Adobe InDesign

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About

NOTE: This page is a daughter page of: Adobe


Adobe InDesign is a professional product for producing printed works like magazines, books and business cards.

InDesign supports a mix of vectors and bitmap and "print publication" concepts like pagination, bleed area, page templates, paragraph styles (headers), table of contents, etc. While Illustrator can be used to design logos and single page designs, InDesign is much better for something like a book.

In this article I will keep track of the main tips and tricks I want to remember.


Page Templates (and Editable Text)

Open the Pages panel and by default you'll see just one master called "A-Master". Double click it to edit. Changes here apply to the background of all other pages. Click the hamburger to add a new master, apply a master to particular pages, or change the options. This is great for adding styles in the background (borders, watermarks etc).

Editable Template Text

Often you'll want text in the same place (think: Chapter pages), but obviously different editable text for each page. To achieve this, make your text boxes in the Master Page, but then in the actual pages use {Cmd}+{Shift}+click to select the text box in the background and edit the text. If you move it in the master page it should still move across all your custom text pages.

Nested Masters

Hot Tip: In the Master Options you can base a master on another Master... so your first mast you might just want to add page numbers and call "Blank" (and 2 page span if you want numbers on the left and right side respectively)... but then you might have different styles (different colors) laid over different sections all based on your "Blank" Master.

Master Layers (master objects on top of page objects)

In some cases you'll want objects (eg: page numbers, watermarks) in your Master to appear above any graphics or images on your page. To do this press {F7} to bring up the layers panel and put these objects in a new Layer. These layers appear for all masters and pages, so you might even do three layers ("BOTTOM", "MIDDLE", "TOP") and do most of your page contents in the middle layer.


Adding Page Numbers

The next thing you'll probably want is page numbers. Best to do this in your template. Insert a text box at the bottom left and then go: Menubar > Type > Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number. Done.


Adding Headings (and a Table of Contents)

The steps to create a table of contents (TOC) are:

  • Open the Paragraph Styles panel via: Menubar > Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles.
  • Add a style called "CHAPTER_HEADER" and "HEADING_1" (etc) and set the font.
    • Apply your header styles to the right text pieces.
  • Click: Menubar > Layout > Table of Contents.
    • Add your heading Paragraph Styles as the sections you want listed, and you can also add a level order.
    • Click done and then you can drag the TOC onto any page (probably you want a blank page).
  • Extra notes:


Paragraph Styles

A great feature of InDesign, is that both Colors and Paragraph Styles can be added, and will change the whole document. Notice for Paragraph Styles, you have to go to the Character tab to change text color.


Adding a Bleed Area

When you start a project you select a bleed area. To produce a book on Amazon, you'll want 0.125 inches on all sides, and you'll notice bleed shown in a red dotted area. At the bottom of the toolbar you can switch between "Normal" view (which shows the bleed area) and "Preview" to see it without the bleed.

Exporting with Bleed

When you save your PDF, make sure you go to the "Marks and Bleeds" tab in the Export Adobe PDF window, and make sure "Use Document Bleed Settings" is ticked, but none of the markers.


Text

Vertical and Horizontal Text Alignment

Hit {Cmd}+{B} to bring up the Text Frame Options and you can set vertical alignment to top, center or bottom. For horizontal alignment, you can set that in the Paragraph Style Options or the Properties tab (down in the paragraph section).


How To: Make a Book Cover

Any good publisher, for instance Kindle Direct Publishing will tell you page size and a formulas to work out spine width and cover size. In InDesign, you should only need to know: (1) your book's desired width height, (2) your page count, (3) page thickness and (4) bleed width (typically equal for each side).

Let's take a use case:

Desired Width: 6 inches
Desired Height: 6 inches
Bleed Area: 0.125" for KDP.
Spine Width: 112 pages * 0.002347" (for color interior pages for KDP) = 0.262 inches
Whole Cover Width:     (desired_width * 2) + spine_width = 12.262 inches

This should be everything needed... now simply:

  • Create a new InDesign Document for the front cover only
    • Specs: 1 page... 6 x 6 (with 0.125 bleed area)... and uncheck "facing"
    • You will want to keep this doc separately to render thumbnails of the front cover.
    • Export settings: Export as an image or PDF without bleed area.
  • Create a new InDesign Document for the whole cover
    • Specs: 1 page... 6 x 12.262 (with 0.125 bleed area).
    • Drag a marker (from the ruler) to mark the spine... so one at 6" and one at 6.262".
    • Create a layer for the "SPINE", "FRONT" and "BACK".
    • Copy the whole front cover (from the other doc) to your FRONT layer... then add a spine and back cover design.
    • Export settings: Export as PDF with "Use Document Bleed Settings" checked (but no markers) and upload this to KDP.



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