Lesson A: Create a New Document

Like with any endeavor, your work in Adobe InDesign will benefit from some preparation and setup. However, for this first “get to know you” project, we’ll keep that to a minimum. Let’s start creating a poster!

• First, launch InDesign. Use the Creative Cloud app, as that’s your “hub” for all Adobe apps. Once the program is running, you can create a new document either by going to File > New > Document… or by clicking on the Create New… button on the welcome screen. If you use the menu method, you’ll notice a keyboard shortcut that does the job, too: on a Mac, it’s ⌘-N (hold down the command key and type “n”), and on Windows, it’s Ctrl-N (hold down the Ctrl key and type “n”). Hereafter, I’ll indicate shortcuts in that order for Mac and Windows, respectively, like this: ⌘-N/Ctrl-N.

Now you’re facing a large window with many presets and fields to fill out. Don’t be daunted by the choices—or the units of measurement. Choose the Print intent at the top of the New Document dialog box. Ignore the strange dimensions (66p0 x 102p0) for the moment and choose Tabloid as your page size.

On the right side of the dialog, you’ll see a menu for Units: we will use inches for this project. Disable Facing Pages and expand the choices for Margins and Bleed and Slug. You’ll need to click on the chain to the right of the margin dimensions so you can set them independently. Now you can have a five-eighths inch space at both the top and bottom, and one-quarter inch on each side. Set those and the other fields as seen here.

Note: For fractions (like the 5/8" top/bottom margins or 1/8" bleed), just type the fraction! InDesign will convert it to a decimal. Click Create when you’re sure the settings are correct. Your document should look something like the figure below.

• Choose File > Save As… to save your file. I’d suggest navigating to the folder you downloaded with all the files that accompany this book (see “Introduction”), and saving this file in the “Project 1” folder.

  What are margins and bleed? Good Question. Read the “Anatomy of a Spread” section in the Compendium chapter, “Pages & Spreads” (page 279).

We will be placing two images onto this page and pasting some promotional text into a text frame. But right now, an empty canvas awaits us. Let’s dress it up!