InDesign can also publish content suitable for tablet devices in conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Graphic designers and production artists are the principal users, creating and laying out periodical publications, posters, and print media.
It also supports export to EPUB and SWF formats to create e-books and digital publications, including digital magazines, and content suitable for consumption on tablet computers. In addition, InDesign supports XML, style sheets, and other coding markup, making it suitable for exporting tagged text content for use in other digital and online formats.
BE SURE TO READ ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM AS THE ASSIGNMENT IS LOCATED BELOW THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES.
The first time you open InDesign, you will see a screen similar to this:
Click on the 'X' in the white circle to close the tutorial screen and you will see the following screen:
We
are going to create a letter-sized document, but if you click on the
letter icon pulldown menu, you will see that there are several other
page sizes for your choice:
Click on 'Letter' and you will get the following screen:
Notice the Document Properties box as outlined in the image below:
Notice
that many of the tools are similar to those in Adobe Illustrator and
Adobe Photoshop, but there are some differences, such as the Rectangle
Frame Tool which creates a frame layer that is transparent:
Another tool which should look familiar is the Text Tool:
ASSIGNMENT:
Start
by creating a Rectangle Frame that is exactly 7.5 inches wide by 4.0
inches in height with and X coordinate at .5 and a Y coordinate at .5 -
you will find the Rectangle Frame Tool located on the left hand side of
your screen (as shown below) and the Frame Properties on the right hand
side of your screen. The dimensions of the frame as well as the X and Y
coordinates are located in the Transform section of the Frame Properties
section. If your frame size and/or X and Y coordinates are not correct,
you can type in the required information into the Transform section and
the rectangle will adjust to these dimensions.
Click
on the Text Tool (located on the left hand side of the screen) and then
click inside the rectangle frame and you will see your text cursor
appear in the upper left hand corner of the rectangle frame. Also,
notice that a new Properties section appears that is specific to the
Text Tool. Click inside the dropdown menu that is under Character and
your Font selections will appear (Minion is probably the default font if
you are on a Mac). Pull down until you see either Times or Times New
Roman and choose that font.
Notice
that when you scroll through the dropdown menu, there will be a sample
of each style of each font so that you can see a preview of the font.
Type
a sentence such as "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy black dog"
and notice that the rectangle frame has now turned blue since it has
been selected. Also, notice that Character section of the Properties
section contains data on your Times or Times New Roman font. Times and
Times New Roman are known as SERIF fonts. There are two general
categories of typefaces: serif and sans serif.
Sans serif typefaces are composed of simple lines, whereas serif
typefaces use small decorative marks to embellish characters and make
them easier to read.
Arial, Helvetica and Tahoma are sans serif type.
Times, Times New Roman, Georgia, Palatino and Garamond are all serif type.
TAKE
A SCREENSHOT AND POST IT TO YOUR BLOG. Title the post Typography
Assignment 01. You will be coming back to this post and editing (adding)
more screenshots.
Using
your mouse or trackpad, select the sentence your just typed, as we are
going to edit the font character. The sentence should highlight in black
with the type reversed in white while it is selected.
In
the Character section, you will see an icon that has a small 'T' next
to a larger 'T' - this is the area to change the size of your font.
Change
the type in your sentence to 18pt (which stands for 18 points), take a
screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
There are approximately 72 (72.272) points in one inch or 2.54 cm. To be extremely precise, 1 point is equal to .013836 inch, so 72 points are actually .996264 inch. For practical purposes, this is rounded up to one inch.
If
you look at the Paragraph section of the Properties section you will
see the adjustment for Text Alignment. The default is Align Left (the
first icon). The other icons in order are:
- Align center (all sentences aligned center)
- Align right
- Justify with last sentence aligned left
- Justify with last sentence aligned center
- Justify with last sentence aligned right
- All sentences justified
- Align towards a spine
- Align away from a spine
Change the type in your sentence to ALIGN RIGHT, take a screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
Change the type in your sentence to ALIGN CENTER, take a screenshot, and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
To
the right of the Font Size adjustment icon is the Leading (pronounced
led-ding; short e sound, not long e sound) adjustment icon. It looks
like a vertical line with an arrow at the top and bottom next to to two
letter A's stacked atop one another.
The spacing between the baselines of the typeface is referred as Leading. The
default, or Auto, setting for leading in most font software is 120% of
the type size. For example, the auto/default leading for a 14 point font
will be 16.8 points.
Type
a second sentence directly underneath your first sentence within the
same rectangle frame. You will probably have to use the 'return' key to
move below the first sentence. Once you have the two sentences, one
below the other as shown below, Select All of the text.
With
your two sentences of text still selected, go to the Leading adjustment
and change it to 6 pt (6 points). The two lines of text should now
overlap as the leading has been set too close, as seen below.
TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
With your
two sentences of text still selected, go to the Leading adjustment and
change it to 72 pt (72 points). The two lines of text should now be spaced far apart
as the leading has been set to a larger number than normal, as seen below.
Directly underneath the Leading adjustment is the Tracking adjustment. The default setting for tracking is usually '0' zero.Tracking is often confused for kerning. Tracking, like kerning,
also refers to the distance between letters, but tracking involves adjusting
the spacing throughout the entire word.
Tracking can be used once you
have determined the right spacing between each letter to change the
spacing equally between every letter at once; hence, it should be used
with caution.
Go
to the tracking adjustment and set it to -100 (negative or minus 100)
and watch the letters scrunch together as seen in the example below.
TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
With
your two sentences still selected go to the Tracking adjustment and
set the tracking to 200 (plus 200) and watch as the letters spread apart
in the entire sentence, as seen in the example below.
TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
Reset
your tracking to zero, go to the Character section and the font
selection dropdown menu, and choose Arial as your font. All of your text
should change to the new font. As we discussed, Arial is one of the
Sans Serif fonts. Notice how the sentence changes in style and
readability, as seen in the examples below. Notice, too, that the
Character section now shows Arial in the font selection dropdown menu
area.
TAKE A SCREENSHOT and add it (edit) to your existing assignment blogpost.
