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I am going to setup a template, which I'll use for all of the posters.
It's going to be very straightforward. It's going to contain columns and guides.
It's going to contain layers and I'm also going to place the text file, which
we'll be re-purposing for each of the different versions.
So let's begin by creating a new document and I want a single page, tabloid
size, 11x17 inches or in this case 1224x792 points, vertical orientation.
I'll be changing that for some of them, but most of them are going to be vertically
oriented. 12 Columns because I want a grid that is flexible enough to allow me
to experiment with different alignment options. A gutter of 12 points. That's the space between
the columns, and being a poster I want my margins to be even on all four sides
at 36 points. Since I'm going to be bleeding elements to the edge of the
page, I'm going to have 9 point Bleed, and I don't need a Slug, so I'm going
to set that to 0. There is my blank page. I'm now going to divide
it into rows from top to bottom. I could do that on the master page,
but since there is only page here, it doesn't matter where I do it. I'm going
to stay on my Document Page 1 and come to the Layout menu > Create Guides, and
I'm going to set that to 18 rows with 12 points of space between each of those
rows and I'm going to Fit these guides not to the Page, but to the Margins.
Having done that, I'm now going to create some layers.
Layers are going to significantly improve my workflow because they are going to
allow me to selectively show and hide and lock and unlock different paths of my
layer. I'm going to begin by renaming Layer 1 'text.' Create a second layer
called Pictures, a third layer called Background. I may need more in certain
instances, but I think that's going to cover most eventualities. I want them
ordered in this way from top to bottom: text, pictures, background.
Finally, I'm going to place the text file. File > Place. That's the one we're
after, and I'm just going to dump it on the pasteboard. You will see that it
automatically becomes the width of one of my 12 columns, which is too narrow.
So I'm just going to stretch that to make it wider, and I'll be cutting and
pasting the relevant pieces of text from that text block into the layout.
One more thing and that is I'm going to then just save it as a template,
Command or Ctrl+S, and the Format is going to be InDesign CS4 template,
and I'm going to call it poster_template and it will have this extension INDT.
Having saved it, I can now close it and then when I open it again, it's going to open
up as an untitled document.