Introduction to InDesign

This course is available both as an online ($75) and as a face-to-face ($550) course. It introduces you to the classic 'high end' tool for desktop publishing in the Windows and Macintosh environments - Adobe InDesign. If you want to improve your Desk Top Publishing (DTP) skills and produce high quality documents with great control over the placement of text and graphics on the page, then InDesign is the tool for you.

Here are two examples from typical InDesign documents:

Front cover for an online magazine

Online magazine

Wine label

So, what's desktop publishing?

In the modern business world, there is a continuing call for the production of better quality documents - be they newsletters, annual reports, charts, diagrams, location maps, presentations etc. The 'presentation bar' is being raised all the time. The advent of the Internet has also created an increased demand for electronic documents that retain the 'look and feel' of the originals. InDesign is a great tool for preparing these high quality printed documents, especially if you want the ability to control the quality of the (PDF) files placed on web sites.

If you would like a more detailed discussion of desktop publishing, click here.

This particular course

We start from a position of no knowledge of DTP software and help you to design and publish several publications; this approach works because most people learn best by doing! We begin by explaining how InDesign works and then show you how to lay out documents. As you progress through the course, we move from simple one page designs to the creation of quite complex multi-page documents, rich in graphics with data incorporated from other sources. The figures below show some more examples of InDesign work.

Trade magazine

Magazine advertorial

Your time with us - one-on-one training

If you are an in-house student and opted or one-on-one training, we encourage you to bring along image files and 'stories' of your own and help you build publications similar to that asked of you at work. The figure below shows an example - one of our students produced an advertisement for a tour guide company ready for placement in a trade journal.

Please note that we do not guarantee that you will walk away with a completely finished job at the end of a day with us, but we do try. You will have some work to do back in the office!

Tours

An advertisement for a tour guide company - for Bunnik Travel - prepared in InDesign and then turned into a PDF file for placement in an industry journal.

Distance students are encouraged to build dialog with their on-line tutor and produce finished work.

Try an instructional movie from the course

We would like you to sample some of our instructional materials before enrolling. In this way, you can gain an appreciation of out methodology.

	Click here to play a small on screen movie which illustrates what one of our students achieved with InDesign during the course.
If the movie plays and you can hear the commentary, then your system is suitable for the broadband version of the course. This option provides considerable savings in course costs.

Cost of courses

Online learning via broadband

The most popular option is to take a course as an online learning student. Our online broadband learning courses features rapid enrolment, many multi media instructional movies, online forums, multi-choice reviews, questionnaires, submission of assignments, email support etc. This is an enhanced learning experience at an affordable price. The course cost is $AUD75.00 for >30 hours of high quality training. Visit http://www.softwaretutor.designcad.com.au now and enrol. You can pay by PayPal which accepts direct deposit and credit cards and start immediately or send us an email requesting an enrolment. We will enrol you and post out an invoice. Payment can then be made by direct deposit. Our bank details will be on the invoice.

One-on-one training (Adelaide or Canberra - in our offices or yours).

We can provide face-to face training. Each course takes one day and costs $AUD550.00. We do require some information about what it is that you or your organisation hopes to achieve so we can prepare appropriate materials in advance.

Each participant in one-on-one full day courses is automatically enrolled at no extra cost in the broadband learning version of the matching course (at www.softwaretutor.designcad.com.au). This would normally cost an additional $75.00 per person. In this way, students get a double benefit - personal tuition and the ability to access any of the written instructional materials online, replay any of the demonstration movies, download sample files, log questions, take quizzes and submit assignments for review.

About our courses & methodology

Experience over many years has taught us that adults learn best by progressing through a course of study at their own pace and at times that suit them. Wherever possible, they like to learn by working on their own materials, rather than work through long unrelated practice exercises. Our courses are specifically designed so that this can occur. We introduce a topic, provide a movie showing you how to do the task with your software and then give detailed step-by-step instructions for you to follow.

Locations & times - face to face group training

Courses may be taken at our training facility (Regency Park, South Australia), in Canberra in your offices or in hired facilities. If a course is taken 'in-house' in our offices, it normally runs for a whole day with a break for lunch. Starting time is 9.15 am and finish time around 4.15 - 4.30 pm. We provide tea & coffee and a light lunch.

Credit card payment

We use PayPal, an organization which takes all credit cards using a secure Internet facility. PayPal is a partner within the eBay system. We have chosen PayPal because it is independent of us, allows us to hold money in trust until we have delivered the course. We will provide a tax invoice on receipt of payment in addition to the PayPal receipt if requested.

When you have finished this course

Please remember to build on your knowledge of InDesign after you complete this course. We strongly recommend that InDesign be used quite intensively after these early stages of learning. You will lose a lot if you let new-found skills ‘wither on the vine’. Practice is the key to learning sophisticated software. The key to success is to complete your first real project as soon as possible.

Prerequisites

An understanding of basic computer operation including the ability to create, save and locate files. We would expect that you have used a computer with the Windows or Macintosh operating system for some time and perhaps developed reasonable facility with a word processor such as Microsoft Word.If you feel that you need to brush up on computer skills, we provide a free course at http://www.softwaretutor.designcad.com.au - simply enter the Basic Skills course as a guest.

Syllabus

The table below provides an overview of the course content. We reserve the right to vary the material at any time. This will certainly happen in face-to-face sessions.

Module	Description
The Process of Desktop Publishing	A 'high level' look at InDesign taking your first serious look at the software application. Creating your first 'pieces' of work - an A1 size poster for a motorcycle race meeting and a poster for an art exhibition at a primary school. The importance of using InDesign templates is emphasized, especially those that you create yourself. After looking at some posters, we further develop the concept of using templates by using one to create a job advertisement and a travel company flyer. After producing some additional work, it is time for some theory. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Desk Top Publishing (DTP) and the need to learn to use additional tools such as vector drawing programs, image editors, scanners, text editors and digital cameras. The benefits of producing PDF files from your InDesign files is illustrated as we look at some examples of PDF files created by our students. Finally, we illustrate InDesign's ability to produce 'in house' documents by printing out a list of the various keyboard shortcuts which can be used to speed your work.
Preliminaries	Some steps to take before beginning serious work with InDesign. The relationship between InDesign and the Windows operating system. Installing InDesign, Acrobat Distiller, Acrobat Postscript Printer Driver. Installing a print driver. Setting preferences in InDesign suitable for the metric environment - the units and column widths. Installing a new Windows font and Postscript font series. Installing some Postscript fonts. Creating a set of folders suitable for InDesign projects.
InDesign in Action	Showcasing InDesign. Collecting some design ideas and recognizing the value of keeping a design ideas portfolio. Viewing sample files produced by some of our students. Editing your first publication - a brochure for a catering company. Placing graphics in a frame on the page. Adjusting frame contents by scaling. Some more theory - what is Desk Top Publishing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of DTP over conventional publishing methods? What hardware and software are required for DTP? Comparing DTP to word processing. Using InDesign templates. Our first serious publication - a label for a floppy diskette. Developing a document to print two labels for a CD-ROM (with a background graphic).
The User Interface	The InDesign Interface. Drop down menus, rulers, guides, and palettes. Managing palettes - floating palettes on the screen. Combining palettes into groups. Activating palettes by the Window drop down menu. Activating the pages palette, docking palettes. The Tools palette, selecting tools, using fly out menus. The function of each of the tools from the toolbox palette - Pen, Pencil, Line, Frame, Shape (the difference between shapes and frames), Rotate, Scale, Shear, Free Transform, Eyedropper (copies formatting), Measure, Gradient, Type tool, the Scissors tool, Grabber hand (Pan) and Zoom. Foreground, Background and colour of the stroke (line weight). Keyboard overrides to commands. Display tricks: the Zoom tool. Positioning the mouse. Percentage magnification - the value of Control key (and the O option). The Zoom Window option. Controlling movement between pages. Page button movement. The value of Latin text. Exploring the Pages Palette. Exposing Frame Edges, Baseline Grid, Text threads, Document grid. The value of Master Page items. Using preview mode. Opening, closing and positioning palettes. Combining palettes. Selecting frames. Using the Control Palette, making objects non printing. Keyboard shortcuts. Manipulating objects, changing the order of object display. The value of the status line.
Planning documents	Planning an InDesign publication is of crucial importance. Selecting appropriate images to illustrate the concepts behind the document. Sketching design ideas by hand (at an appropriate scale). Headings, body text, readability and typography. The need to involve management early and the value of preparing a project charter.
A Single Page Document	Creating a simple one-page document - a fact sheet for a plant nursery, complete with description and photographs. Importing text from external word processors into a document. Building a two-page document. Using layers in documents - a single page information sheet for a library staff election. Creating and applying watermarks. Printing - editing and printing your course certificate.
Using layers	Manipulating layers - stacking order, adjusting the transparency of a layer, isolating layers, setting the current layer. A sample 'layers' project - a voting flyer for a library election campaign.
Multi page documents	Building a newsletter a multi page document with columns. Placing graphics and stories on the pasteboard ready for page layout. Using high resolution graphic images stored as TIFF files. Keeping images outside the document. Placing stories and linking them such that they flow from one column to another. Applying styles to text. Using styles in a menu for a sophisticated restaurant. Using InDesign's story editor, linking graphics. Editing text and graphics in situ. Printing and proofing. Understanding the use of colour in InDesign documents. The value of understanding RGB, CMYK and Pantone colours. Preparing for commercial printing, colour separations, applying crop marks, Pre-Flight - Pack and Go, Postscript files.
A note on colour	Applying colour to elements in pages - problems matching colour. The Pantone system, Maunsell colours, RGB vs. CMYK.
Page Design	Some brief guidelines for page design. 'Playing' with typography as design tool. The effect of symmetry and asymmetry in documents. Text flow across and down the page. The value of headings and building a hierarchical structure in documents.

Times

If a course is taken 'in-house' it normally runs for a whole day with a break for lunch. Lunch is included in the course fee. Starting time is 9.15 am and finish around 4.15 - 4.30 pm.

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