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

0. Introduction

01 - About this course
02 - Using the exercise files
03 - About fonts

1. The InDesign Environment and Interface

04 - Setting preferences
05 - Exploring the interface
06 - Creating a workspace
07 - Automatic document recovery and multiple undo

2. Document Setup

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

3. Text

13 - Creating text frames
14 - Importing text
15 - Using Find Change and spell-check
16 - Using text wrap
17 - Setting up tabs and split columns
18 - Creating paragraph styles
19 - Creating character styles
20 - Creating nested and next paragraph styles
21 - Creating bulleted and numbered lists
22 - Paragraph rules and shading
23 - Underline and strikethrough effects
24 - Text on a path

4. Importing and Transforming Graphics

25 - Graphic formats
26 - Importing graphics - Three methods
27 - Aligning and transforming frames
28 - Scaling and rotating graphics
29 - Managing graphics links
30 - Creating image grids
31 - Modifying graphics frames
32 - Anchored frames
33 - Object Layer options
34 - Creating custom stroke styles
35 - Adding drop shadows

5. Adding Color - Creating Swatches

36 - Choosing between RGB, CMYK, or spot color spaces
37 - Creating a new swatch
38 - Creating tints
39 - Creating gradients
40 - Mixed ink swatches
41 - Importing and exporting swatches

6. Tables

42 - Table basics
43 - Importing from Excel
44 - Headers and footers
45 - Rearranging rows and columns
46 - Table and cell styles
47 - Adding graphics to tables

7. InDesign Libraries

48 - Comparing InDesign Libraries and CC Libraries
49 - Storing assets in InDesign Libraries
50 - Storing assets in CC Libraries
51 - Sharing CC Libraries

8. Creating a Template

52 - Advantages of templates
53 - Saving and using a template

9. Long Document Features

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

10. Printing and PDFs

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

Conclusion

61 - What I hope you ve learned
62 - Next steps