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Making Sense of Indesign: A Reference Guide For Using Toolbox Tools, Pulldown Menus and Side Menus

This document provides a summary of the various tools, menus, and options available in InDesign for formatting and manipulating text and objects. It outlines the functions of the selection, direct selection, type, line, rectangle frame, hand, and zoom tools in the toolbox. It also describes the object formatting, character, and paragraph palettes for adjusting properties of selected text or objects. Finally, it mentions the paragraph and character style side menus for applying predefined styles.

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JakeASherlock
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331 views

Making Sense of Indesign: A Reference Guide For Using Toolbox Tools, Pulldown Menus and Side Menus

This document provides a summary of the various tools, menus, and options available in InDesign for formatting and manipulating text and objects. It outlines the functions of the selection, direct selection, type, line, rectangle frame, hand, and zoom tools in the toolbox. It also describes the object formatting, character, and paragraph palettes for adjusting properties of selected text or objects. Finally, it mentions the paragraph and character style side menus for applying predefined styles.

Uploaded by

JakeASherlock
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A reference guide for using toolbox tools, pulldown menus and side menus

Making sense of InDesign

Toolbox Tools

The selection tool


Use this to select a box, guide or line you have drawn. This selects the box itself, not whats inside it. You can then move what youve selected by holding the mouse button and dragging the item to its new position. You can also use this tool to select several objects at once by drawing a marquee around all of them. Or you can hold down shift while clicking on them one at a time.

Toolbox Tools

The direct selection tool


This selects whats inside a box, like a photo or a graphic. You can use it to move the image around inside the frame or make the image bigger or smaller inside the frame by changing the percentages in the Control palette.

Toolbox Tools

The type tool


This tool functions in two basic ways: You can use it to draw a box to contain text, or you can use it to click in any existing box and type. To create a text frame, place the text cursor wherever you want the upper left corner to be, then drag diagonally to the size you want. To type in a box, just click in it and a cursor will appear.

Toolbox Tools

The line tool


This is the tool you will use to draw a line; it will be of most use to you in drawing rules to set off a centerpiece package. You can draw the rules horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Hold down shift while dragging the mouse to keep the line straight.

Toolbox Tools

Rectangle frame tool


This will draw a box into which an image can be imported. It draws boxes just like the text tool does place the cursor wherever you want the upper left corner to be, then drag diagonally to the size you want.

Toolbox Tools

The hand tool


Use this to move around quickly in your document. After selecting this tool, just click and drag to grab areas of the page and move it around. You can also get this tool without leaving the one you already have selected by holding down the spacebar. But be careful if your type tool is selected and you have an active cursor in a text box, you wont get the hand tool. But you will get a few extra spaces in your text.

Toolbox Tools

The zoom tool


Use to zoom in or out on specific areas. Just click on the area you want to see closer to zoom in. Hold down Alt while clicking to zoom out. Other helpful zooming options: Apple and plus key ... Zoom in Apple and minus key ... Zoom out Apple and zero key ... Full frame view

Toolbox Tools

The fill and stroke tool


This is what to use if you want to make a box you have drawn filled with a particular color or if you want to put a border on it (or both). The square on the left is the fill square; it shows the color inside your box. Generally, you will have a red slash through it, which signifies there is no fill color. The square on the right is the stroke square; this is what you use to put a border on something. It can also have no color, or you can just click on the little black square underneath them to give it a black border. Click the appropriate square to work on either fill or stroke. Whichever one is displayed in front in the Toolbox is the one youre working with.

Toolbox Tools

Regular and full screen views


Regular view shows all guides and frame edges. Full screen preview pane will show without guides, frames or anything outside the page layout. Helpful shortcut: You can toggle between regular and full screen views by simply pressing the W key. THERE IS ONE EXCEPTION: If you are using the type tool, the W key will type a W. Because sometimes a W is just a W...

pulldown menus

Object formatting
This is the palette you get when you have a frame selected

1. X and Y coordinates use to place an item in a particular spot or move it a certain amount of space. You can also type formulas into these boxes, which is handy if you know you want to move something a specific amount of space. 2. Width and height coordinates Type measurement in these boxes to adjust the size of any box selected. You can also type formulas into these boxes. For instance, if you know that your box needs to be wider by 2 picas, simply type +2 after the measurement in the box. 3. Rule type/weight Here you can adjust the type of rule you have (single or double line, etc.), as well as how many points wide it is. 4. Columns This is the icon that looks like a square with bars on it. Select the number of columns a box has by changing the number in this box.

pulldown menus

Character palette
This is 1 of 2 palettes that will be available only when you have text selected

2 3 4

1. Character palette It is accessed by clicking on the A icon on the left side of the Control toolbar. 2. Typeface and style This is where you select your typefaces and whether they are regular, italic, bold, etc. The top box is for selecting the typeface, the bottom is for the varieties available within the typeface you have selected. 3. Size and Leading Select the point size of your text and change the vertical spacing between lines. 4. All Caps The icon that says TT will put whatever text you have selected in all caps. The one below it will create small caps. 5. Tracking This will squeeze letters together in whatever text you have selected. Just clicking the arrow adjusts tracking in increments of 10. Type in amounts that arent multiples of 10.

pulldown menus

Paragraph palette
Second of 2 palettes that will be available only when you have text selected

1 2

1. Paragraph palette It is accessed by clicking on the paragraph symbol on the left side of the Control toolbar. If you look carefully at the little icon by each box, you can tell what its function is. 2. Justification There are six icons displaying options for text justification. They look like what they are ragged right, centered, etc. 3. Drop caps There are two icons for this, one to adjust how many lines deep the drop cap will be and one to make it just one letter or more than one. 4. Space After Return This adds vertical space after a paragraph. In this example, 2 picas of space would be added after each hard return. This is most useful for making columns of text line up at the bottom of a package. 5. Columns Also available here, as on the objects palette.

side menus

Paragraph and character styles

Paragraph styles Use this menu to format text into a particular style. Paragraph styles will format all text between hard returns, regardless of what text you have selected with your mouse.

Character styles Use this menu to format text into a particular character style. The difference between these two menus is that character styles only affect text you have selected with your mouse.

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