Title Details

Christopher Smith is President of American Graphics Institute (www.agitraining.com). Involved with InDesign since its introduction, he has delivered InDesign training to thousands of creative professionals and helped develop the Adobe Certified Expert exams. The AGI Creative Team develops and delivers training programs through the American Graphics Institute.

Prerequisites 1

System requirements 2

Starting Adobe InDesign CS6 3

Resetting the InDesign workspace and preferences 4

Loading lesson files 4

Working with the video tutorials 6

Setting up for viewing the video tutorials 6

Viewing the video tutorials with the Adobe Flash Player 6

Additional resources 7

Lesson 1: InDesign CS6 Essential Skills

Starting up 9

InDesign tools 10

The InDesign workspace 11

The document window 11

Using guides 13

Viewing modes 14

Working with panels 15

The Tools panel 15

Managing panels 17

Saving your workspace 19

Working with the Control panel 20

Navigating through an InDesign document 20

Using the Pages panel 20

Changing the magnification of your document 22

Working with type 24

Entering and formatting type 24

Placing and formatting type 26

Flowing type 27

Using styles 29

Applying paragraph styles 29

Applying character styles 30

Apply styles across a story using Find/Change 30

Applying object styles 32

Working with graphics 34

Placing graphics 34

Positioning graphics within a frame 36

Applying text wrap 39

Understanding layers 40

Applying effects 42

Resources for additional help 44

Self study 46

Review 46

Lesson 2: Building Documents with Master Pages

Starting up 47

Planning your document 48

Creating custom page sizes 48

Creating a new custom-sized document 48

Creating and formatting master pages 51

Formatting master pages 52

Adding automatic page numbers 53

Using text variables 55

Basing master pages on other master pages 59

Overriding master page items 60

Adding layout pages 64

Placing formatted text 69

Creating the classified page 71

Adding images and text to the master frames 73

Applying master pages to multiple pages 75

Self study 76

Review 76

Lesson 3: Working with Text and Type

Starting up 77

Adding text to your document 78

Creating a text frame 78

Changing character attributes 80

Changing font and type styles 80

Adjusting size 81

Adjusting line spacing 82

Adjusting character spacing: kerning and tracking 82

Using a baseline shift 83

Changing paragraph attributes 84

Horizontally aligning text 84

Changing the spacing before and after paragraphs 84

Using tabs 85

Adding rules above or below paragraphs 89

Changing text color 90

Creating drop caps 92

Finding and changing text 92

Finding and changing text and text attributes 92

Finding and changing text using GREP 94

Checking and correcting spelling 98

Checking spelling 98

Adding words to the dictionary 99

Checking spelling as you type 100

Automatically correcting spelling 102

Editing text using the Story Editor 103

Using Track Changes 104

Drag-and-drop text editing 106

Special characters and glyphs 107

Using the Glyphs panel and glyph sets 109

Text frame options 110

Adjusting text inset 110

Vertically aligning text 111

Importing text 112

Flowing text manually 113

Threading text between frames 114

Using semi-autoflow to link several text frames 115

Adobe InDesign CS6 Digital Classroom

Changing the number of columns in a text frame 117

Baseline grid 120

Viewing and changing the baseline grid 120

Adding story jumps 122

Using styles to format text 123

Creating a headline and applying a style 123

Importing styles from other documents 125

Redefining styles 125

Placing text on a path 127

Importing text from Microsoft Word 129

Missing fonts 133

Finding and fixing missing fonts 133

Self study 135

Review 135

Lesson 4: Working with Styles

Starting up 137

Style types 138

Paragraph styles 139

Defining paragraph styles 139

Applying paragraph styles 141

Character styles 142

Defining character styles 142

Applying character styles 143

Using nested styles 144

Updating styles 146

Loading styles from another InDesign document 147

Quick Apply 149

Organizing styles into groups 151

Object styles 152

Creating object styles 152

Applying an object style 154

Changing an object style 155

Finishing up 156

GREP Styles 157

Self study 159

Review 159

Lesson 5: Working with Graphics

Starting up 161

Understanding how InDesign handles graphics 162

Locating missing images 162

Working with the Links panel and the Link badge 163

Customizing the Links panel 167

Adding graphics to your layout 168

Fitting an image within an existing frame 172

Auto Fitting 175

Using Adobe Bridge to import graphics 176

Placing multiple graphics using Mini Bridge 178

Using object styles for images 181

Wrapping text around images 185

Wrapping text around the bounding box 185

Using graphics with clipping paths and alpha channels 186

Removing an image background using InDesign 189

Using anchored objects 191

Advanced importing 196

Importing layered Photoshop files 196

Importing InDesign layouts as graphics 198

Self study 200

Review 200

Lesson 6: Creating and Using Tables

Starting up 201

Creating a table 202

Creating new tables 203

Copying and pasting table information 204

Converting text to a table and a table to text 208

Importing a table 209

Editing tables and table options 211

Changing row height 211

Editing the border 213

Formatting rows and columns 214

Using fills 217

Formatting cells and text 219

Resetting the cell styles within a table 219

Text alignment and inset within a cell 221

Formatting text within a cell and saving paragraph styles 222

Formatting text in tables by column 227

Working with tables in Story Editor 229

Merging cells 230

Defining a header cell 230

Setting column and row dimensions 236

Setting a fixed row height 236

Setting column width 238

Using graphics in tables 239

Placing graphics in cells 239

Cell styles and table styles 243

Cell styles 243

Applying cell styles 246

Creating table styles 247

Applying table styles 249

Self study 251

Review 251

Lesson 7: Using Color in Your Documents

Starting up 253

Applying colors to frames and text 254

Applying color to text 255

Applying color to frames 256

Applying Live Corner Effects 257

Creating and saving a new swatch 260

Applying strokes to text 262

Creating a tint reduction 265

Making a dashed stroke 267

Creating and saving gradients 269

Linear gradients 270

Saving a gradient 272

Adjusting fill opacity 273

Radial gradient 274

Adjusting the direction of a radial gradient 274

One-click edits 276

Using the Eyedropper tool to copy frame attributes 276

Applying colors to multiple objects 277

Updating and editing colors 278

Using and saving spot colors 280

Colorizing a grayscale image 281

Self study 283

Review 283

Lesson 8: Using Effects

Starting up 285

Creative effects 286

Applying opacity to objects 287

Apply effects to stroke or fill only 289

Drop shadow 290

Adjusting effects for objects 293

Bevel and Emboss 294

Object styles with effects 296

Using Find/Change to apply object styles 297

Basic Feather 298

The Gradient Feather tool 301

Converting text to a path 302

Applying blending modes to objects 305

The Screen blending mode 306

The Multiply blending mode 307

Working with imported files that use transparency 309

Applying an alpha channel selection 311

Applying a path selection 314

Self study 316

Review 316

Lesson 9: Advanced Document Features

Starting up 317

Adding text variables 318

Creating a book from multiple files 321

Defining pagination and document order 322

Synchronizing attributes across a book file 325

Creating Captions 330

Creating a Table of Contents 333

Building an index 338

Adding topics 339

Adding cross-references 342

Generating the index 343

Creating PDFs and printing from the Book panel 344

Creating PDFs 344

Printing 345

Self study 346

Review 346

Lesson 10: Preflighting, Printing and Creating PDFs from InDesign

Starting up 347

Package inventory 348

Preflight checks 351

Packaging your document 355

Creating an Adobe PDF 359

Separation preview 363

Printing a proof 366

Self study 368

Review 368

Lesson 11: Introduction to Digital Documents

Starting up 369

InDesign as your Digital Publication Hub 370

Interactive design considerations 370

Importing multimedia content 371

Adding a Hyperlink 374

Creating a Multi-State Object 375

Creating buttons to control multimedia content 377

Adding buttons to control a multi-state object 378

Creating page transitions 381

Creating animations 383

Previewing your document 385

Exporting your document 386

Creating an interactive PDF 386

Creating a SWF file 388

New layout features 391

Auto-Size Text Frames 392

Flexible Width Text Frames 393

Layout adjustments 395

Liquid Layout 395

Alternate Layouts 397

Linked Content 400

The Content tools 404

Creating PDF Forms 406

Adding a Combo Box 408

Creating a Submit button 409

Creating the PDF Form 411

Self study 413

Review 413

Lesson 12: Creating Digital Books

Starting up 415

Preparing your InDesign document for ePub conversion 417

Using styles 417

Controlling Object Export Settings 418

Adding interactive links 419

Adding hyperlinks 419

Creating an interactive Table of Contents 420

Adding document metadata 423

Creating an ePub 424

Specifying Object Export Order 424

Using anchored objects to control object placement 425

Specifying the cover 426

ePub export settings 427

Testing your ePub 432

ePub viewers 432

Distributing ePub files 434

Self study 435

Review 435

Lesson 13: Adobe InDesign CS6 New Features

Starting up 437

About the new features in InDesign CS6 438

Content Collector 439

Linked content 440

Liquid layouts 441

Alternate layouts 443

PDF forms 445

Primary text frame 446

ePub enhancements 447