InDesign Docs

Here’s a list of InDesign videos. Many of them were created for InDesign CS4 or even CS3, but they’re still good learning tools for InDesign CS5.

The Getting Started videos appear in the Learn InDesign CS5 section of Adobe TV.

Getting Started: What is InDesign CS5
Getting Started 1: Understanding the Application Window
Getting Started 2: New Documents
Getting Started 3: Adding Page Numbering
Getting Started 4: Understanding Text Frames
Getting Started 5: Importing Graphics
Getting Started 6: Selecting Objects

These videos were created for InDesign CS4, but they’re good resources for InDesign CS5 as well.

Getting Started: 01 Starting a new document
Getting Started: 02 Making a text frame
Getting Started: 03 Character-level formatting
Getting Started: 04 Paragraph-level formatting
Getting Started: 05 Making a paragraph style
Getting Started: 06 Placing and flowing text
Getting Started: 07 Placing an image
Getting Started: 08 Wrapping text around a graphic

Mixing page sizes with the new Page tool
Rotating spread view
Working with smart guides
Using Live Preflight
Using keyboard shortcuts
Working with master pages
Creating running headers and footers
Setting pagination
Defining sections

Working with text
Working with text styles
Track text changes
Creating conditional text
Applying GREP styles
Creating cross-references
Creating bullets and numbering
Using the Text Wrap panel
Finding and changing expressions, text, and object formatting
Working with Tabs in InDesign
Working with Microsoft Word and Excel tables in InDesign
Creating footnotes
Spanning and splitting columns
Paragraphs that span and split columns
Span/Split Columns
Document installed fonts

Creating and formatting tables
Adding headers and footers to tables
Placing images in tables
Using table styles

Using the Text Wrap panel
Working with anchored objects
Live Captions

Selection tool, Gap tool & Live Corner effects
Layers panel
Grid Mode and Live Distribute
Using the Links panel
Using object styles
Working with anchored objects
Creating drop shadows
Applying feathering to objects
Applying opacity effects
Setting opacity
Adobe Mini Bridge Panel and InDesign CS5
Bridging That Gap in InDesign

Synchronizing master pages
Creating a table of contents
Creating an index

Creating documents with Interactive features
Creating and editing motion presets
Exploring new FLA export options
Using InDesign CS5 Content in Flash Pro
InDesign and Acrobat Forms Workflow

View a list of video tutorials from Layers magazine.

New videos are continually added to Adobe TV. Bookmark the InDesign page, and filter your results by unchecking categories on the right side of the page.

Find any other InDesign video resources on the web? Leave a comment.

“How do I align the periods in a numbered lists?” I’ve seen a variation of this question asked repeatedly in user forums. Here’s an example of one such forum thread.

If you’re wondering how to align the periods in a numbered list. It’s your lucky day. Here’s a video tutorial that explains the tricky workaround.

If you don’t have time for the video, click below to see pictures.

Continue reading…

Recently, several people have asked how to replace standard bullets with images in a bulleted list.

Use the Bullets & Numbering dialog box to specify a different bullet character. If you can find a picture symbol that’s part of a font, you can use that symbol in your list. Here’s a symbol from the Zapf Dingbats font.

For details on changing the bullet character, see the Change bullet characters Help topic.

It would be nice if we could specify images using the Bullets & Numbering dialog box, but we can’t. If you absolutely need to use images for bullets that aren’t part of a font, here’s the workaround solution.

Step 1 – Add a replacement bullet character

We’ll be using the Find/Change dialog box to replace the bullet character, so let’s pick a bullet character that doesn’t appear anywhere else in the document to be safe.

Step 2 – Convert the bulleted list to text

Before you do this step, make sure you’re done editing your list. If you need to add items to your list, you may end up doing extra work. Choose Type > Bulleted & Numbered Lists > Convert Bullets to Text.

Step 3 – Resize and copy the image to be used as a bullet

In my example, I scaled down a picture of a belt buckle until it was small enough to replace the bullet, and then I copied it.

Step 4 – Find and replace the bullet character with the pasteboard image

A neat little trick in the Find/Change dialog box is the ability to change the found text to whatever is copied to the Clipboard. Insert the dummy bullet character in the Find What field. Then click the @ icon to the right of the Change To field and choose Other > Clipboard Contents, Formatted. A ^c appears in the Change To field. Then find and change the bullets.

It’s not the most elegant solution, but it gets the job done.

Have you ever wanted to create page numbering (such as “Pages 4-5″) on one page of the spread? Me, neither. But there must be some trendy new design style that puts both spread numbers on a single page. That’s the only way I can account for the number of times this issue has come up in the forums.

The good news is that it’s relatively easy to do in InDesign CS5. The bad news is that a bug prevents it from working smoothly in InDesign CS4. But the good news is that there’s a fairly simple workaround. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s Good-2, Bad-1.

Here’s how to create this quirky page numbering technique.

Step 1. In the Pages panel, open the master page where you want to add the page numbering, and create a text frame. In my case, I’m putting the numbering on the right master. Type any text that’ll go along with the page numbering, and format the text.

For example, you may want to use a paragraph style that right-aligns the text and applies a font style used for headers.

Step 2. Choose Type > Insert Special Characters > Markers > Previous Page Number to insert the page number from the left-hand page. Insert a hyphen (or en dash), and then choose Type > Insert Special Characters > Markers > Current Page Number.

Of course, if you’re adding the page numbering to the left master, you’ll want to insert the current page number first and then insert the Next Page Number character after the hyphen.

In a perfect world, you’d be done. But there’s a catch — and we haven’t even gotten to the real bug yet. You have to thread the text frame on the right-hand page to a text frame on the left-hand page. You need to do this because the Previous Page Number and Next Page Number work on a story level, not on a document level.

Step 3. Create a text frame on the left master page, and thread it to the text frame on the right master page (click the out port, and then click the other text frame). Then place the insertion point at the beginning of the text that belongs in the next frame and choose Type > Insert Break Character > Frame Break.

In InDesign CS5, it works. On the document pages to which the master is applied, you’ll see “2-3″ and “4-5.” But in InDesign CS4, you’ll see “3-3″ and “5-5″ — the Previous Page Number is the same as the Current Page Number.

Unfortunately, InDesign CS4 stumbles on the Previous Page Number if it’s in a text frame that’s based on a master page. You need to override the master page item on every page where it appears. Ouch.

Step 4 (CS4 only). On each document page to which the master is applied, hold down Ctrl/Command+Shift and click the text frame with the page numbering.

Now that I’ve written out the steps, I think a more accurate score is Good-2, Bad-2.

We asked Gabriel Powell to create a video that addresses the workflow of starting a form in InDesign and completing it in Acrobat. He did an excellent job.

Click here to watch Gabriel Powell’s video

As the Creating PDF forms topic suggests, the gist of the workflow is that you design a form in InDesign that includes placeholders for fields such as radio buttons, check boxes, and text fields. Then you export to PDF and use Acrobat to convert the placeholders into form fields.

This isn’t a perfect workflow. Ideally, you should be able to add form fields in InDesign so that exporting to PDF results in a finished form. Instead, you end up with two master documents, which means that if you need to make any changes in InDesign, you’d have to redo all the form field recognition work in Acrobat.* Still, if you make the right decisions and create a clean InDesign document, it’s a good way to make data forms.

As we were putting together the plan for this video, I came across a detailed document from the Acrobat team that provides valuable technical details on field recognition and best practices for designing a form. View Notes on Form Field Recognition (PDF).

UPDATE: See also Michael Murphy’s videocast on designing PDF forms in InDesign:

UPDATE: The Acrobat team wrote an article about Designing forms for auto field detection in Adobe Acrobat.

* Kriss has an interesting workaround tip in comments. Basically, you can use the Replace Pages feature in Acrobat to swap in an edited InDesign page without losing the buttons. Bob Levine describes the process in detail in this InDesign Secrets post.

To number steps in a document, you can keep it simple by just clicking the Numbered List button in the Control panel to number the current paragraph. And when you want to restart numbering for a new set of steps, just Alt/Option-click the Numbered List button and change the Start At number to 1. That may be a fine approach if you have only one or two sets of steps, but if you have more, you’ll want to automate your layout with styles.

Let’s suppose your text layout looks something like this:

What’s the best way to restart numbering?

The numbering needs to be restarted after the “To insert a gadget” head step. One way to do this is to create two different styles for steps, such as “Steps Begin” and “Steps Continue.” That’s a perfectly fine approach. But in this document, we know that steps appear only after a “Head Step” style, so let’s take advantage of that.

Continue reading…

I’ve already covered how to create numbered lists for outlines and multi-level lists. Now I’m going to walk through the steps of adding figure numbers, such as “Figure 1-1,” “Figure 1-2,” and so on. Using sequential numbering for lists of figures is common in technical manuals and user guides. I actually did a fairly thorough job in the Creating running captions for figures and tables Help topic if I don’t say so myself, but it may be helpful to demonstrate this process with a specific type of caption list.

Running caption for figures

Continue reading…