InDesign CS6: Introduction

Adobe InDesign allows you to deliver beautiful layouts and highly sophisticated documents for print quickly and easily. This two day Adobe authorised introductory course is designed to give you a comprehensive working knowledge of Adobe InDesign.

Day one of the course concentrates on building a document layout from scratch. Day two will explore more advanced layout and typographical controls, clipping paths, working with layers, creating multipage documents and using Live PreFlight for trouble-free production and printing. This course will give you an excellent grounding in Adobe InDesign.

This is an introductory course for new to page layout software and InDesign. If you are an QuarkXPress user migrating to Adobe InDesign, there is a separate two day Adobe InDesign Migration course.

Pre-Course Requirements:
You need no previous experience to attend this course.

• Day one
  The InDesign interface
  • Creating a new document
  • Creating and using frames
  • The N-up View
  
  Working with text
  • Placing text
  • Selecting and editing text
  • Handling missing fonts
  • Drag and drop text
  • Using the Content Indicator
  • Parent and Child frames
  • Smart guides and smart spacing
  
  Formatting copy
  • Character-level formatting
  • Paragraph-level formatting
  • Using the Eyedropper tool
  • Creating drop caps
  
  Working with styles
  • Character and paragraph styles
  • Creating styles
  • Editing and applying styles
  • Introducing nested styles
  • Removing style formatting
  • Organising styles using Style Groups
  
  Working with graphics
  • Using Mini-Bridge
  • Different file formats
  • Placing multiple graphics
  • Wrapping text around images
  • Manipulating graphics
  • Understanding fitting options
  • Sizing images with Auto-fit
  
  Layout controls
  • Understanding the notion of Gridify
  • Working with the Gap tool
  • Using Live Distribute
  • Understanding Liquid Layouts
  • PSD and PDF layer options
  
  Understanding colour
  • Spot and process colours
  • Using stroke and fill options
  • Creating tints
  • Sampling colours from images
  
  Laying out pages accurately
  • Using rulers, grids and guides
  • Working with layers
  
  Questions and answers
  
  Tweet
• Day two
  Multi-page documents
  • Using the Pages panel
  • Targeting pages and spreads
  
  Editing copy
  • Using the Story Editor
  • Using Find/Change
  • Using the Track Changes feature
  • Using the Spell Checker
  
  Working with transparency
  • Creating drop shadows
  • The Flattener Preview panels
  
  Transforming objects
  • Scaling objects vs contents
  • Transforming objects
  • Rotating a spread
  • Grouping and ungrouping
  
  Finessing text content
  • Threading and unthreading frames
  • The Auto-Fit text function
  • Flowing text through frames
  • Text frame options
  • Document baseline grids
  • Multi-column text frames
  • Allowing text to flow across columns
  • Hanging punctuation
  
  Working with Master Pages
  • Master Page guidelines
  • Creating and editing Masters
  • Applying Master Pages
  • Auto-numbering pages
  • Mixing different page sizes in InDesign
  • Using the Page tool
  
  Combining text and graphics
  • Image import options
  • Images with clipping paths
  • Creating a new clipping path
  • Removing image backgrounds
  • Editing clipping paths
  • Tolerance and threshold options
  
  Exporting and printing
  • Exporting as a PDF
  • Using Live PreFlight
  • Anticipating potential problems
  • Packaging files for handoff
  • Exporting as a .folio file for the Digital Publishing Suite
  
  Questions and answers