Starting up

About InDesign Digital Classroom

Adobe® InDesign® CC lets you create print and digital layouts for brochures, magazines, books, flyers, marketing, and sales sheets. InDesign was originally conceived for creating print and PDF documents, but it is evolving into a tool for creating interactive and digital documents. With the Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom you will discover how to integrate InDesign with other Adobe Creative Cloud products and how you can create InDesign projects and export them for use on the nook, Kindle, or iPad®. The Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom helps you to understand all the essential capabilities of Adobe InDesign and to get the most out of InDesign. The goal of the Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom is to get you up-and-running right away, creating documents for print and digital environments. You can work through all the lessons in this book, or complete only specific lessons. Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, along with lesson files, useful background information, and video tutorials.

Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom is like having your own expert instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book includes 13 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore new ones, and pick up tips that will save you time. You’ll be productive right away, with real-world exercises and simple explanations. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions, lesson files, and video tutorials, all of which are available on the Digital Classroom website: www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/indesigncc. The Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team of Adobe Certified Experts who have created many of the official training titles for Adobe Systems, participated in development of Adobe Certified Expert exams, and have more than a decade of experience teaching InDesign so you can be confident that you will discover useful skills quickly and easily.

Prerequisites

Before you start the Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom lessons, you should have a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders. You also need to understand how to locate, save, and open files, and you should also know how to use your mouse to access menus and commands.

Make sure that you have installed Adobe InDesign CC. The software is sold separately and is not included with this book. You can use the free 30-day trial version of Adobe InDesign CC available at the adobe.com website, subject to the terms of its license agreement.

System requirements

Before starting the lessons in the Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom, make sure that your computer is equipped for running Adobe InDesign CC, which you must purchase separately. The minimum system requirements for your computer to effectively use the software are listed on the following page.

System requirements for Adobe InDesign CC

These are the minimum system requirements for using the InDesign CC software. Your computer will need to meet these requirements to use the software and the lessons in this book:

Windows

• • Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• • Microsoft® Windows® 7 with Service Pack 1 or Windows 8
• • 2 GB of RAM (with 8 GB or more recommended)
• • 2.6 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; although additional free space is required during installation. The software cannot be installed on removable flash storage devices
• • 1024 × 768 display (1280 × 800 recommended) with 32-bit video card
• • Adobe® Flash® Player 10 software required to export SWF files
• • InDesign CC requires activation. Broadband Internet connection and registration are required for software activation

Mac OS

• • Multicore Intel processor
• • Mac OS X v10.6.8, v10.7, or v10.8
• • 2 GB of RAM (with 8 GB or more recommended)
• • 2.6 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation. The software cannot be installed on removable flash storage devices and cannot be installed on a hard drive volume that uses a case-sensitive file system.
• • 1024 × 768 display (1280 × 800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
• • Adobe Flash Player 10 software required to export SWF files
• • InDesign CC requires activation. Broadband Internet connection and registration are required for software activation

Menus and commands are identified throughout the book by using the greater-than symbol (>). For example, the command to print a document appears as File > Print. This indicates that you should click the File menu at the top of your screen and choose Print from the resulting menu.

Starting Adobe InDesign CC

As with most software, Adobe InDesign CC is launched by locating the application in your Programs folder (Windows) or Applications folder (Mac OS). If you are not familiar with starting the program, follow these steps to start the Adobe InDesign CC application:

Windows

1 Choose Start > All Programs > Adobe InDesign CC.

Mac OS

1 Open the Applications folder, and then open the Adobe InDesign CC folder.

2 Double-click the Adobe InDesign CC application icon.

Fonts used in this book

Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom includes lessons that refer to fonts that were installed with your copy of Adobe InDesign CC. If you did not install the fonts, or have removed them from your computer, you can substitute different fonts for the exercises or reinstall the software to access the fonts.

If you receive a Missing Font warning, replace the font with one available on your computer and proceed with the lesson.

Access lesson files & videos any time

Register your book at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/indesigncc to download the lesson files onto any computer, or watch the videos on your Internet connected tablet, smartphone, or computer. You’ll be able to watch the Digital Classroom videos anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Resetting the InDesign workspace and preferences

To make certain that your panels and working environment are consistent, you should reset your workspace at the start of each lesson. To reset your workspace, choose Window > Workspace > Typography. The selected workspace determines the menu items to display, the panels to display, and the options to display within the panels. If menu items that are identified in the book are not displaying, choose Show All Menu Items from the menu in which you are working to locate them, or choose Window > Workspace > Advanced to show all panel options.

You can reset the settings for InDesign at the start of each lesson to make certain you match the instructions used in this book. To reset the InDesign preferences, start Adobe InDesign, and immediately press Shift+Alt+Ctrl (Windows) or Shift+Option+Command+Control (Mac OS). In the dialog box that appears, click OK to reset the preferences.

Loading lesson files

The InDesign CC Digital Classroom book includes files that accompany the exercises for each of the lessons. These files are available for download at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/indesigncc. You can download all the lessons at one time or you may choose to download and work with specific lessons.

For each lesson in the book, the files are referenced by the name of each file. The exact location of each file on your computer is not used, since you might have placed the files in a unique location on your hard drive. We suggest placing the lesson files in the My Documents folder (Windows) or in the Documents folder (Mac OS).

Downloading and copying the lesson files to your hard drive:

1 Use your web browser, navigate to www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/indesigncc. Follow the instructions on the web page to download the lesson files to your computer.

2 On your computer desktop, navigate to the location where you downloaded the files and right-click (Windows) the .zip file you downloaded, then choose Extract All or double-click on the .zip file (Mac OS).

Working with the video tutorials

The www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/indesigncc site provides Adobe InDesign CC Digital Classroom book readers with video tutorials that enhance the content of this book. The videos use the popular Silverlight player for viewing on your desktop or notebook computer, or use iPad-compatible video if you are using an iPad to read an electronic version of this book. Most other ePub devices are not optimized for playing video, and you should use a notebook, desktop, or tablet computer for viewing the video tutorials if you are using a dedicated e-reader such as a nook, Kindle, kobo, or Sony e-reader. An internet connection is necessary for viewing the supplemental video files.

The videos enhance your learning as key concepts and instructions are discussed by the book’s authors. The video tutorials supplement the book’s contents, and do not replace the book. They are not intended to cover every item discussed in the book, but will help you gain a better or more clear understanding of topics discussed in many lessons of the book.

Additional resources

The Digital Classroom series goes beyond the training books. You can continue your learning online, with training videos, at seminars and conferences, and in-person training events.

On-demand video training from the authors

Comprehensive video training from the authors are available at DigitalClassroom.com. Find complete video training along with thousands of video tutorials covering InDesign and related Creative Cloud apps along with digital versions of the Digital Classroom book series. Learn more at DigitalClassroom.com.

Training from the authors

The authors are available for professional development training workshops for schools and companies. They also teach classes at American Graphics Institute, including training classes and online workshops. Visit agitraining.com for more information about Digital Classroom author-led training classes or workshops.

Additional Adobe Creative Cloud books

Expand your knowledge of creative software applications with the Digital Classroom book series. Books are available for most creative software applications as well as web design and development tools and technologies. Learn more at DigitalClassroomBooks.com.

Seminars and conferences

The authors of the Digital Classroom seminar series frequently conduct in-person seminars and speak at conferences, including the annual CRE8 Conference. Learn more at agitraining.com and CRE8summit.com.

Resources for educators

Visit digitalclassroombooks.com to access resources for educators, including instructors’ guides for incorporating Digital Classroom into your curriculum.