Two Day

Introduction

Good Mac or PC skills. Knowledge of word and graphics would be advantageous.

Overview

The Interface
• Using tools, palettes and contextual menus
• Customising keyboard shortcuts
• Changing view sizes
• Navigating through a document

Creating Documents
• Creating a new document
• Using guides
• Rules and grids
• Changing defaults and preferences

Creating Objects
• Selecting moving and duplicating objects
• The Selection and Direct selection tools
• Using the transform palette
• Changing the size, proportions or orientation of an object

Working with Text
• Importing text
• Text frame options
• Threading text frames
• Character and paragraph formatting
• Using the eyedropper tool
• Creating and applying paragraph and character styles

Graphics
• Understanding graphic formats
• Placing vector and bitmapped graphics
• Fitting graphics in frames
• Placing PDF files
• Managing links
• Wrapping text around graphics

Colour
• Understanding spot and process colour
• The swatches palette
• Using swatch libraries
• Creating tints and gradients
• Applying colour to fills and stokes
• Using the gradient tools on fills, strokes and text.

Working with Objects • Duplicating objects
Master Pages
• Creating masters
• Adding automatics page numbering
• Creating sections
• Working with master page objects

Libraries
• Creating, indexing and using InDesign libraries

Transparency
• Specifying transparency
• Selecting blending modes
• Adding drop shadows and feathering

Tables
• Working with indents and tabs
• Creating, editing and formatting tables

Outputting Documents
• Setting up documents for printing
• Printing options and styles
• Exporting PDFs

Intermediate

Two Days

Advanced

A good working knowledge of Indesign or our InDesign Introduction course.

Advanced text options
• Using the Info palette
• Creating custom glyph sets
• Inserting special characters
• Adding copy breaks
• Working with linked text files
• Advanced Find/Change options
• Finding and changing fonts
• Using type on a path
• Working with text import filters
• MS Word/RTF
• Import options

Working with Tables
• Creating Tables
• Adding text and graphics
• Importing from word and excel
• Editing tables
• Running headers and footers
• Formatting tables

Advanced type Formatting
• Importing styles from Word
• Word Import presets
• Applying complex nested styles
• Creating balanced headline text
• Adding rules above or below
• Controlling paragraph breaks
• Working with composition
• Advanced hyphenation controls
• Advanced justification controls
• Preventing word breaks
• Advanced Next Style options
• Clearing formatting overrides
• Creating Footnotes
• Frame-based Baseline grids
• Automatic bullets or numbering

Combining Text & Graphics
• Creating object styles
• Justifying text next to an object
• Anchoring objects
• Advanced text wrap options
• Sharing Colour Swatches across applications
• Importing multi-page PDFs
• Layer visibility options for imported PSD and PDF files

Working with Pages & Spreads
• Creating multiple-page spreads
• Copying pages between documents
• Controlling spread pagination
• Automatic layout adjustment

Advanced Colour Options
• Creating mixed ink swatches
• Converting mixed inks
• Using PSD spot-colour channels
• Working with colours from EPS or PDF files
• Converting imported spots

Drawing in Adobe InDesign
• Using the Pencil
• Smooth and Erase tools
• Drawing with the Pen tool
• Adjusting path segments
• Using the Scissors tool
• Working with stroke styles
• Applying corner effects
• Creating and editing compound paths
• Shape-to-shape conversions
• Using Transform Again options

Using Libraries & Snippets
• Working with object libraries • Cataloguing and finding objects
• Working with snippets

Advanced Transparency Options
• Applying transparency to groups
• Creating transparency knockouts
• Using blending modes
• Flattening transparent artwork
• Creating, saving, and loading custom flattener presets
• Flattening individual spreads
• Understanding the Flattener Preview options.