These are just raw notes on InDesign. They aren’t necessarily organized in any specific way, this is more of a board to place things I learn about the program. I used to have these unorganized within the notes app on my phone, but by placing them here I hope that someone else can use them too. If you have any questions on the notes or a question on a particular snippet feel free to reach out to me using the form at the bottom of this page.
Use the smooth tool and drag over the path to make the path smoother
Double click the eyedropper tool to display the eyedropper options dialog box
Put files that are used over and over in a library for easy access
Always use ” over “
Left page is “verso” right page is “recto”
Right click a page and select numbering & section options to create a new section or restart page numbering from that point on
For current page number use type–>insert special character–>markers–>current page number or command-shift-option-N
To give a page styling based off the master right click the master page and select Apply Master to Pages OR select a page and then option click on the master
To override a master page item hold down command-shift and click the item
Window–>Utilities–>Scripts
And double click the add guides script to add guides to a selected object
Select all guides command-option-G
To select all objects on a layer Option-click the layer in the layers panel
Command-L to lock an item
Use the Find/Change menu to select similar objects
Under the pages tab select alternate layouts to get the same layout in a different orientation
Select an object and go under the Object menu–Content–Text to make an object a text frame
Command-B for text frame options and the ability to position text within a frame (inset)
Command-Option C to fit a frame to its content or double click the edge of a frame to fit it to its content
Select text and press Command-Y to edit it in the story editor
A locked story is a story that has been checked out using InCopy or Version Cue
Select show import options when importing text to bring up the options dialog box (can keep the same formatting, or remove all styles)
Create a text box and go to Table–>Insert table to add a table to the document
To insert a footnote select Type–> Insert Footnote
To create a paragraph style select the text you formatted and click the new style button in the paragraph styles menu
For nested styles choose New Paragraph Style from the paragraph styles menu and go under the Drop Caps and Nested Styles tab. Click new nested style and use character styles that were previously created to create a nested paragraph style
GREP Wildcard Styles:
- Any number………… /d
- Any character……. .
- Any white space … /s
- Any uppercase…… /u
- Any lowercase…… /l
Use the up and down arrow keys when typing in the font selection field to switch between fonts
To increase font size use Command Shift > (increase 5x with Command Option Shift >)
Hold down the Command key when resizing a content box to size the content up or down as well
10 on 12 or 10/12 means 10-pt text on 12-pt leading
Option up arrow to increase leading (5x use Command Option up arrow)
Use extra leading for sans serif or bold typefaces
Command Option Q to reset the kerning
Optical Kerning is the best method
White text on a black background requires more kerning
When justifying a paragraph, you can track the whole paragraph one or two units without it being apparent to fix rivers
For baseline shift select some text and press Option Shift up arrow
To prevent text from breaking across lines select the text and turn on the no break option in the character panel
Always check the find font dialog box to make sure that there are no extra fonts in a document
The larger the X-height the larger the first line indent
Use tabs, not spaces to move text
Use a first line indent instead of a tab
Don’t use multiple tabs when you can use just one correctly positioned one
Option-click the tab to cycle through alignment types
For traditional leaders add a space at the end and reduce the size of the period slightly
For right aligned tab character use Shift-Tab
To add space before a paragraph at the top use first baseline offset
In the paragraph panel select align to baseline grid to get the text to align all to one grid
Preferences–>Grid to change the baseline grid settings
If your body text has 15pt leading make sure the headline has also 15pt leading, or a multiple of 15 such as 30pt or 45pt
For drop caps select a paragraph and use drop cap. enter the number of lines you want it to drop and you can also enter the number of characters to apply the drop cap to as well
To add space before or after the drop cap place the cursor before and adjust kerning
Also convert the drop cap to outlines and use text wrap for better placement
For character styles use “through” if you want to apply up to and including a character or “up to” for up to that character but not including it
Four Basic Ways to Fit Text
- Controlling the space between the letters
- Controlling the space between the words
- Adjusting the size of the characters themselves
- Breaking the words at line endings by hyphenating
Walking the lines = fixing spacing problems
Use the hyphenation slider to fix spacing problems in a paragraph spacing
For discretionary hyphen (tells Indesign to hyphenate here) use Command-Shift-hyphen
You can place a discretionary hyphen before a word to make it nor break
From the paragraph panel choose balance ragged lines to do exactly that
Balance ragged lines generally produces an inverted pyramid shape
An orphan is the first line of a paragraph that lands all by itself at the bottom of a column or page
You can apply formatting to the bullet character in the character-style popup menu
^#.^t means type the current number followed by a period, then followed by a tab
Don’t mix anchored and unanchored text frames generally
Convert bullets and numbering to text by selecting the paragraph and choice convert Numbering to text from the context menu
If local formatting has been applied to text that has a paragraph style applied to it a + will appear in the paragraph styles panel when the text is selected
Double click a style name to edit/change it
Creating a style group is like creating a folder
To import character and paragraph styles from a different document choose Load all text styles from the character panel menu and open the document that contains the styles
Turn on Optical Margin Alignment from the story panel (Type–>Story) to make text appear not ragged on either end
When using Optical Margin Alignment enter the point size of your type in the Base Size field
Use the Reverse Path option in the paths submenu of the object panel to reverse the path direction
Option click a path to select all the points on it
When combining two or more shapes the new shape has the appearance of the shape that was farthest back in the stacking order
Double click the smooth tool for its options
For a more realistic drop shadow, set the noise at 5%, 50% for grunge-y effects
Satin works best with colored text
For ghostly text color text white, set to Multiply, and apply a drop shadow effect
To copy effects, drag the little fx icon from the items with effects to the one without any
If you’re in the last cell of the table press tab to add a new row
To split a cell choose Split Cell Horizontally or Vertically
Indesign table cells can be rotated in 90 degree increments
Use table and cell styles when formatting more than one table in Indesign
Place a graphic when you have an active text insertion point to create an inline frame
Click and drag while placing an image to create a frame with the dimensions of the drag
When placing more than one file at a time, cycle through the files about to be placed with the left and right arrow keys (press Esc to delete one of the files instead of placing it)
Option double click a graphic to edit the original file
Hold down command when resizing a frame to scale the graphic inside of it
When making a leader with periods, use 7pt text with 500 units of tracking
A concordance records the location of words, an index records the location of ideas
Command-option-6 to display the control panel
A proxy is something that stands in for something else
The range of color a device re-produces is called a color gamut
When dragging a color slider hold down shift to keep all the sliders the same to get a tint or hue of that color
Typical fluorescent lighting is the worst possible lighting for viewing colors. Turn it off and rely on incandescent lighting
To apply text wrap choose and option from the Window > Text Wrap panel
When printing, using 10- in the range field to print everything from page 10 on. Use -10 to print everything up until page 10
@joekotlan on X