Practice Blog : Adobe Indesign session

Adobe Indesign session 10/01/2013:

Adobe Indesign is used for layout design for example preparing book editorial piece or any type of publishing design. Indesign is used in industry for commercial print similar programs such as Quark Express, however Indesign is used more in industry.

One of the strengths in using Indesign is it's ability to work with multiple documents, unlike Photoshop and Illustrator Indesign is designed for producing multiple documents at the same time.

Some of the tools on the toolbar are similar to those in Photoshop and illustrator, there are some similarities however note some tools are different and designed just forIndesign.

when opening a new document always select document even if you are creating a book continue to select new document.

Page Size - First thing we need to decide on is the page size that is necessary to what we are producing within the drop down menu will be the preset paper-sizes however there is also a option to produce a custom document for a specific size we are working with, you have to work out the width and height of the page size this is the finished printed page size of the document.

After choosing the paper size we then need to click onto the 'more option's button which will gives you more elements that we can customise to our document that will ease production and use of Indesign.

BLEED - (when printing to the edge) This is to do with the trimming around the print design, to compensate for minimal accidents when trimming, if one stack of paper is not placed properly in a stack then the design will not be cut into the bleed will compensate and savour this. Always set a 3mm bleed guide- professional practice to do so.

SLUG - Another area outside the page, it is not as common to use than the bleed, the slug area is larger than the bleed area, it is used to contain marks such as trim marks, registration marks, simply for any marks the printer needs to make.

The last thing we need to consider is this 'facing pages' tool, we need to ask ours is the document a double page spread and if so is it a book, if it is then the button should be ticked if not the button should be left un-ticked.

Black line - edge of your page, where you can work to.
Blue line - page margin line, you can work over this.
Red line -

To alter the document general settings click o document set up to take you back to the beginning pane.

To alter any margins and columns.

To page your pages in your document click on page palette, this allows you to manage your pages and see them as thumbnails. This gives you a quick way to navigate through each document, it will bring up the page you have clicked on.

To add pages to the document, click on the insert pages button within the page palette drop down menu bar.

Selecting this option allows you to add a grid on the document, this will help you position the image and text on the page as it breaks it down into manageable and logical chunks.

Adding type

When adding type this tool is useful, if you do not have the type at the time and only the image it help you work the type around the image even if you don't have the content at hand.

If you select the particular text you can manipulate this type and change the point size and the typeface, this will give a even more accurate idea of how your type will look once you have the type you want to input into the design.

Text overflow indicator, the red symbol at the bottom right hand corner of the text box.

Flowing text - Create a textbox then click on the red symbol then click on the new text box so the text flows from one text box to another.

When inputting a image into the Indesign document from PHOTOSHOP we must:

1. Make sure the file format is either a tif. / psd. and NOT a jpg.
2. Make sure the resolution is correct as its a print document then we must work in 300dpi
3. Colour mode must be correct and in this case it must be CMYK as its a print document again.
4. When preparing the images we must make sure the image is in its actual size.

When inputting a image into the Indesign document from ILLUSTRATOR we must:

1. Make sure the file is saved as a ai.
2. make sure the colour mode is in CMYK

Once images have been prepared all we need to do is input them into Indesign and wor with the text on the document.

To add the image select the place button on the tool bar and bring it into indesign.

The two circles at the centre of the page are called the 'content grabber', this allows us to move the image around within the frame once doing so the image will be positioned in a different place, this tool may be used if you only want certain arts of the image being displayed. Although this tool is available to us all editing should be done in photoshop beforehand, although the quality of the image doesn't reduce we may come across errors during the print process due this editing.