Introduction
In this book, you will be working your way through a full course curriculum that will expose you to all of the essential features and functions of Adobe InDesign. Along the way, you’ll learn the concepts and vocabulary of graphic design and page layout.
Between several larger projects are chapters of lessons. In those lessons, each action that I’d like you to try is marked with an arrow icon:
- This is what an action looks like.
The surrounding paragraphs explain some of the why and how. For greater depth, the second section of this book is a Compendium of those features and functions, providing the “deep dive” needed for true mastery of this powerful application. Throughout the Course section, I will suggest readings in the Compendium section. Although you will be able to complete the entire course without them, I think if you do those readings you’ll find yourself regularly nodding and muttering, “oh, that’s why it works that way.”
To follow along with the projects and lessons in this book, you’ll need the files. Launch your favorite web browser and go to rockynook.com/indesignCandC, answer a simple question, and download the files. They will be compressed (zipped), so you’ll have to unzip them, revealing a folder that contains multiple subfolders (like “Project 1,” etc.). Put that folder somewhere convenient (and memorable).
Have you installed InDesign yet? If you work for a company with an enterprise license, it’s likely your IT people have installed it for you. We will be using the Creative Cloud app as our hub for launching Adobe applications and accessing the services that come with a Creative Cloud (CC) license. This app also checks to make sure your software license is up-to-date, so it should remain running whenever you use your creative applications. I use the CC app’s Preferences to have it launch on startup so I don’t have to worry about it.
I most often launch InDesign by clicking the Open button to the right of the ID icon. If there’s an update available, that button will read Update, but you may still launch InDesign by clicking near its icon or name.