Lesson A: Configure a New Document

In this project, we are creating a brochure (or booklet, proposal, newsletter—whatever you’d prefer to call it). This document will have front and back covers and six pages of content that will be familiar. Rather than generate styles this time, we’ll “steal” them from another document: a style guide. This is a common approach, so you should become familiar with it.

The text is written in Word and has common formatting issues we will review fixing. There are graphics for us to use as decorative elements to accompany three of the six topics discussed in the document. You will be able to choose between two backdrop images for each of the other three topics.

Create a New Document with Primary Text Frames

Although this document will have eight pages by the time we’re done, we need only start with one. InDesign will take care of most of the rest!

Start with a Preset

• Go to File > New > Document….
• At the top of the New Document dialog, choose Print from the listed media. Examine the Blank Document Presets. Click View All Presets if necessary to find and choose Letter. Now let’s refine the choices somewhat.

Customize the Settings

• Include a provisional name at the top (Brochure, Proposal, Newsletter, etc. are all fine names).
• Choose Inches as the Units.
• Set the number of both Pages and Columns to 1.
• Be sure that Facing Pages is checked.
• Most importantly, be sure that Primary Text Frame is checked. This will create one of those very special frames whose dimensions will match our margins and more. Speaking of which…
• Click the disclosure arrow next to Margins if the fields are not already visible. Disable the chain to the right so you can set asymmetrical margins.
• Set the Inside margin to 4.75 in, and the others to 0.5 in. This will give us 3.25-by-10-inch columns (and primary text frames) on the outside of each spread.
• Check again that Primary Text Frame is checked.
• Click the disclosure arrow next to Bleed & Slug if necessary to see the fields. Set the Bleed to 0.125 in all the way around. We will have content that we want to go to the edge of the page, thus it needs to go beyond it.
• Ensure Primary Text Frame is checked one last time, then click OK.
• A very nearly blank page appears. If you use the Selection tool and click within the margins, you will confirm that there’s a primary text frame present.

Set Preferences & Display Performance

To ensure that we see what we must, as well as what we wish, let’s check and possibly change some settings.

Preferences

• Go to Preferences (⌘-K/Ctrl-K).
• First stop: go to the Type preferences. Enable Smart Text Reflow with Delete Empty Pages. This will save us time and trouble when we place the Word doc later. Also, be sure Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs is checked.
• Next: Guides & Pasteboard preferences. To make it as easy as possible to see those primary text frames, go down to the Guide Options section and enable Guides in Back so that the margin guides don’t obscure the edges of those frames.
• Display Performance preferences are next. This document is small, but may need a couple work sessions. To ensure you see the details, set the Default View to High Quality.
• Click OK.

Display Performance

• To be sure you are currently enjoying a fine view of our document, go to View > Display Performance > High Quality.

Save

If you use either the Save command or Save As… command, you’ll be prompted to do the latter since this doc hasn’t been saved yet. Nonetheless…

• Choose File > Save As… to save this document into the downloaded folder called Project 3 Brochure. Use the provisional name you chose when you created the document, if you like.

Load & Examine Styles

You have built a number of styles since we started this course. Now it’s time to leverage previously built styles.

• Open the document called a style guide.indd. It’s in a folder called project assets, which is inside the Project 3 Brochure folder. There are now two tabs visible in the upper-left of the document window.

This is a single-page document with several objects grouped in the lower part of the page. These objects use the styles we need in our document. Many companies will task someone to keep such a document up-to-date with the styles a team should be using.

• Select the group with the Selection tool. Use the command Edit > Copy or the shortcut ⌘-C/Ctrl-C to copy the group.
• Close the style guide document by clicking the X in its tab (don’t close the entire application!). It may prompt you to save the document. If so, you may, but there is no need to do so.
• Back in the brochure doc, simply paste what you copied: go to Edit > Paste or use the shortcut ⌘-V/Ctrl-V.
• Locate and examine the various styles panels (character styles, paragraph styles, and object styles), and you’ll see that there are three new styles in each panel.
• Once you have confirmed that the styles have been delivered, dismiss the courier—i.e., delete the group you pasted. The styles remain. Let’s inventory them.

Object Styles

• For each of the following object styles, right-click the name (no left-clicking!) and choose to Edit it. You will not actually change anything, but you will see what each style does.

If you left-click any style while there is nothing selected, you will make that style a default. It is not likely that you want any of these to be a default.

Primary text frames This style does very little, indeed. Most of the Basic Attributes are unchecked, except for Fill and Stroke, which are set to [None]. It is likely we won’t even use this one.

graphic This style has two significant attributes: Size and Position Options and Frame Fitting Options. The first sets a frame to be 4 inches square, vertically centered on the page, and its left edge 4 inches from the left edge of a page. When used on a left-hand page, a frame with this style will be just to the right of the text frame it accompanies. Any image or graphic that is placed in a frame with this style will be Fit Proportionally so we see all of it as large as possible.

big pic This style also uses Size and Position Options and Frame Fitting Options. The first sets the size of a frame with this style to fill a page (plus bleed), and the latter fills the frame with an image placed within it. This will be used on the right-hand pages. There is also a residual gray fill color I did not remove. Although not helpful, it isn’t harmful either.

Paragraph Styles

• For each of the following paragraph styles, right-click the name (no left-clicking!) and choose to Edit it. These styles are similar to the ones we made in chapter 3 because the content we are decorating is similar.

If you left-click any style while there is nothing selected, you will make that style a default. There is one that we need to set as a default: body copy.

topic header The most significant attribute of this style is the Keep Option to Start in Next Column, which in this case is the next text frame. In Indents and Spacing, all three paragraph styles use a slightly unusual Alignment: Away From Spine.

body copy Not much to see here. The Character Color is middle gray so as to look dark when over white, but to look light when over black or something very dark.

subtopic Just like in chapter 3, this style is identical to body copy except that the first sentence of a paragraph using this paragraph style will use the character style bold.

• When you are done looking over the paragraph styles, left-click on the one called body copy to set it as this document’s default.

Character Styles

• For each of the following character styles, right-click the name (no left-clicking!) and choose to Edit it. These styles are also similar to the ones we made in chapter 3.

proper bold This does only one thing: applies the bold font style if one exists.

proper italic I’ll give you one guess.

just red This sets the Character Color to, you guessed it, red and does nothing else.

• When you are done looking over the character styles, be sure none of them are highlighted. Phrased differently, highlight the character style [None].

Layers

Just as we did in the previous project, we are going to use layers to keep the images from obscuring the text by keeping them below the text.

• Locate the Layers panel. Double-click the name of the default Layer 1. Give it a better name; main content will do nicely. Set its color to Red. Since this is where our primary text frames are, their frame edges will now be red.
• Use the Layers panel menu and choose New Layer…. Call this one images. Set its color to Blue. When you click OK, you’ll notice that this new layer is above the first one.
• Drag the images layer below the main content layer. We will be adding content to the images layer shortly, so make sure it’s highlighted.

Prepare the Master Spread

We need to add only a few elements to the master spread: two placeholder frames for the images we are going to place and two small text frames with the Current Page Number Marker in them.

• Right-click on the A-Master’s name and choose Master options for “A-Master”…. Make the Prefix reg and the Name ular pages. It will appear as reg-ular pages in the Pages panel.
• Double-click on that master’s (new) name (reg-ular pages) to view it.
• With nothing selected, make sure the images layer is highlighted and below the main content layer.
• Use the Rectangle Frame tool to quickly draw a small frame in the open area of the left-hand page. Do not be concerned about its size or position because you’re about to…
• Click on the name of the object style called graphic. This style positions and sizes the frame for you!
• Draw a small frame in the open area of the right-hand page, then apply the object style big pic. The gray that fills the frame will be hidden by the images we’ll be placing later.

• Use the Selection tool to select the text frame on the left-hand page. Use the Control panel to vertically align the text to center. Since there is no text in that frame, this is an act of trust.

• Use the Selection tool to select the text frame on the right-hand page. Use the Control panel to vertically align the text to bottom. Again, you’ll have to trust me.
• Switch to the Type tool to create a small text frame. For now, create it anywhere there’s room. We will fine-tune its size and position shortly. With the cursor blinking within it, right-click in the frame and choose Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number, or use the shortcut ⌘-option-shift-N/Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N. It should show the master’s prefix, reg.
• Apply the paragraph style topic header. This will cause the page numbers to be the same size and in the same font and color as the first text visible below them. Also, this aligns the page numbers away from the spine.
• Press the esc key to return to the Selection tool so you can move and resize that small frame. Put it at the top-left corner of the primary text frame on the left-hand page. (See the large diagram on the previous page.)
• Use the Control panel to vertically align the text to bottom. The marker should now be at the bottom of its frame.
• Hold down option/Alt and drag that frame to the other page. Be sure to release the mouse before you release the option/Alt key so you’ll have a copy of that small frame on the other page. Fine-tune its position to the top-right corner of the text frame on that page.
• Congratulations! The master is ready. Go back to page 1.