Adobe InDesign Level 1
(2 days - £450, plus VAT)

Prerequisites

Computer literacy: the ability to use a mouse and keyboard; familiarity with common computer software; the ability to open and save files.

Course Goals

To get delegates comfortable and confident with using the InDesign tools and to acquaint them with essential techniques for creating short publications such as leaflets and newsletters.

Course Outline

Starting a Document

Setting Up a New Document
Adjusting Margins and Guides
Creating Custom Workspaces
Using the Bridge with InDesign
Saving Your Document

Creating and Flowing Text

The Mechanics of Frames
Flowing Text into Frames
Adjusting Text Blocks
Editing Your Text
Checking Your Spelling
Joining Type to a Curve

Basic Text Formatting

Applying Formatting Attributes
Font, Size, and Color
Kerning and Tracking
Paragraph Spacing and Alignment
Hyphenation and Composition
Accessing Special Characters

Lists and Tables

The Power of the Indent
Adding a Drop Cap
Lists and Hanging Indents
Dashes, Spaces, and Breaks
Setting Tabs
Creating a Full-Fledged Table

Importing and Modifying Graphics

How Imported Graphics are Handled
Cropping and Scaling
Rotating, Slanting, and Flipping
Wrapping Text around Graphics
Inserting Inline Graphics
Working with Anchored Objects

Pages

Setting Up Master Pages
Adding Master Objects
Automatic Page Numbering
Applying Masters to Document Page

Using Style Sheets

Assembling a Custom Style
Creating and Applying Paragraph Styles
Updating a Paragraph Style
Augmenting Text with Character Styles
Employing Nested and Numbered Styles
Using Table and Cell Styles
Creating and Using Object Styles

Creating and Using Layers

Creating New Layers
Assigning Objects to Layers
Hiding and Locking Layers
Moving Objects Between Layers

Printing and Output

Printing Documents
Setting Print Options
Using Print Presets
Exporting Documents to PDF
Using PDF Presets

Preflight and Packaging

Checking for Problems with Images
Checking for Problems with Fonts
Checking for Problems with Colours
Packaging a Document
Files Produced by InDesign

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InDesign Advanced
(1 day - £245, plus VAT)

Prerequisites

Familiarity with InDesign tools, panels and fundamental techniques.

Course Goals

To provide experienced users with the skills necessary to produce longer and more complex publications and to generate interactive PDF files from within InDesign.

Course Outline

Drawing Inside Indesign

Homegrown Graphics
Drawing Lines and Shapes
Fill, Stroke, Color, and Gradients
Aligning and Distributing Objects
Compound Paths and Pathfinder Operations

Transparency and Effects

Gradations in Translucency
Adjusting Opacity and Blending Colors
Applying Dynamic Effects
Using Clipping Paths and Alpha Channels
Importing Layered Photoshop Artwork

Advanced Style Sheets

Using Find/Change to Apply a Character Style
Employing Nested and Numbered Styles
Using Table and Cell Styles
Creating and Using Object Styles

Working With Long Documents

Binding, Synchronizing, and Indexing
Assembling Documents into a Book
Synchronizing Book Documents
Creating a Table of Contents
Generating an Index

Hyperlinks, Bookmarks, and PDF

Tools for Interactivity
Creating Bookmarks
Setting Up Hyperlinks
Making Buttons
Embedding Sounds and Movies
Exporting to PDF

Using Data Merge

Creating a Data Source
Marking Image Fields
Using the Data Merge Panel
Selecting a Data Source
Assigning Fields to Frames
Previewing the Data Merge
Creating the Data Merge Document

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InDesign and XML
(2 days - £550, plus VAT)

Prerequisites

Familiarity with InDesign tools, panels and fundamental techniques.

Course Goals

To show experienced InDesign features how to incorporate XML into their workflows. Delegates will be given an introduction into XML, DTDs and XSLT as well as importing and exporting XML into and out of InDesign.

Course Outline

Fundamentals

About markup languages
What is XML?
XML and SGML
How mark-up languages work
Representation of document structure
Multi-platform publishing
Modelling content with XML

XML basics

XML elements
The root element
Creating XML tags
Parent and child elements
Entities, PCData, and CData
Element attributes
White space
Adding comments
Well-formed XML documents

DTDs

Overview of XML validation
XML parsers
Creating DTDs
Internal and external DTDs
Element declaration
Attribute declaration
Declaring internal entities
Declaring external entities
InDesign XML basics

Summary of XML features

Typical workflows
Using the Tags window
Creating and editing tags
Applying tags to text frames
Applying tags to image frames
Applying tags to inline frames
Importing tags
Show Tag Markers
XML and InDesign tables
XML and images

Importing XML

Importing XML files
Tagging preset options
Mapping tags to style
Manually formating XML
Embedding style names in XML files
Creating repeating elements
Using XSL stylesheets

Using DTDs

Industry-standard DTDs
Importing DTDs
Validating documents with DTDs

Exporting XML

Tagging items for XML export
Selecting elements for export
Setting export options

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InDesign JavaScript
(3 days - £895, plus VAT)

Prerequisites

Familiarity with InDesign tools, panels and fundamental techniques. The course is aimed at experienced users of InDesign CS5 and assumes little or no programming experience.

Course Goals

Our InDesign Scripting course shows users how to automate key InDesign page layout tasks using JavaScript. It covers the basics of JavaScript and shows users how to speed up InDesign processes and workflows through scripting.

Course Outline

Scripting Basics

Introduction to scripting 
What is scripting?
Why use scripting?
What about macros?
Making script files readable
Commenting the script
Continuing long lines in JavaScript
Objects and classes
Object references
Values
Variables
Variable names
Assigning values to variables
Array variables
Converting values from one type to another
Finding the value type of a variable
Operators
Methods
Control structures
Conditional statements
LoopsSubroutines and handlers

Getting Started with InDesign Scripting

Measurements and positioning
Coordinates
Measurement units
The InDesign document object model
Looking at the InDesign object model
Using palettes to manage scripts
Using the Scripts palette
Using the Script Label palette
Testing and troubleshooting
JavaScript debugging

Using ExtendScript Tools and Features

The ExtendScript Toolkit
Configuring the Toolkit window
Selecting a debugging target
Selecting scripts
Tracking data
The JavaScript console
The call stack
The Script Editor
Debugging in the Toolkit

Basic document management

Creating a new document
Opening a document
Closing a document
Saving a document

Basic page layout

Defining page size and document length
Defining bleed and slug areas
Setting page margins and columns
Changing the pasteboard's appearance

Using guides and grids

Defining guides
Setting grid preferences
Snapping to guides and grids
Changing measurement units and ruler

Defining and applying document presets

Creating a preset by copying values
Creating a preset using new values
Using a preset
Setting up master spreads

Setting text-formatting defaults

Setting application text defaults
Setting the active document's defaults
Using text defaults
Adding XMP metadata
Creating a document template

Printing a document

Printing using page ranges
Setting print preferences
Using printer presets
Creating printer presets from printing preferences
Exporting a document as PDF
Using current PDF export options
Setting PDF export options and exporting pages separately
Exporting a range of pages

Exporting pages as EPS

Exporting all pages
Exporting a range of pages
Controlling export options

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Book an InDesign Course

InDesign Introduction

InDesign Advanced

InDesign XML

InDesign JavaScript