How to use indesign
- 1. How to use InDesign? By: Sabah Babamiya
- 2. Click on the pages to edit the specific pages. Do not click on the A Master pages, as it will edit all the pages in the double page spread and it will make them all the same. This print screen shows how to open the document and how many columns, number of pages we need. Follow these steps to open new InDesign document double page spread when needed.
- 3. I got the pages to shuffle as I right clicked one of the pages and unclicked the allow to shuffle page. Then I dragged the page down so we could get the double page spread at the bottom. We have the front cover, then the contents page and then the double page spread. This print screen shows that I right clicked and then unclicked the ‘allow document pages to shuffle.’ This helped me move around the pages.
- 4. To get the text you click on the ‘T’ on the left hand side. You can types in any text you like. You can increase the size at the top of the page by clicking the ‘T’ at the top of the page and change the font at the top of the page. Clicking on paragraph formatting at the top of InDesign, will align all your text to fit the box. To change the colour of the text you click on the right hand side ‘swatches bar’ highlight the text and click on which ever colour you like. Then on the left hand side you can click on the stroke tool and once again change the border of text. By highlighting certain parts of the text you can change the text in different colours. You can even change the opacity of the colour in the swatches option. To change the opacity of the colour you have to click on ‘tint’ under the swatches section. It has a percentage next to it which tells you if the opacity is increasing or decreasing. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT IF U WANT TO CHANGE SIZE, COLOUR OR FONT.
- 5. Next, is the stand first. Comes right underneath the headline. You can change the font, size and align the text the same way that you have done for the headline. Remember to highlight the text before editing it or else it won’t work. Also by clicking on the paragraph formatting tool, you get an option which gets rid of hyphenate. Just unclick the box and the hyphenate will be gone. In the same text box, I have included a byline. This shows the audience who the article is written by. I have used the aligning tool at the top of the page to align my byline to the right hand side and I have change the colour and font. Next to insert the article you have to click on ‘type’ and then click on fill with placeholder text. This is just an example of how to fill the columns with text. To align the text to the columns you will need to click on the paragraph formatting tool and find the column arrows and click the upper arrow to three. It will put your text into three columns. If you have over flow text then at the bottom of the pages you will see a red dot which says error. To correct this you will have to make another text box on the other page. Then on the left hand side corner of the text box using the selection tool you will see a small square and click on the square it will give you a small text like scribbles once you see that then you can go back to the article and click on any part of the article and it will move the overflow text onto the new text box. Overflow text onto the new text box.
- 6. To create a drop cap, you firstly have to get the text tool and click on the first few lines of the text and then go to the paragraph formatting tool at the top of the screen and find the ‘drop cap number of lines’ tool and click the arrow pointing upwards and it will start increasing the first letter of your article bigger and bigger. DO NOT CLICK ON THE ‘DROP CAP ONE OR MORE CHARACTERS’ AS IT CHNAGES MULTIPLE CHARACTERS WHEREAS YOU ONLY WANT TO CHANGE THE FIRST LETTER. Click on this tool, to make the drop cap, not the one next to it.
- 7. To make the Grab quote, you can get highlight some text and then create a new text box on the page and paste the text in there. You can edit the text by changing colour size and font. Then use the selection tool to make the box smaller so it fits your text in there. You can then move the text box over the article and rotate it to your preference and click on ‘windows’ at the top and click on text wrap and then you can click on jump object and it will make the grab quote stand out more and the article text will flow around the quote. Or you can use the ‘wrap around object shape’ which wraps the text from the article around the quote.
- 8. To insert an image you have to go onto file and then go to ‘place’. Insert the image and click the corners to draw it out to the size that you want it. To resize image click on the move tools. You can move the text around it by using the text wrap tool the same way you did for the grab quote. To create a caption for the picture, you have to create a new text box and insert text into it. Now drag the new text box over the image and you will see that the text is not showing through. To make the text show on top of the image you will have to right click on the text box and find ‘text frame options’ click on it and click on the box that says ignore text wrap and click preview which shows you that the text is now on top of the text.
- 9. To get your masthead from your front cover, you will need to open up your front cover then open up a new document not forgetting the new document to have international paper and having a transparent background. Then click and drag your masthead onto the new document. Use the crop tool on the new document to crop out the rest of the background and just have the title. Once that is done save it as a Photoshop document. Then, on InDesign go onto file, place and then get the saved image and click and draw it out to how big you want it onto the page. To resize the image, on the keyboard click on shift, control and alt at the same time and click and widen or make your masthead smaller. You can even use the image corners to rotate your masthead. To change colour of background draw a rectangle around both pages then use the fill colour to add any colour you want. Then to get the text back on top of the background, you will have to right click and click arrange and click on send ‘back’ not backwards. All your text will come to the front.