Software Workshop 3 - InDesign

INDESIGN

New file - document, book or library

document is for small publications

book is for highly complex books with hundreds of pages

library is like a swatch palette of information

Page size - defined by the content, design purpose.

The actually page size is defined by the actual designed, printed and trimmed final piece. so if your book will be A3, the page size will be A3.

you can choose fro mthe preset page sizes or type in your own dimensions underneath. This would be good for say a business card which is too small to print on an A4 sheet of paper.

Columns

Margins

Bleed and slug

All to do with GUIDES.

Guides don't specify where content can and cant go and they don't affect the final print they just help you with structuring your layout.

3mm is the standard bleed value that you work to. If you bleed something off you must make sure that the image or text is extending over the edge of the page so that when you trim it down it wont have a whit line where you may or may not have made a mistake.

Once you have made the document you will see 3 rectangles.

The black one is the boarder of the page.

The red one is the bleed line.

And the Pink and purple one is the margin line.

Indesign has much less default swatches in the swatch palette. To apply colour you have to make an image or text box first, then you select the box you you would like to fill and click on the colour swatch you would like to use. The colour will automatically fill the area. For the stroke use the stroke pallet and you can increase and change the colour of the outline stroke of the box.

You can apply the same technique to colouring text simply by highlighting the text you want to change and using the swatch and stroke palettes.

To create a new swatch you simply go to the swatch palette menu and select new colour swatch and use the colour sliders in the pop up window to create a new colour, then just click ok to create it and it will automatically appear in your swatch palette.

All the colour swatches in the Indesign palette are global so if you change the ink mix of one of then it will update every single instance of that colour in your work. Good time saving technique.

This is also useful for making a new tint swatch, It's even easier than photoshop and illustrator. All you do is go to new tint swatch in the swatch palette menu and use the tint colour slide at the bottom of the popup window and then click ok, again the swatch will appear automatically in the swatch palette.

If you were to then change the original 100% swatch that you created the tints from then the rest of the tint swatches would change accordingly. So everything is linked and designed to help you change thinks quickly to get lots of variations of colour.

When on the new swatch colour window you can select different colour libraries and pantone books to get a colour swatch that already exists. Useful for when you have been given a colour reference by a client.

the swatch will come up in the swatch palette but instead of having the global square symbol next to it, it will have a spot colour symbol next to it instead to signify that it wont be printed in CMYK colour mode. The symbol is a square with a grey circle inside it.

IMAGES

If importing from Photoshop.

Things to consider -

1. Colour Mode - usually CMYK but can be grayscale, duotone, monotone (not RGB)

2. Resolution 300dpi.

3. Actual Size. Mustn't change the image size on Indesign, making it larger will decrease the resolution and become pixelated.

4. File Format - TIFF , PDF, JPEG, PSD (TIFF and PSD are the recommended file types) you can use JPEG but because it's a compression file it lowers the quality of the image.

PSD files are good if you want to work with transparency as they maintain the transparent areas in the design, TIFF files don't support transparency.

If importing from Illustrator.

Things to Consider -

1. Colour Mode - CMYK

2. Don't have to worry about resolution as its vectored art and not dpi

3. Size is able to change as much as you like.

4. File Format - Illustrator AI file.

The default setting for Illustrator files will always support transparency, so anything that is white or untouched when designing in illustrator will be transparent in Indesign.

To import an image from Photoshop or Illustrator you go to file then place and you select the file you want to place. You can place an image directly into Indesign or you can create an image or text box and place it directly into one of those instead.

Illustrator files will come up very pixelated, this is so that Indesign can run more smoothly as there will be less information to display. What you are seeing is a low resolution preview.

When sent to the printer it will come out as it should be however you need to have the folder where the image was placed from otherwise it will remain as a low resolution preview. It is important to keep track of all your images and make sure they are available when printing your final document.

Secondly this is helpful because you can then edit the artwork whilst on Indesign and it will update, this doesn't apply to Photoshop files. To edit the artwork, right click on it and go to edit with and select Illustrator. The artwork will open up in illustrator ready for you to edit. Once you have finished editing the artwork save it and close the file and it will change the artwork automatically in Indesign.

If your using a monotone or duotone image then you can select the image on Indesign and change the colour by simply selecting the colour swatch you want to change it to. Very useful as you don't have to go back to Photoshop and edit the original file.