I will spend some times sharing some of the basics of getting started in InDesign. Down the line I shall include some varied tutorials that will be aimed at those who consider themselves at a more intermediate or advanced level. There are countless resources, articles, tutorials and videos that can assist, however sometimes it's great to see it black and white so it's easier to navigate back and forth and as you test and play around in the application yourself. My suggestion is to keep the tutorial open in a window on the side and just work through these tutorials in your own time and at your own pace.
“My advice for anyone reading through or learning from these tutorials would be to keep the tutorial open in a window on the side and have InDesign open as the main screen. This way you can work through these tutorials at your own pace and in your own time.
Let's get started...
Getting Started with the Type Tool
When working in InDesign it’s essential to have the Workspace set before you get started. It’s helpful to change up the workspace as and when you need different tools, depending on what you’re working on. As a personal preference, and 99% of the time I will set my workspace to Typography – it has all my “go-to” panels ready and waiting.
To change your workspace, go to: Window / Workspace
Select the Type tool in your tool bar. You will notice your standard toolbar at the top will now change to show some type and paragraph settings.
On this toolbar you can immediately change the font and typeface settings. As well as some paragraph settings.
Take note of the Dictionary used and change as necessary (this default can also be changed in your preferences, so that it is not necessary to check this everytime).
The colour will default to black, unless you change it by selecting the swatches panel on the right.
Once you have changed the settings here, this document will now default to whatever you have just set.
With the Type tool selected, click and hold as you drag out a text box. Now you may either
copy and paste your type in this box;
type in some of your own text or;
if you would just like to place any text, you may fill the type box with placeholder text, otherwise known as Lorem Ipsum. To fill the text box with placeholder text, go to: Type / Fill with placeholder text
To adjust and change the typeface from here, you may either select the box itself, which will apply the changes to all the contents of the text box or simply highlight the words or sentence that you would like to change.
If you use the Select tool to select the text box, you can then make character or paragraph changes to the type by using the Character and Paragraphs panels that appear on the right of the screen.
If you select the text box and then select the Type tool, you can make changes to the text using either the panel on the left or the toolbar on top – this will apply the changes to the entire contents of the text box or if specific text is highlighted it will only apply it to the highlighted text.
Some adjustments you can make in the character formatting panel other than font and colour, would be to adjust the kerning (the character spacing), the leading (the line spacing), the baseline shift, the vertical and horizontal scale, the skew angle (for creating false italics)
If you’re just getting started in InDesign then note the corner box indicator, located just above the bottom right corner node. This box should be empty indicating all the text is visible, however if it displays a red plus sign, this means there is more text and it can’t fit into the size of the text box. If you drag out the text box you will be able to see the remainder of the text. We can cover more about revealing that hidden text in a later tutorial.
If there are any specific tutorials you'd like to see, then please drop me a line and let me know what you're looking for, otherwise... have fun getting started!
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