Adobe InDesign Beginner Tutorial
Adobe InDesign Beginner Tutorial
Adobe InDesign
Creative Cloud
Beginning Layout
and Design
November, 2013
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General guidelines
InDesign creates links to media rather than copies so
-Keep all text and graphics in one folder
-Save the InDesign document to the same folder
-When working as a group or moving computers make sure to send the entire folder of content
-Make sure to save often!
Setting Workspace/Panels
Go to Window/Workspace and select
Essentials to change the workspace
to the default toolsets
Panels
Tools
Formatting
Navigating
You can change the zoom percentage from the upper
right hand corner of the formatting window
Select the Hand Tool from the toolbar
Click and drag using the hand tool to view parts of the
page or use the scroll bars along the side and bottom
Placing Text
Placing Graphics
DO NOT DO COPY AND PASTE!
InDesign can place almost any graphic file, including
other Adobe files (PDFs, Photoshop files, etc.)
Go to File/Place
Locate usc_wallisannenberghall.png to place and
click Open
Click and drag a frame below the text
The image will automatically scale to fit the frame
that you created. The percentage scaled is in a gray
box, visible when dragging the frame
Text Wrapping
To have text flow around an image
Go to Window/Text Wrap
Text wrap panel appears
Select the image you want to wrap
text around
Select Wrap around bounding box
in the Text Wrap panel
Click and drag to move the image
into a body of text
Notice the text wrap around the
image
Remember to check for any hidden
text (red box in the lower right hand
corner of the frame), since when adding an image, you may have run out
of room for text
If necessary, expand the text box
Multi-Page Documents
All pages in a multi-page document are listed
under Pages panel
Double click on page to jump to that page
Add a page
Select the Create new page button at the bottom of the panel
To delete a page
Select the page and then click the Delete selected pages in the bottom of the panel
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Adding Shapes
Select the Rectangle Tool from
tools
Click and drag to create a box
around the outside of the graph
Click on it once to active the frame
and make any necessary adjustments
Then grab and drag any of boxes/
handles along the edges to change
the size of the box
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Changing Colors
With the box selected, click the Fill button at the bottom
left of the tools bar
Double click to open the open the Color Picker
Use the cursor to select a color then click OK to apply
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Adjusting Layering
The red box is now on top of the graphic so lets move
it behind the graph
Select the red box by clicking once
Go to Object/Arrange/Send to Back
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Interactivity
Go to Window/Workspace and select Interactive for
PDF to change the workspace
Note: Most interactive features dont show up in
InDesign until you export to a PDF
Hyperlinks
Double click into the For more information... textbox
and highlight the URL
Copy the text by going to Edit/Copy
Click on the Hyperlinks panel
From the bottom of the panel, select the little page icon
Create a new hyperlink
From the drop down menu select URL
Type (or paste) the URL http://wallisannenberghall.
uscannenberg.org
Click OK
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Exporting
As an Adobe PDF File
First put it in to preview mode (View/Screen Mode/Preview) to make sure everything looks correct
Go to File/Export
Name the file Wallis Annenberg Hall
Under Format select Adobe PDF (Print)
Under Adobe PDF Preset select
[High Quality Print]
If you used hyperlinks, make sure to select
Hyperlinks from the Include section at the
bottom left or the export dialog
Press Export
Locate the PDF file and open to double check
the final document
From this PDF file, you can print to a printer
or upload to a website
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