Indesign - how to use

Working with Colour
InDesign is set up exactly like Illustrator in terms of using
colours. You have the option of working in either RGB or
CMYK mode (remember to use CMYK if creating a document
for print!) and you have the option of ‘Fill’ and ‘Stroke’ colours.
The templates are already set up with the four AWW brand
colours in the Swatches palette, but if you need to add to the
selection there are several ways of doing so.
Double clicking on the ‘Fill’ colour on your ‘Tools’ pane will
bring up a ‘Colour Picker’ window where you can either click
on the coloured square to pick a random colour or use the
RGB or CMYK value fields to insert a specific colour. Once
done, close that window, right-click on the ‘Fill’ colour on
your ‘Tools’ pane and select ‘Add to Swatches’.
If you have a ready-made colour palette as an ASE
(Adobe Swatch Exchange) file, you can upload that by
clicking on the top right corner of the Swatches palette
and choosing ‘Load Swatches’. If you have another
InDesign document with the colours you want, you can
import them using this method.
You can also select spot colors from existing libraries, such
as Pantone’s. But keep this in mind: if the document will be
printed in CMYK only, without using Pantone colors, then
you’re better off converting the colors to CMYK so that you
get an accurate preview of the result. Illustrator has a much
wider selection of Colour Book libraries, so what you can do
is select your colour palette in Illustrator, save it as an ASE
file and import that into your InDesign document.
Use The Right Black
There seems to be some confusion about the use of rich
black, which is made up of all CMYK colors (for example,
40, 40, 30, 100). Rich black is excellent for large areas of
black, such as logos and black backgrounds. It prevents
fading (to a dull gray), which is especially useful for
outdoor posters and flyers.
However, body text should always be in process black
(i.e. 100% K, which is the standard Black in the Swatches
palette) to avoid printing problems. For the same reason,
registration black (which is composed of 100% CMYK)
should never be used for body text or thin lines.
Tables
When you need to insert a table into your document there
are a couple of ways to do it. If it’s a fairly simple table,
such as a fee proposal it’s probably best to create it from
scratch, using the following steps:
1. Using the Type tool, place the insertion point where
you want the table to appear.
2. Choose Table > Insert Table.
3. Specify the numbers of rows and columns.
4. If your table contents will continue on more than one
column or frame, specify the number of header or footer
rows in which you want the information to be repeated.
5. Click OK.
You will now have a table with identical column widths
and a black stroke that is 1pt in weight. To make the table
look more attractive and interesting you can, for example,
change the colour of the strokes to white, change the
weight of the stroke, add background colour to the cells,
add alternating row fills to make it easier to read and
change the column widths to reflect the amount of text
inside. All of these things can be done in Table > Table
Options > Table Setup....
Remeber to use a paragraph style that is not aligned to the
baseline grid so that the text in each cell sits in the same
position inside the cell and does not try to stick to the grid.
This is how it will look at first:
And here’s an altered version:
Header
1 facts more facts maybe numbers
You can also use the ‘Place’ command to import a Word
document that includes tables, or an Excel spreadsheet.
The imported data then is an editable table. You can use
the Import Options dialogue box to control the formatting.
InDesign - how to use guide Back to contents
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