the image or drag the frame to insert the image within the frame dimensions.
Note, that the aspect ratio is maintained while dragging the frame.
You can directly drop an image into a frame, like a shaped frame,

Place multiple images

Press Ctrl +D
Select the required number of images and click Open
Holding down the left mouse button, draw a frame and press the Up Arrow key to create a vertical stack or the Right Arrow key to create a column. You can keep doing this till you are able to accommodate all your objects together.
When you leave the mouse button, all the images will be stacked in the columns you have chosen.

How to print thumbnail of an album?

Select rectangle frame tool
Select an area to create a thumbnail, don’t release mouse
Press up/down/right/left arrow to make a required grid to thumbnail
Press Ctrl + D, select required pictures
Click on open
All pictures will have attached on cursor
You can change your picture order by pressing up/down/right/left arrow
Now click on previously created rectangle grids one by one
Select all rectangle frames
Click on, fill frame proportionately (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C) from ribbon bar or
Ctrl + D, select all pictures, click on open
Click and drag to create an area, don’t release mouse
Press up, down, right, left arrow to create thumbnail area
Release mouse, your thumbnail is ready

Links

Whenever you import or place an image or object into InDesign, you are not actually placing the entire object or image but only a reference to it. InDesign assumes that the original image or object is located separately on the disk. In most cases, you can just press Update Links and InDesign will update any references of the modified links provided you have them. It cannot, however, update the missing links – that has to be done by ourselves.

However, if you want to know which are the exact objects that have gone missing or modified, you need to use the Links panel.

We’ve seen earlier that InDesign does not directly import images but only places the links in that document. This enables a lot of flexibility when it comes to editing images. When you choose Edit original, InDesign opens the image in an image editor. Just make the required changes, save and close the image editor and the changes will instantly reflect in your document because it is linked. No need to even relink the images.

Go to the window, click on links (Ctrl + Shift + D)
List of an image appears on a panel
Select required image, and click on the middle icon (go to link) on the bottom
It jumps to the selected image on its corresponding page number.

Edit original image

Select required image from link panel
Click on pencil icon (edit original)
It open on another picture editor/viewer program (which is your computer by default picture editor, like Picasa, window photo viewer, ..)
Update link for modified same picture
Relink for changing picture

Link information

Just below panel of link panel
Which shows the complete information about selected picture
We can customize our information list (show/hide)
Go to link panel
Click on menu icon, top right corner
Click on panel options, panel option dialog box appears
There are several lists, which you can choose in which panel you have to show and hide
Show column is for show/ hide on link panel
Show in link info is for show/hide on link info panel

Fit content to frame

If your placed picture and its frame is not equal, you have to fit it.

Select picture, go to object
Click on fitting or
Select picture, right click on it
Click on fitting
Select the required fitting

The Fill Frame Proportionally command adjusts the image in the frame so that it fills the frame completely. However, this can result in some of the image being cropped off as shown in the following example.

The Fit Content Proportionally command fills the whole content within the frame without cropping the image.

Fit Frame to Content changes the frame size with respect to the size of the image.

Fit Content to Frame scales the image to fit in the frame. However, use this only when needed as the scaling can be disproportionate.

Centre Content centers the image within the frame.

QR Codes

QR codes are square blocks of graphical code that contain embedded information. QR codes are being increasingly used to condense all information into a single image. The QR code can contain an URL or product information or contact details.

QR codes can be read by smartphone cameras and a QR reader app. InDesign allows for the creation of QR codes to contain virtually any information. It is most useful if you have contact details for a brochure and want to insert a QR code so that smartphone users can easily look up your information without having to enter it.

Go to the Object menu
Select Generate QR Code.

This will open a dialog box where you can enter the information you want to generate a code.

You can select the type of QR code you want. It can be a website, plain text, email message or even a business card.

You can also change the color of the code to your liking. When you click OK, you will get a cursor similar to placing an image frame. Just drag it to the desired size to insert the code.

You can also place QR codes in existing frames.

Selection Tools

There are two types of selection tools in InDesign. The commonly used Selection tool(black arrow selection tool) and the Direct Selection tool.

You can perform a selection either by selection and drawing along the document to select desired frames or simply press Ctrl+A to select everything. You will notice that the selection shows some frames in red and some in blue and even green. These indicate that these frames are in different layers which you will notice if you have the Layers panel open. The Direct Selection tool allows you to select a single point on a path and move just one point.

Applying Fill and Stroke Colors

First, make sure the object is selected.

Go to the Control Panel on the top and click the arrow next to the Fill function. The button directly below Fill is the Stroke.

You can select the available colors from here or create your own custom color value using RGB, CMYK, or any of the many available color profiles.

Now, if you want to change the stroke of the object, simply select the Stroke and click on required color.

Coloring Imported Images

You can add color to images just like you add to objects. However, there are a few caveats to keep in mind. This works only with raster images (such as Photoshop images, JPEGs, TIFFs, etc.) and not with vector art (such as Illustrator).

The image should be saved in grayscale with no transparency.

Import any image using the Place command and either draw a frame or insert it into an existing frame. You should double-click within the frame to select the image, otherwise whatever color you choose will apply to the frame but not to the image itself.

Then go to the Swatches panel, make sure the foreground fill is selected and select the desired color to be applied. You can also reduce or increase the intensity of the color by adjusting the Tint value in the Swatches panel.

Applying Transparency to Objects

It is easy to add transparency to objects in InDesign. You can add transparency to images, text, or any other object. You can even change the transparencies of the fill and stroke.

Select the object that you want to apply the transparency effect to. Remember to click inside the frame if you want to apply the effect to the image or text. Otherwise, the effect will be applied to the frame.

Now, go to the Effects panel and adjust the opacity value to get the desired effect.

Drop Shadows

Drop shadows are a great way to make an object stand out and can give a sense of depth to the object. However, care must be taken not to overuse them else, the document can look too gaudy.

There are two ways to implement drop shadows in InDesign.

Using the Default Drop Shadow Function

There is a direct and easy way to create a drop shadow in InDesign. Just go to the Control Panel and click the Drop Shadow icon. This will instantly create a drop shadow for the object under selection.

You will see that a drop shadow has been applied to the image. If you notice carefully, there is a fx written beside the object in the Effects panel.

You can double-click the fx icon to gain more control over the drop shadow which we will see next. Hovering over the fx icon gives a tooltip that tells you the effect applied to the object.

More Drop Shadow Settings

Double-clicking the fx icon opens up a dialog box to further fine tune the shadow characteristics.
Here, you can change various parameters such as the spread, angle, and offset of the shadow. You can also add a custom color to the shadow.
It is always a good idea to add some noise to the shadow (about 3-5%) to make it look more natural.
InDesign allows you to add a whole range of effects to objects in your document. For this example, we will look at some text effects such as Bevel and Emboss.
Remember that you, cannot apply effects to individual letters in the text but only to the entire text frame.
You can play around with some of the other effects such as Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, etc, to create just the right effect on the objects in your document. You can also apply multiple effects to the same object.

Text formatting using the eyedropper tool

Select eyedropper tool from the tools panel
Click on a formatted text which you have to apply on other text
Now, cursor tilted to left, Eyedropper which showed an empty icon, now shows a partially filled one.
You can now take this partially filled Eyedropper and apply it on to any text or image.
Select the text by click and dragging cursor which you have to format the same
After releasing cursor text will be formatted the same as before

Creating Text Outlines

Select text using the Selection tool
Go to the Type menu
Select Create Outlines. (Ctrl + Shift + O)
This will create an outline path of the selected text,
You can selectively add effects to it such as transparency or drop shadows or just fill these outlines with an image or color to enhance the effect.

Creating a New Layer

Go to the window menu, Click on layers (F7)
Clicking the Layers panel will reveal the layers in the document.
You can create a new layer by clicking the Create New Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel, which will directly create a new layer or you can also hold down the Alt key and click on Create New Layer to get the New Layer dialog box.
Each layer is color-coded and has an active square beside its name. That square is an indication that elements of that layer are being worked on currently.
You can click and drag the square to another layer, which will reveal items belonging to that layer
Clicking the eyeball icon in front of the layer name will hide or reveal the layer.
Clicking the box just beside the eyeball will lock the layer and prevent you from making edits to it.

Not to print objects from layer

Double-click on the layer in which the object is present to open the New Layer dialog box
Remove the check mark beside the Print Layer option.
This will show the layer on screen but will not print it on paper or when exported to PDF.

Layer Objects

Every layer is composed of objects which can be rearranged within the layer or even between the layers. Each object is given a name within a layer.
<rectangle> means the rectangular frame. Images if any, will be shown by their file names.
If there is some text within a text frame, the starting words of the text will be shown so as to easily identify it.
It is possible to rearrange these objects by simply clicking and dragging the object (for multiple objects select by holding Ctrl into the desired layer.
Sometimes, in a complex document, it can be difficult to keep track of what each
<rectangle> actually means. You can simply rename the object name by clicking once, pausing for a second and clicking again. This will enable you to rename the object to something more recognizable.

How to nest objects within frames.

Place an image (Ctrl + D)
Create polygon frames by selecting the Polygon tool from the tool-bar
Cut the background image by selecting it using the Selection tool and press Ctrl+X
Select each polygon and go to the Edit menu
Select Paste Into to paste the relevant parts of the image into a polygon.

Aligning Objects Using Alignment Guides

When you click and drag objects to position them with respect to other objects, you will see green lines which serve as alignment guides. You can use these green lines to guide you on positioning the object either with respect to the center of the reference object/frame or with respect to the edges of the surrounding object/frame.

Aligning Objects Using the Align Panel

Go to the Window menu
Click on Object and Layout
Click Align to open the Align panel. (Shift +F7)
The top row of the Align panel has options to align everything left, right, top, or bottom.
You can also use the Align panel to distribute objects within a given distance or align other objects with respect to a reference object or the key object.
You can also use Align to selection/Key object/Margins/Page/Spread

Create a book file

A book file is a collection of documents that can share styles, swatches, master pages, and other items. You can sequentially number pages in booked documents, print selected documents in a book, or export them to PDF. One document can belong to multiple book files.

Choose File > New > Book.
Type a name for the book, specify a location, and then click Save.
The Book panel appears. The book file is saved with the file name extension .indb.
Add documents to the book file.