Sometimes you just don’t know where to start on a new project. Particularly newsletters or magazine layouts. Inspiration is everywhere, but often times having a pre-made template is a great way to start your layouts.
BestInDesignTemplates has several Adobe InDesign templates you can download and use for free, including: flyers, newsletters, catalogs, and a 20-page magazine layout. Obviously you would want to use these as a starting-point, rather than a finished design.
This little discussion on InDesignSecrets illuminates an issue with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign that has bugged me for years. Why does a file in InDesign at 100% look larger than the same file in Photoshop viewed at 100%? More importantly, why hasn’t Adobe fixed this?
There are lots of ways to build a contact sheet of a folder full of images. Despite what many people think, you can still use Adobe Bridge, but it requires downloading and installing an older add-on. Instead, you can use Adobe InDesign’s built-in ImageCatalog script to build thumbnails of a folder full of images, including the file name, image dimensions, and more.
InDesignSecrets has a great walk-through showing you how to build the ultimate contact sheet. I’ve always used Bridge, which you can still do after downloading and installing the old Output Module. But when I came across this old post detailing how to do it using InDesign, I immediately fell in love with the method because it offers a little more flexibility, and the ability to edit it after the fact.
Here’s something every InDesign user should know, but almost none do: InDesign, by default, completely ignores CMYK profiles you have embedded in your images.
If you’ve used InDesign for a few years, you’ve probably figured it out. If not, give this excellent article by David Blatner a read.
Setting default fonts and colors seems trivial, but can be a considerable time-savings if you work for an in-house design department where you’re always using the same corporate font and colors for virtually everything you do.
The ability to set default fonts and colors in new Adobe InDesign documents has been covered before, but I still see people asking about it, so I thought it worth mentioning here again.
To set the default colors:
Any NEW documents you create will automatically have the new default font and colors already set. Unfortunately, existing documents will still use whatever default font and colors that were set when the document was created.
To set the default font:
If you’re a digital neat freak like I am (You’ll know, because you always name your Photoshop layers. Always!), then you’ve likely performed this task manually countless times. You draw out an object container in Adobe InDesign—such as a text box or image box—place the content in it and resize the content. Next you have to manually resize the object container so it’s only large enough to hold the content within it. Otherwise you end up with a ton of overlapping object frames, making it difficult to select just the right one.
Fortunately, you can make it easy on yourself with this quick shortcut… (more…)
If you’re a graphic designer, you no doubt know that Adobe released new versions of the major apps in their Creative Cloud subscription this past week.
I’ve been using InDesign CC 2014 the last few days, and had no troubles at all with the software. While Adobe focused on specific features for all the apps, it’s often the case that the little things make all the difference. For me, this is definitely the case with the latest InDesign. There are two new features that make a world of difference for me. (more…)
I come across files all the time where the designer used multiple blank spaces, or even separate text boxes to align the period after the numbers in a numbered list in their InDesign document. It’s a royal pain in the ass to fix, and it actually is a lot more difficult to do than just doing it the proper way to begin with.
To align the punctuation in numbered lists, the first thing you do is NOT type numbers. Simply select the items in your list and click the Numbered List icon in the Control Bar (see image above). This will add the numbers for you.
To align the punctuation, Option + Click the same Numbered List icon in the Control Bar and adjust the Alignment of your list to Right Justified.
Next, click the Preview checkbox in the lower left corner of the dialog box so you can see your adjustments updated live, and adjust the Left Indent amount until there is a sufficient amount of space after the numbers and before the text of the list.
Finally, adjust the First Line Indent amount by a negative number until your satisfied with the look of the list. The amounts in the screenshot above is what I used to achieve the fixed list on the right.
The beauty of doing it this way is that you can go back later and make adjustments to all your lists at once, no hitting the space bar multiple times, no setting multiple tabs, no hassle!
I recently came across StockInDesign, a site devoted to providing designers free InDesign templates for flyers, brochures, magazines, resumes and more. The InDesign files are provided in .indd and .IDML format, so you can open them in Adobe InDesign CS4 or later. While they are free of monetary payment, you are required to pay with a Twitter Tweet or Facebook Share.
You probably don’t think of Adobe InDesign as a presentation application like Keynote or PowerPoint. But the fact is, you can apply page transitions, embed movies, and more to your InDesign document and present it without the viewer having to look at object handles, panels or the rest of the InDesign interface.
Simply hit Shift+W to enter into Presentation Mode. By default, InDesign uses a solid black background. But you can change to a neutral gray background by hitting the letter G, or white by hitting W. If you want to switch back to solid black, hit B.
Of course, to exit Presentation Mode, simply hit the ESC key or Shift+W again.