InDesign Day 1 of 5

Introduction, basics of text and graphics, saving and exporting.

Screencast (feel free to share this with students if they miss this day):

 

The activity for this class is the newspaper activity. The class files are on the Google Drive.

Finished Newspaper

Objectives:

  • Intro/hook
  • Initial document setup
  • Navigating the interface
  • Frames
  • Text
  • Graphics

Expected outcomes:

The idea is that after Day 1, everyone will have a good base understanding of how the program works and where to find the tools, panels, and menu items. They will be able to insert and move text and graphics to do simple designs. They will have the skills to be able to design a basic resume, simple poster/announcement, etc. Everyone who comes to Day 1 and never comes back (because let’s be honest, there’s always someone) will still have learned the foundational skills.

Lesson outline:

  • Initial document setup
    • Picas and points overview
    • Pages, dimensions, orientation
    • Columns and margins
    • Linking/unlinking values
  • Navigating the interface
    • Contextual toolbar
    • Left toolbar
    • Panels
    • Adding panels
  • Frames
    • Overview
    • Planning out your document with blank frames
  • Text
    • Place command
    • Type tools
    • Basic text formatting
    • Threading text frames
      • Just the basics of overset text. Autoflow comes on Day 2
  • Graphics
    • Place command, placing multiple
    • Transforming images
    • Text wrap
    • Overprint preview
    • Links
  • Save and export

 

Sample Lesson Plan:

Day 1: Intro, basics of text and graphics, saving and exporting (newspaper activity) (1 hr 15 min)

**Note** If you’re short on time, skip the parts in italics

Intro

  • Student files: tiny.cc/InDesign1
  • Who has used InDesign before? How familiar are you with it?
  • What kinds of projects would you like to be able to do in InDesign?

Initial document setup

  • Picas and points overview
    • Does anyone already know what picas and points are?
    • A pica is about 1/6 of an inch (it’s actually just slightly less)
    • 12 points are in a pica, about 6 picas are in an inch
    • Written 14p4 meaning 14 picas and 4 points
    • InDesign automatically converts dimensions entered in inches
    • Check the preview box to see the changes you make
  • Pages, dimensions, orientation
    • Don’t worry about the presets for now. Leave it on default
    • Check “facing pages” if you want to see magazine spreads side by side (note: if you’re just doing a 2-page spread, tell it to “start at page 2” and that will remove the default cover page)
    • Columns and margins
      • Set # of columns for automatic column guides
      • Gutter = space between columns
    • Bleed and slug
      • Anyone know what these are?
      • Bleed = extra space around the document. If you want images to be printed right to the edge of the page, you actually have to print them past the document dimensions on a larger piece of paper and then trim the extra off because printers can’t print to the edge of the paper.
      • Slug = extra space for editors to leave notes in
    • Linking/unlinking values
    • Changing these settings after the document has been created
      • File > document setup
      • Layout > margins and columns

Navigating the interface (5 min max)

  • Contextual toolbar
    • Demonstrate how it changes when you flip between type tool and other tools
  • Left toolbar
    • Give a brief overview of the tools you’ll use today. E.g. selection, direct selection, type tool, rectangle frame tool, hand tool, zoom tool
    • Show how when you hover over, it shows the keyboard shortcut in case they forget. Also hand out shortcut cards
    • Show how some tools hide “underneath” other ones
  • Panels
    • Opening panels from the window menu and adding them to the panels bar
      • Have them add the Text Wrap panel because they’ll need it later

Frames (15 min)

  • Overview of how Id uses frames
  • Planning out your document with blank frames*
    • Good for planning and drafting before you get attached to a certain layout and you’re less willing to change it up
    • Have students take 2-3 min to do a quick layout draft of where they might want a title, images, etc.
    • Talk about balance in a document; i.e., instead of randomly inserting pictures in places, balance them with each other. Balance size, balance color, etc. for a stronger design.
    • Have students make adjustments to their layout and share with their neighbors their ideas.

Text (10 min)

  • Place command
    • Don’t copy and paste!
    • Command-D (Mac) or CTRL-D (PC)
  • Type tool
  • Basic formatting
    • Stay in the contextual menu today. Show them how to find the options for both paragraph and character formatting. Stick with the basics (color, font, size, justification, indentation) and don’t worry about tracking, leading, kerning, etc. Those are for a different day.
  • Overset text
    • Just the basics of overset text. Clicking the red + sign and clicking at the top of the next text frame or unassigned frame. Autoflow and threading will be Day 2.

Graphics* (10 min)

  • Teach line tool basics today
  • Place command
    • Don’t just drag and drop!
    • Place multiple at a time by selecting multiple docs and clicking open. Cycle through with the arrow keys. Cursor preview shows which will be placed next.
    • If your images are super large, try clicking and dragging with place instead of just clicking. This lets you control the size as you’re inserting the image.
  • Graphic frames
    • Blue “window” frame vs orange-brown “content” frame
    • Object > fitting or Right Click for fitting options. Use the options that say “proportionally” to avoid white space and stretching.
    • “Autofit” checkbox option in the contextual menu after getting it how you want to keep the frames fitted together as you resize and adjust
  • Transforming images
  • Text wrap
    • Make sure the object is selected, not the text. You can adjust the “buffer” around the object to get a little more white space. Play with the different options. Don’t talk about clipping paths, detect edges, etc. just yet. Those are on a later day. Stick with the basic buttons.
  • Overprint preview
    • Important because people get frustrated when they import a HQ image but it looks blurry in their project. Overprint preview fixes that and shows the full quality instead of the lower quality default preview, but may slow the program slightly if you have lots of images
    • View > overprint preview
    • You can also hit W on the keyboard to temporarily hide guides, but this won’t give you the HQ preview of your image unless you already turned on Overprint Preview
    • Another option is View> Display Performance> High Quality
  • Links
    • How they work, why you need to keep the images saved with the Id project
    • Where to find the links panel
    • We’ll show you how to fix broken links later on.

Discuss (5 min)

  • Ask students to share (1) what challenges they had during class today, and (2) how InDesign could make doing projects like a resume or poster easier than doing it in Word or PowerPoint

Save and export (5 min max)

  • Preflight panel, checking for and fixing errors
  • Package
  • Create PDF (Adobe Print is the best for almost every project)
  • Saving for other versions of Id
    • IDML format (check this box when packaging)