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InDesign allows you to assemble text and graphics in order to create multi-page
documents whether bound for print or the web or some other electronic medium.
In fact, a single document can be re-purposed for many mediums if you like.
In this exercise, I am going to show you how to create a new document in InDesign.
I am looking at the Welcome Screen, which appears each time you launch the
program and whenever you have no document open inside the program. If you are
not seeing the Welcome Screen, you can get to it by going to the Help menu and
choosing the Welcome Screen command. Notice that you can open recently created
documents over here on the left side of the screen just by clicking these links.
Of course, your recently created documents will vary.
Over on the right side of the screen, you can create new documents, including a
standard multi-page document, but InDesign permits you to create a couple of
specialty documents including a book, which appears as a floating panel and
allows you to combine, say, chapters into a single book so that the chapters
are continuously numbered and share common index entries.
You can also create a library; it too appears in the floating panel. It allows
you to collect type and graphic elements that you use on a regular basis, things
like logos and folios for example. Also, if you are creating a new document and
you want some help, you can go ahead and click on this From Template button
in order to see some templates that Adobe has created for you in advance.
I'll go ahead and click on From Template. Notice that InDesign launches the
Adobe Bridge, which ships with all versions of the program. The templates are
organized into folders. Let's say, I am interested in creating a newsletter.
I'll go ahead and double-click on the Newsletters folder, and
then I'll use this slider triangle down at the bottom of the window to make my
thumbnails bigger. And finally, I will double-click on the newsletter template
that interests me. Note that these templates will open as untitled
files, so that you can save them without overwriting the original.
All right, I am going to switch back to InDesign, because I want to create a
brand new document without anything in it. So I'll click on the Document button. I could
also go to the File menu and choose New Document or press Ctrl+N, Command+N
on the Mac, and that will bring up the New Document dialog box. If this is
a regular document like a brochure or a newsletter, you probably know how many
pages it's going to be. But don't worry if not, you can always add and delete
pages later on. If your document has a spine as with a book,
then you have left and right pages, turn on the Facing Pages check box.
Don't worry about Master Text Frame, it's not something you need for most of your
documents. Next is the Page Size option. If I click this
down-pointing arrowhead, notice I can select from common paper sizes, such as
those available to us in the States and overseas. You can also select the common
screen size, perfect for web pages and kiosks and so on.
However, what I would like to do is enter some custom sizes. Now notice that my
width and height values are represented in picas, where six picas fit inside of
an inch. So when we are seeing 51p0 that means 51 picas 0 points, and there are
72 points in an inch or 12 points in a pica. If that doesn't appeal to you, if you want
to enter your width and height values in say inches, you can override this
value on the fly just by typing in 8in for example, because I know my books are
eight inches wide, let's say. And then after entering that value I would just
press the Tab key, InDesign will go ahead and covert it to picas on the fly.
Next I would enter something like 9.75" also serves for inches, for the height
of my document, and press Tab to see that value update on the fly as well.
You can also enter mm for millimeters or cm for centimeters, lots of different ways to
go. All right, I'll set that back to what I had
there, 9.75in. The orientation will be automatically specified
by your width and height values, but you can change it if you want
to by clicking on the horizontal option, for example. You can also select a
number of columns. Again don't get too hung up on this, because
all of this can be changed later on. But I'll go with the two-column design and
I'll enter 0.25in as a Gutter, which will translate to 1p6 points.
My margins are currently set to 3 picas a piece; these are the margins around
the outside edges. And notice that the link is turned on, so all of the margins
will be the same. I am going to turn that off, and I am going to change the top
margin to 4p6 which is three quarters of an inch. I am also going to raise the
inside margins, so we get away from the spine a little bit. I'll take that up
to 4p6 as well, otherwise these options are great.
Now if this is the kind of document you are going to be creating on a regular
basis, definitely save yourself some time by clicking on the Save Preset
button, and I'll go ahead and call mine One-on-One after my One-on-One books
and I'll click OK and that now appears as a document preset that I can select
in the future. When I am done I'll go ahead and click OK,
and I now see the first page of my new eight-page document that I have created
using the New Document options here inside InDesign.