Quick & Dirty, Just Enough InDesign Tutorial for
Instruction Set Project
General Things to Keep in Mind
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Working with InDesign is essentially a process of creating, filling, and manipulating
frames to create the layout of a document
By default, InDesign works in picas. This is a measurement system that most of us
probably don’t think in. Fortunately, you can type 4i into a box (for four inches) and
InDesign will convert to the correlating pica amount. You can also type 4pt (this
represents point size).
There is a layout selection on the very top horizontal menu. By default it’s set to
“Essentials.” This effects which menus are available on the right side of the screen. It can
be changed (to “Typography” for example) based on tools you use the most.
Also on the top horizontal menu is the option to view the document in Normal or
Preview mode. Normal will show all your guide lines. Preview is essentially a print
view. The hover for this button reads “Screen Mode”
100% view does not necessarily reflect the actual size of your document (it’s largely
dependent on your screen size and resolution). I’ve found that 125% view is usually more
accurate. This is most important when it comes to photos. Often, doing a quick print job
to see if the image is clear and large enough is the best course of action.
The Selection Tool is your best friend. You will be using it a lot to move frames, resize
frames and objects, etc. (Esc, V will quick select it for you)
To undo your last step select Command Z (control Z on a PC)
Hovering the mouse over any button or menu icon will give you its title
It’s a good idea to get all of your text into the document before adding pictures. It will
make your life generally easier
WHEN IMPORTING IMAGES, INDESIGN ACTUALLY BRINGS IN A
COPY/LINK OF THE ORIGINAL THROUGH ITS FILE PATH. THIS MEANS
YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS IF YOU IMPORT AN IMAGE AND THEN
MOVE THAT IMAGE SOMEWHERE ELSE ON YOUR COMPUTER LATER.
ONCE YOU BRING AN IMAGE INTO THE PROGRAM, MAKE SURE YOU
DON’T MOVE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE ON YOUR COMPUTER UNTIL
YOU’VE FINALIZED THE DOCUMENT (EXPORTED TO A .PDF).
Create New Document from the Opening Prompt
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Set number of pages (you can always add or subtract more later)
“Facing Pages” does NOT need to be checked
Page size should be Letter and orientation should be Portrait
Leave Gutter and Margins as the default
You can choose number of Columns here. I tend to make the document one column and
set up a different system of guidelines explained in the next section
Two Ways to Set up a Grid System for Alignment
Option One
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View>Grids & Guidelines>Show Document Grid
o This gives you a very heavy grid with a lot of alignment possibilities to follow
Option Two
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Layout>Create Guides
Make sure “Fit Guides To” is set to “Margins”
Enter a number of rows and columns to create alignment guides on your page
Switching Between Pages/Creating New Pages
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Select Pages from the right side menu panels
Create New Page is at the bottom of this panel
Once you have multiple pages, switching between them is as simple as clicking on the
page icon of the page you want to work on
Working With Text
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Use text tool to draw a rectangular text frame
o Feel free to draw it anywhere, it can always be moved
With the text tool highlighted, the top ribbon has two options: Character Formatting
Controls and Paragraph Formatting Controls. These are toggled by clicking the correct
icon on the far left end of the ribbon. When working with text, make sure Character
Formatting is selected
Type into the text frame and use the ribbon controls to manipulate font, size, and
alignment (this operates just like a word processer)
With the Selection Tool highlighted, you can:
o Move the text box around the page
o Hover outside a corner until you see a curved arrow allowing you to rotate the
box
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o Resize the frame box by dragging one of the square markers around its edges
o When the text is the size you want it, it’s a good idea to
 Right click inside the box with Selection tool selected
 Fitting>Fit Frame to Content
 This will make the frame the exact size it needs to be to fit the text
and will aid in alignment guiding
Various effects (drop shadow, inner shadow, outer glow, bevel and emboss) can be
applied to any text.
o Select the frame of the text (don’t highlight the text itself)
o Object>Effects
o Select effect you want
o Another option box will open to tweak the effect to your liking
Inserting an Image
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Select the Rectangular Frame Tool
Draw a frame for the photo to sit in somewhere on the page (it can be moved later)
With the frame selected:
o File>Place
o This opens up your computers file system. Browse to the photo you want.
Depending on how large you drew the frame, the picture may be too big and only
showing part of it in the frame.
o Right click inside the frame and select Fitting
 Fit Content to Frame will make the pic the size of the frame
 Fit Frame to Content will expand the picture to actual size and expand
the frame
To later move the frame together with the picture, make sure to use the Selection Tool to
select the frame (not the picture) before you start to move it.
Putting A Stroke (border) Around a Picture
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Select the picture frame
Select Stroke from the right side menu panels
Select a Weight size for the border. 1 or 2 is usually significant
Black is default. To change color of the stroke border
o Select Color panel within the Stroke Panel
o Double click the bottom box of the fill/stroke boxes in the top left
o Choose your color
o Note that doing this has changed the fill/stroke settings in general (as
reflecting on the far left tool column and you make have to change it again
before performing other color activities
Drawing and Filling/Stroking Shapes
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Before drawing a new shape, it’s wise to place it on a new layer. This way you can
restack the layers and place the shape above or below other elements.
o Select Layer from the right side menu panels
o Select Create New Layer at the bottom of the panel
o Make sure that new layer is highlighted when you draw your shape
Select Rectangle Tool
o or hold mouse button down over bottom right corner of button to reveal other
shape options
Draw shape on page
Resizing and rotating can be accomplished with Selection Tool the same way it worked
with text
With the shape selected double click on either the fill or stroke square (left menu column)
to open up color choices and apply them
Shapes can also be filled with gradients (a fill that moves from one color shade to
another), but I’m not going there. Feel free to research on your own.
Putting Text in Columns and Linking Them
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I recommend drawing one large text frame and pasting all of your text into it first.
If you want to turn that text into columns
o Select text frame
o Select Type Tool
o Select Paragraph Formatting Controls on the far left of the top
o Use the Number of Columns selection area to select number of columns
o Below the Number of Columns is the Gutter selection. This will add or subtract
space between the columns
o You should generally make sure that Hyphenate is not selected. This controls
whether or not words hyphenate when they reach the far right side of a column.
Linking Columns of Text
Sometimes due to font size, your text may not all fit inside the column. When this happens, a red
square box with a plus sign will appear at the bottom right corner of the frame.
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Draw a new text frame for the text to continue in
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Select the previous text frame and click on the red box (you should see a semi-transparent
portion of the text attached to the cursor now)
Click inside the new text frame
The text will flow over. Bonus: now the frames are linked. Therefore, when you change
the size or spacing in the previous text frame it will naturally flow over to the new one.
Wrapping Text Around Images
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Follow the same instructions for inserting a photo. Draw the photo frame right over the
text wherever you want the photo to generally be.
Select Window>Text Wrap
Your text wrap options are across the top of the menu. Most of the time, Wrap Around
Bounding Box will be the option you want.
Once you’ve set that wrap style for the image frame, you can freely move the image
around and the text should wrap accordingly.
You can control how much padding is around the top, bottom, left, and right of the image
with the number selectors below the wrap options.
Saving and Exporting
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When you are not done and want to save the file to reopen in InDesign later
o File>Save as>InDesign Document
To convert to PDF
o File>Export>PDF (for Print)