Chapter Three | Creating a Document
Lesson 1: Creating New Documents
You can open a new document one of two ways: the first being go to FILE>NEW>DOCUMENT… or you can use CMD+N. You can choose whether you wish your document to be a “Print” file, or “Web”, which is just “On Screen”. Web is not applicable because InDesign doesn’t do coding, and it’s more for an interactive PDF. Choosing “web” will set your document to pixel measurements. But we are just using Print for today. When you do make a document, it is advised to make the Page Size equal to what your final document will print as. Don’t put into account any crop marks, or anything yet. You already know how to set the page size or orientation, but you can add columns and margins as guides. My selecting “more options”, you can add bleed marks and slugs. This will be explained later. At the top of the dialog box you can select how many pages you wish to have. If your document will be like a little book with however many pages, then you will set it to “facing pages”. You will have a starting page, as well. (This is a long video for starting a document)…the author also states that “If you spend more than 30 seconds creating a new document, you probably want to save it as a template, just in case”, and this is accomplished by just clicking “save preset”. You can later access this template by going to FILE>NEW>DOCUMENT>DOCUMENT PRESET, and if you saved and named a template, it will be in that dropdown menu. If you are unhappy with the document, do not fret, you can go to FILE>DOCUMENT SETUP, and it allows you to change most of the things about your document settings.
Lesson 2: Saving and Reverting Documents
Starting off, the author tells me about the asterisk that appears on the document tab if you have changed a saved document in any way. You can also save templates for later. This happens when you click “Save As”, a dialog box pops up and you can choose it from the format menu. Templates allow you to have the structure of the document, making it untitled, and when you save the new document, it does not save over the original or template. Handy. Save a copy is almost like save as, but saves the current state of the document off to the side and does not override the original.
This author goes into every single little detail about everything. Which is good, but there are so many details!
Lesson 3: Using Multiple Undo and Revert
You have an infinite number of Undo and Redos.
Undo = CMD+Z
Redo = CMD+SHIFT+Z
Fairly easy, and is the same for almost any program out there. Though, in photoshop you have to use CMD+ALT+Z to do it multiple times.
You can also revert to a the original document, which is FILE>REVERT. Ultimate Undo.
Lesson 4: Setting Margin and Column Guides
I learned about this in Up and Running, but here we go. Select the page or the spread that you wish to add columns or guides to, go to LAYOUT>MARGINS AND COLUMNS, and when you add these make sure that layout adjustment is not selected, otherwise your whole document will mess up.
Lesson 5: Using Ruler Guides
To add a guide to a page, simply drag down from the ruler, or if it is the vertical ruler, simply drag to the right. You can set a guide at a certain number of inches by pressing SHIFT+DOUBLE CLICK on the size you want, and a guide will snap to that specification.
Lesson 6: Bleeding Colors or Images Off the Side of the Page
When you print a document in InDesign, the printer may move the images slightly, making it look awful. To make up for this, Adobe gives you a feature called “Bleeds”, which basically allows you to extend the image off of the page a little using guides. Whoever prints the image usually prints the document on a larger sheet, and using the crop lines they trim it down. To get to the bleed setting, which you can also do in your New Document Dialog Box, is to go to FILE>DOCUMENT SETUP. Make sure you click “More Options” to show it. From here you can set where you want the bleed to be at whatever you want. Press the link button if you want it to be the same across all sides. When you have a bleed guide, it will appear as a red line around your document. You only bleed your background images, by the way. When you save the image, though, you have to make sure that the settings for your bleed are included, so when it prints, it will show the marks. To do this, save as a PDF file, and it will give you the options to include what you want when it finally does print, so click the Marks and Bleeds on the list and make sure all of the Marks checkboxes are checked as well as “Use Document Bleed Settings”.
Lesson 7: Saving Objects in Libraries
This is useful if you want to use the same thing for different documents. To do this, select the object you wish to save and copy it. Then, go to New Document and just make a document, it doesn’t matter the settings. Now, go to Edit>Paste in Place, which places it on the new document where it was in the last document you used it in. Now, go to File>New>Library. Name it what you want, click save, and InDesign will give you a new Library Panel. To put things in it, just select the object you want and drag it to the Library Panel. To use this in another document, you just drag and drop. If for some reason you want it to be in the same place, just click in the panel dropdown menu, and click “Place Items” and it remembers where that object was on the other pages and puts it there. When you add items, it saves them to disk, and resaves anytime you close out InDesign. Double click an item on there, and it gives you the info about that object, which you can change there.
Lesson 8: Exporting and Importing Page Snippets
You can basically do what you did in the last chapter, only way more complicated. Select the object you wish to use, go to File>Export, and it will give you the export box, so you give it a name and save it as an InDesign Snippet in the format dropdown menu. The filing name for snippets is IDMS. You can put this into a new document as well by just going to File>Place, and it shows a load box and you just find the snippet and add it. If you ALT+CLICK while placing it, it will place it where it was in the other pages.
Lesson 9: Saving for CS4 with IMDL
IMDL means InDesign Markup. Go to File>Export and choose this so that it may be opened in earlier versions of InDesign. IMDL completely replace INX. This sets up the document as an XML file, which you can then hand to a CS4 designer, and it will set the document up in their application. Not all features will be included in their file. It can only be opened in CS4. Each save from an obsolete product will only go back one version.
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