Adobe Indesign

Best Uses

InDesign is an industry-standard for publishing design and is used by graphics and marketing professionals. It may be used in conjunction with other applications that are part of the Adobe Creative Cloud including Illustrator and Photoshop, or it can be used on its own. Images and illustrations are usually not created within InDesign, rather layouts using text, images, and drawings that often are built in other programs are assembled into a layout using InDesign.

InDesign provides the tools necessary to design pages and create visual layouts that can be used for both print and digital media. InDesign provides users a simplified way to create professional pages which can be published and distributed in print or online.

InDesign is especially useful for documents containing multiple pages, layouts that combine text and images, and those containing significant amounts of text.

InDesign is used to create flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, posters, business cards, postcards, stickers, comics, and many other types of documents or visual communication.

Interface

Control Panel

The Control panel is located at the top of the workspace and displays options for the currently selected object.

Document Window

The Document window displays the file you’re working on. Document windows can be tabbed and, in certain cases, grouped and docked.

Application Bar

The Application Bar is located above the Control Panel at the top of the screen. The Br and St icons stand for Adobe Bridge and Adobe Stock. Next over, you will see a drop down menu for the Zoom Level. The icon that looks like rulers actually allows you to turn the rulers and guides on and off. The next icon let’s you set the screen mode. The different Screen Modes are:

Normal Mode: Displays artwork in a standard window with all visible grids and guides showing, non-printing objects showing, and a white pasteboard.

Preview Mode: Displays artwork as if it were output, with all non-printing elements suppressed (grids, guides, non-printing objects), and the pasteboard set to the preview background color defined in Preferences.

Bleed Mode: Displays artwork as if it were output, with all non-printing elements suppressed (grids, guides, non-printing objects), the pasteboard set to the preview background color defined in Preferences, and any printing elements within the document's bleed area (defined in Document Setup) showing.

Slug Mode: Displays artwork as if it were output, with all non-printing elements suppressed (grids, guides, non-printing objects), the pasteboard set to the preview background color defined in Preferences, and any printing elements within the document's slug area (defined inDocument Setup) showing.

Presentation Mode: Displays artwork as if it were a slideshow presentation, with no menus, panels, or tools displayed.

Panels Bar

To the right of the workspace is the Panels bar which has some additional functions. What you see on the Panels bar can vary based on the workspace. In the essentials workspace, you will find the Properties Panel tab, Pages Panel tab, and Layers Panel Tab.

Toolbar

The Toolbar which is usually to the left of the main workspace contains all the tools required to work with the document. Some tools like the Type tool for example have a small arrow/triangle underneath them which can reveal a similar tool with a different function.