Carleton College Foreign Language Technology FAQs

How do I rearrange my pages into a foldable booklet?

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:24:03 -0500

After making a publication you naturally want to print it, probably into the form of a magazine. If you have spreads that you want to print double-sided, then fold and staple down the middle, it makes sense that the first few pages and the last few pages of the document end up getting printed on opposite ends of the same piece of paper. (If you don't understand what this means try printing your publication normally and folding it, and you'll realize that the folding puts all the pages out of order.)

In earlier versions of InDesign there was no easy way to get around this. You could either manually rearrange your pages, thinking through the right order on paper, or you could just print two pages on a piece of paper, instead of two spreads (4 pages on a single sheet of paper).

In InDesign CS 2 and CS 3, however, there is an easy way to get around this frustrating problem. Here's how you do it:

When you have finished your publication and are ready to print, go to File, then select Print Booklet.
Choose which pages you want bookletized (probably All), then for Booklet Type choose 2-up Saddle-Stitch (search for printing booklet in the Adobe help system if you would like to know more about the other styles.)
Uncheck automatically adjust for marks and bleeds if you do not want them to appear on the final printed product (most likely the case).

In InDesign CS2

Now check Create New Document in the bottom left-hand corner and click OK. A new document should be made in which the pages are rearranged properly. Take a look and make sure it's correct. Your front and back cover should be next to each other on the first page.
Next export the entire document to PDF (make sure you click on 'spreads' when exporting), then print the new PDF document. Under the print settings when you click on print make sure you have selected double-sided printing, landscape (the binding is on the short edge of the paper).
Print your booklet from the PDF file, and try folding it to see if it worked, and while you are at it, check for errors or any problems in margin size, etc.

In InDesign CS3

Click on Printer Settings. A new window will appear with the standard printing options. Use the pulldown menu at the top to choose a different printer, and pick Adobe Pdf. This will save a PDF of your pages in booklet order to your desktop when you click on Print.
Open your PDF file, and print your booklet from the PDF file. Try folding it to see if it worked, and while you are at it, check for errors or any problems in margin size, etc.

Note: Try not to have graphics or frames span spreds. They do not arrange well when printing booklets.

Find the exact step-by-step process for printing your documents on the page of Printing Instructions.

How can I create colored boxes and other shapes to put in the background?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:00:13 -0500

We learned earlier how to make lines and apply colors and weights to them. We can also make shapes, such as boxes, and circles.
To do this look at the toolbar and choose the shape tool; its right below the line tool near the top right hand side of the toolbar. If you click and hold on the button for the shape tool you’ll get some more options, one of which is the polygon tool, which lets you create x-sided shapes.
Once the button is selected go into your main document and click and drag to make a shape of the appropriate size. You can hold down shift to maintain proportions.
Now go to Window / Color to see the color palette. Double click on the main color box to open up the colors, and use the eyedropper to pick the color you want. You can adjust the tone and the darkness of the color with the drag bars underneath. You can continue to change the color of the item, as long as it is selected.

Note: you can change the color of a shape even if it is in a group with images. The images will not be effected.

If multiple people are working on project and each of them saves their own page as a separate document, how do they stick it all together?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:06:19 -0500

One way of having multiple people make a publication is as follows:

The layout team designs a template that sets the following items:
- Masters (can be multiple masters)
  - Margin sizes
  - # of columns
  - Page numbers
  - Any lines or images that must appear on every page.
- Creates the basic set of 4 pages and applies the appropriate masters to them.
- Sets up all necessary text styles.
- Sets up a palette of all necessary colors and labels them appropriately.
Once the template is finalized, each member of the main group opens the template. They save their document as their own page (ex: page1.indd), ignoring the auto page numbering at the bottom.
Ideally the person creates their page using all the specifications of the already set up template (ie. They don’t change the masters and they don’t create new text styles or colors. They should use the styles and colors already there, just clicking on the one they need. But if they do any of their changes will not carry over to the final document. Any new styles they create will be recreated in the final document.)
If the person has multiple pages, they can create them all in one document by creating new pages and then just saving their document as “pages 12-26.indd”, for example.
When they are done and have saved and finalized their document, they submit it to the layout team.
The layout team collects all of the final documents. They open up the template and save it as their final publication (ex: Final Magazine.innd). They create as many pages as are needed for the final publication and make sure that all the right masters are applied.
Now they open up each student’s final document in succession and copy and past everything on the page into its final position in the publication. They just need to make sure they select everything on the page (cntrl+A, apple+A for Mac) and then paste it and line it all up with a corner of the document.
This can be tedious but it allows them to have a final say in layout decisions and they can then modify the masters at the last moment and have all of their changes applied to the final document.
The last step is just to have the layout team finalize the publication and get it looking the way they want the printed copy to look. They then submit it to the printers.

How do I create and apply text and paragraph styles?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:02:51 -0500

A paragraph style lets you create a specific set of fonts, font sizes, font styles, tabs, text color and all else needed for a specific kind of text. For example, you might have style for all of the body text in your publication, or you might have a special style for just the captions on your photos.
To create a style, first go to Window > Types and Tables > Paragraph Styles to open up the styles palette.
Now go to the bottom right hand corner of the palette and click on the little page button, to the left of the trash can. This makes a new style and it will appear in the list above the buttons as Paragraph Style 1. (The button to the far left of this button, the one that looks like a folder, will give you a new group of styles.)
Right click on the newly-created style and choose Edit "paragraph style 1." At the top of the window that pops up, give the style a name. From here you can see the massive number of options you have. To the left is a list of types of options you can edit and each of these items has plenty of choices to make. The best thing to do would be to just explore; go into each choice from the list and see what options there are and what the options do. Enjoy!
It’s a good idea to create these when making a template and to label them clearly so that people know what to use them for. That way the publication will come out looking uniform.

Can I rearrange the order of pages after I have created them?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:41:48 -0500

To rearrange the order of pages, go back into the Pages palette. Click on the page that you want and drag it around. You’ll see a little black bar indicating where you can drop your page and when you find the right location just release the mouse button and InDesign will drop your page in the new location.

Note:

If you have included automatic page numbers on the masters, they will renumber appropriately. However, if you've manually added page numbers you will have to edit them to be correct in the new layout.
If you have images that bleed across a spread, you will have to rearrange your layout to accomodate that.

How can I use Templates and Masters to do a collaborative project where multiple people may be working on the same publication?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:05:33 -0500

Having multiple people working on a single publication can be quite challenging to organize. You usually produce a single template that includes the appropriate masters and styles and start working from there. There are two ways to proceed:
Option 1 – Create multiple documents then merge them.
- To create new pages for a publication, you can open up the publication template, create the pages you need to work on, then save the entire document to a working folder labeling each document with the pages it contains. Each person does this on their own time and in the end you have a folder with several different files in it, each with its own pages. These pages can be compiled into one publication.
- The down-side to this option is that once people start working on their own files changes can no longer be made to the original template until the very end of the process. If any changes to style must be made, each person must do the change manually on their document or changes can be made to the final publication document.
Create a single publication document and work off it one at a time.
- Another option is to have everybody work off the same file. The editor opens up the template and saves it as a new publication. He / she then creates as many pages as are needed in the publication and one person at a time opens up the file, navigates to the pages they are responsible for, and starts adding material.
- This is convenient because it keeps all material in one location and changes that need to be made to the master will affect the entire publication.

Is there any way to group objects?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:55 -0500

When you have a lot of objects that are really all parts of a bigger whole, it can be useful to group them. For example, if you have a circle, a square, and a triangle that you want to make into a single object so you don’t have to move each of them separately or try to select all of them every time you want to move them.
To group objects, select all of the objects you would like grouped and go to Object, Group. You should now be able to select all of those objects as if they were one object.

How do I make guides to and force text to snap to them?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:12 -0500

Making guides is easy and very important. A guide is simply a faint blue line that runs either parallel or perpendicular to the page. When creating objects (such as a text box) the object boundaries will automatically snap to the guide.
To make a guide simply select the dark arrow tool at the top left-hand side of the tools palette. Now make sure rulers are turned on (these are white bands along the top and left side of your window that have measurement marks on them. You can turn them on by going to View, Show Rulers).
With the black arrow tool selected, click on any of the rulers and drag outwards towards your page. A blue guide line should appear and you should be able to drag it to where you want it and drop it there. You can drag and drop it as much as you want, and now your objects will snap to your new line!
If you have a lot of guides and the constant snapping as you move objects around is getting annoying, you can also disable the snap function by going to View, Grids and Guides, and clicking on Snap to Guide.

Can I get rid of all the guides and drag lines and just see a preview of what my final document will look like?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:03:32 -0500

To make all of the guides and object boxes disappear you can easily go into preview mode: go to the very bottom of your tools palette (the tall one that has all of the tools such as the line and text creator in it). You’ll see a button that is depressed and looks almost like a power point slide. Click and hold on this button to get the view menu. Normal and Preview are the two you are most likely to use. Slug and Bleed are extended areas around your page that contain printer's marks to help with allignment, and printing instructions. You will probably not be using these.
Once you click on Preview mode all the guide lines should disappear and your page will immediately look cleaner and nicer; it’s a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get view. You can even work in this mode if the clutter of normal mode bothers you, but you’ll need to go back to Normal View Mode to use guides to help line up the objects on your page.

How can I change the text wrap so that it isn’t just a simple circle or box? I want to make it follow the outline of an image.

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:02:08 -0500

With InDesign you can actually do a lot of very sophisticated text wrapping by customizing the wrap shape (rather than just a square or rectangle, you can make it any shape you want).
You do this by first importing an object and applying a standard text wrap as described above.
The next step is a bit tricky. What InDesign does is create one thin boundary line to mark out the object and then it also has a thin boundary line that the text wraps around. So you can modify that text wrap line in any way, indicating which places you would like to be textless. The tricky part is separating the text wrap line from the image line! The easiest way to do this is to manipulate the wrap box by enlarging it with the up and down arrows near the chain link icon. This will expand the light blue box without deselecting the image. To see the corners of the wrap box, select the pointer tool that is not solid black, but is the white centered one underneath the standard pointer.
The only way to do this that I currently know is as follows: right after you click on the text wrap option in the text wrap palette go down to your image but don’t deselect. In the little blue box that appears at every corner of the image you’ll see a lighter blue box. Click carefully inside the darker outer box and drag out. If you’re lucky you’ll see a lighter blue set of lines stretching out to where you dragged them. From there just play with the light blue box until it is in the right shape.
[NEW - Apr 18, 2006] If you need to make a complicated shape that follows an object, you'll need to add new points to the line. With the text wrap box selected, click on the Pen tool in the tools menu at the left (just under the pointer tool at the top right-hand corner of the menu.) Now move your new pen pointer over the blue outline and you should see a little + appear on your pointer. You can now click on the blue line and a new drag point should appear on the line, which you can pull around and arrange just like the 4 points that are automatically created at each corner of the rectangle. You can do this as many times as you would like. (Basically the text wrap is simply following a Path, which is what you create when you normally work with the pen tool).
[NEW - Apr 18, 2006] If you make a control point then want to drag it around immediately, remember to hold down Control (Ctrl), so your pointer changes to a little arrow. If you don't do this and just start dragging instead, you will create strange and beautiful bezier curves that can be useful if you want to create a very smooth outline around your object, but you should play with the pen tool for some time before trying this out on a text wrap.

How do I make text wrap around images?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:01:26 -0500

First import your image into InDesign. Then go to Window / Text Wrap. When you click that last button a palette should pop up that has text wrap options. The basic text wrap options are also available in the standard toolbar at the top of the screen near the right.
Select your image and look at the top of the text wrap palette. There are a few text wrap options displayed as square buttons. The button at the very left is what you currently have (which is no wrap at all). With your object selected, click the second button from the left.
If you haven’t already done so, drag your object up into the text you want it to sit in. You’ll see that the text wraps around the object! You can move your object around as much as you want and the wrap will stay constant; you can resize your image and the wrap distance will stay constant. Play with the size and placement of your object until you’re happy with it and try some of the other text wrap options by just clicking on the appropriate button.

How do I create lines and change their style and color?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:59:31 -0500

Lines are a great way of separating sections in a magazine or newspaper. Creating lines is easy; just go to the tool palette and select the line tool; it’s under the text tool. Click on the tool then click and drag in your document to make a line. You can use guides to line it up neatly under a column of text.
To change the width of the line right-click on the line and go to Stroke Weight.
To change the color and style of the line, go to Window then Color. The color palette should pop up. I find it easiest to work with the RGB color system (used a lot in computer graphics vs. CMYK which is used a lot in the publication world.) To get into RGB, just go to the color palette, click on the little arrow in the circular button at the top left side of the palette, and choose RGB from the drop down menu.
You should now see various colors in a bar on the color palette. Just move your mouse over the color you want and click once; the color will be selected and applied to your line.
To play with all sorts of other options you can apply to your line, go to Window and choose Stroke. You’ll get a palette that lets you modify your line, including its style, so you can make dotted lines, dashed lines, whatever your project calls for.

How do I resize my image?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:58:54 -0500

InDesign is kind of funky in that images can be played with in different ways. Unlike most programs, dragging on the boundaries of an image won’t immediately resize it; instead it just changes the picture frame.
Imagine you have an object behind a wall and there is a hole in the wall. You can move the hole or make it bigger or fill it in so that you see different parts of the image. To actually resize the image you would need to go behind the wall and move the object. So, despite the terrible analogy, that’s the idea. You can resize the picture frame, you can resize the actual picture, and you can change the text wrap boundary (more on that last option under "How can I change the text wrap so it isn't just a simple circle or box?).
To crop an image just drag on the boundaries of the image. This will move the boundaries of the image but won't actually resize the image to fit the box that you are creating for it. This is actually kind of useful if you find that you have an image that doesn’t quite fit; all you have to do is resize the picture frame rather than going into an entirely different program to manually resize, resave, and re-import into InDesign.
To resize an image without cropping all you have to do is select the image using the Selection Tool (black arrow) and hold down the Control key as you resize (Apple key on a Mac).

How do I add an image to my page?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:57:58 -0500

The best way to add an image to a page is simply to go to File, then Place. From the Place menu just choose our image and InDesign will place it on your page where you can then work with it.
You can also copy and paste images from other programs, like from word and from Photoshop but you may experience a loss of quality, especially when resizing.
Finally, you can also take screenshots and dump them into InDesign. You can do this by setting up your screen, pressing the Print Scrn button at the top right-hand side of the keyboard, and selecting paste in InDesign. (On a Mac, you must go into Applications, Utilities, and open the program Grab. Take your screenshots from the Capture menu, which allows you to select a window, the entire screen, or areas you select yourself.)

How do I make text automatically jump to the next column on a page without creating new text boxes and manually fitting things into columns?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:57:09 -0500

When you create a document with columns, you’ll want the text to run down one column then start from the top with the next column.
Start by dragging the text box into one of the columns on your page; just drag the boundaries of the text box until they snap to the column guides. If your text is long enough to need an extra column you should be able to click on your text box and see a red plus sign at the bottom of the box.
Click once on this and your cursor should turn into a little picture showing a few lines of text. Click once at the top of the next column and InDesign will dump all of the text that didn’t fit in the first text box into the next column. The text will wrap neatly to the column and even though you’ll see a second text box, both of your textboxes are linked.
You can now even out your columns by dragging upwards or downwards from the bottom of your first textbox. If you drag the bottom boundary downwards to make the box in column 1 bigger, then text should shift over from column 2. Keep lengthening and shortening the text boxes until your columns are the way you would like them (balanced in the case of a newspaper.)
If for some reason you would like to recombine the text box in column 1 and in column 2, just select the text box in column 1. Now drag out from the corner and make it huge; make it so huge that it envelopes the text box from column two and then let go. The text will all jump together into one text box again.