InDesign for the In-House Designer

Course details

Increasingly, companies are shifting from using external design firms to bringing design in-house. The truth is, no one knows the client better than the people that work there, and this gives in-house designers a tremendous advantage. However, in-house designers need to be sure they're in tune with their colleagues, and that everyone is using the same methods and up-to-date assets. In this course Claudia McCue walks you through the best practices for a smooth InDesign workflow. Learn how to set up your workspace, documents, and templates for maximum efficiency; how to import and format text; how to store the assets you use over and over again in Creative Cloud Libraries, and how to create shareable swatches. Plus, discover how to format tables and build an automatic table of contents that takes just one click to create and one click to update. Claudia also shows how to export your work to PDF for review or web distribution, and how to prepare files for sending to a commercial printer.

Learning objectives
Creating a workspace
Setting up your document
Using master pages
Importing and formatting text
Creating paragraph and character styles
Scaling, rotating, and transforming graphics
Adding color with swatches
Adding content to tables
Storing assets in InDesign Libraries and CC Libraries
Saving and using a template
Creating an automatic TOC
Exporting to PDF
Preparing for printing

Concepts

Introduction

About this course
Using the exercise files
About fonts

The InDesign Environment and Interface

Setting preferences
Exploring the interface
Creating a workspace
Automatic document recovery and multiple undo

Document Setup

Exploring the New Document dialog
Facing vs. non-facing pages
Setting up margins and columns
How master pages work
Setting up master pages

Text

Creating text frames
Importing text
Using Find Change and spell-check
Using text wrap
Setting up tabs and split columns
Creating paragraph styles
Creating character styles
Creating nested and next paragraph styles
Creating bulleted and numbered lists
Paragraph rules and shading
Underline and strikethrough effects
Text on a path

Importing and Transforming Graphics

Graphic formats
Importing graphics - Three methods
Aligning and transforming frames
Scaling and rotating graphics
Managing graphics links
Creating image grids
Modifying graphics frames
Anchored frames
Object Layer options
Creating custom stroke styles
Adding drop shadows

Adding Color - Creating Swatches

Choosing between RGB, CMYK, or spot color spaces
Creating a new swatch
Creating tints
Creating gradients
Mixed ink swatches
Importing and exporting swatches

Tables

Table basics
Importing from Excel
Headers and footers
Rearranging rows and columns
Table and cell styles
Adding graphics to tables

InDesign Libraries

Comparing InDesign Libraries and CC Libraries
Storing assets in InDesign Libraries
Storing assets in CC Libraries
Sharing CC Libraries

Creating a Template

Advantages of templates
Saving and using a template

Long Document Features

Creating an automatic table of contents
Using a book file to consolidate multiple documents

Printing and PDFs

Differences between in-house and commercial printing requirements
Preflighting and packaging your project
Exporting to PDF for online or email viewing
Exporting to PDF for commercial print
Creating packaging

Conclusion

What I hope you ve learned
Next steps