InDesign Course Part 2:
Designing a Publication

Part 1

Part 2:

• The Master Pages
• The Document Setup
• Completing the A-Master
• More Master Pages
• Applying Master Styles to Document Pages
• The Styles palette
• Defining styles

Part 3

Part 4

appendices

Hypertext

Basic Macintosh Skills

Assignment

Index

In Parts 2 and 3, you can put the skills and the functions which have been discussed in Part 1 to practice. The following sections will instruct you how to make an actual publication in InDesign 1.5.2. You will be asked to make the design for a book for Academic Press Leiden.

If you encounter any difficulties during this course, you can use the Balloon Help to learn about the items on your screen. Selecting Help > Show Balloons will bring up explanatory balloons which tell you about the several aspects of the program as you move the cursor around. If you are looking for specific functions or if you have forgotten how to activate a certain palette, you can also browse the list in the Index to find out which menus to use.

As you may remember from Part 1, the design of a publication consists of a template and of style specifications. We will begin by designing a template for the document, using Master Pages. If you haven't done so already, start InDesign 1.5.2. Make sure that you have the Tools and the Pages palettes on your workbench. You can get them both under the Window menu.

1. The Masterpages

The InDesign template is normally created in the New Document dialog box. Remember that, occasionally, adjustments can also be made under File > Document Setup or under Edit > Margins and Columns. It is best to make all the details of your Document Setup explicit at an early stage in your work. When you have already done a lot of work on the publication, you may not always be able to backtrack mistakes or to adjust the settings of your document.

• Before you begin to arrange the settings for your document, make sure that InDesign uses the correct units! Choose Edit > Preferences > Units and Increments. Click on the required measurement, in this case millimeter. Change the units on both the vertical and the horizontal ruler! There is also a second way of doing this: If you have an InDesign workbench on your screen, hold down the Control key while clicking on the ruler. After the context menu has appeared, you can release the Control key and slide down the menu using the mouse. The units will now also change on the ruler.
• Choose File > New [Apple + N]. This will bring up a dialog box.
• set the following specifications to create the rough template: (options in the dialogue box that are not mentioned below may keep the preset specifications)
• • Number of pages: 3
  • Make sure the boxes before Facing Pages and Master Text Frame are empty (the Facing Pages option will isolate page one and create facing page spreads for the pages that follow, as in a regular book. The Master Text Frame option creates a text frame on the A-Master within the specified margins, matching the column settings. Both options are not needed for our present purpose).
  • Choose Custom from the Page Size drop menu
  • key in the page dimensions: 160 x 220 mm.
  • Margins: top 25 mm, bottom 25 mm, Left: 20 mm, Right: 20 mm.
  • Also select 2 Columns and set the gutter at 4mm (the gutter is the space in between the columns).
  • click OK or press enter.

The document now consists of three identical but separate pages. You should be able to see the three numbered page icons in the lower section of the Pages palette. Go to Window if you do not see the Pages palette on your workbench. An icon for the Master Page just created can be seen above the grey bar in the upper half of the Pages palette. If it is hidden, slowly slide over the bar with the mouse cursor. An up/down arrow will appear, allowing you to move the grey bar. All three document pages carry the label "A", which indicates that the style set out for the A-Master applies to these three pages.

If you are not already there, go to the template mode by clicking the master page icon. You now see the rough template on the workbench, with the page dimensions and type area you just specified. The items that will be placed on this template will show up on all pages of the publication. As a next stage, the guides, folios and headers need to be added to this template. The folio and the header also need to have certain style specifications, since they are textual matter.

1. Columns

We have already selected two columns in the New Document dialogue box. As a default setting, InDesign ensures that the columns created have the exact same width. However, for the publication we want to make, two dissimilar columns are needed: a wider column for text, and a narrow one for graphics and captions. This means that we need to make adjustments to our previous settings. Select one of the column guides indicating the gutter in the template and move the mouse to the left. (If the column guides refuse to move, go to the View menu to deselect the 'Lock guides' option.) Create one narrow column of 30 mm and one wide column of 86 mm. The narrow column should appear on the left hand side of the page. It may be convenient for you to change the zero point of the rulers. To do this, click on the space in the upper left-hand corner of your workbench where the horizontal and the vertical ruler overlap. If you drag down the mouse cursor from that space, you can choose the new position where you want the new zero point to appear. You can also work with greater precision if you use the Zoom tool to enlarge your view. However, the greater the view size, the harder it may be to find your bearings: use the scroll bars. Remember that you can change the units on the rulers under Edit> Preferences> Units and Increments or, alternatively, by holding down the Control key and clicking on a ruler.

Place the following guides:

• A first guide at 45 mm from the top of the page. This will be the place where the text of a new chapter begins. Drag the guide from the horizontal ruler. It may be convenient to change the zero point of the rulers to the top of the page.
• Place a second guide at 20 mm from the top of page, for folios and headers.
• A third guide needs to be at the exact same position as the left margin of the page. Place guide 3 in line (or in InDesign jargon: flush) with the left margin. Drag this guide from the vertical ruler.
• A fourth guide needs to be placed in line with the right margin.
• Lock these four guides under View > Lock Guides.

Page numbers differ from page to page, so it makes no sense to place actual numbers on the Master pages. Instead, you use a code which generates pages numbers automatically in lay-out mode. To do this, select the type tool. Click and create a text frame large enough to fit the page number and the header (the words that appear together with the page number on top of every page). In the text frame, a cursor will start flashing. Insert a page number by choosing Layout > Insert Page Number. You can also use the keyboard shortcut: [Shift + Alt + Apple + N]. Because you are in design mode, an "A" will appear instead of a page number.

The header of the document may be entered in the same text frame. Use the Type Tool and place the text cursor immediately to the right of the folio. Type: --Book and Publishing (- is a space). It is a good habit to make text frames not of completely arbitrary dimensions, but always to make at least their width the same as the most relevant element in the basic document setup. In this case, that is the setting width of the full page (both text columns). If necessary, resize the textframe to make it stretch from guide 3 to guide 4. If you are confused about how many spaces you have entered, choose Type > Show Hidden Characters. Spaces now appear as blue dots on your screen. The font and character size of the page number and text can be changed by making use of the Transform palette that hopefully is still on your screen. If not, go to Type > Character or type Apple + T. Click on the tab Character. Select the A code with the Type tool and change it to Times, Bold, 12pt. Select the header and change it to Garamond, Italic, 11pt. The folio needs to appear at the top left of the page, so it is advisable to align all characters in the frame to left. Click on the tab Paragraph in the Transform palette or select Type > Paragraph. Doubleclick on the icon for Left-alignment.

The left-hand margin of the text frame that contains the folio and the header should be the place where guides 2 and 3 meet. Choose View > Snap to Guides to line up the text frame to guide 3. Make sure that the baseline of the text is in line with guide 2. The top left corner of your A-Master should now look like this:

By now, half of the work for the template is done. If we were to leave the template as it is now, we would have three document pages with page numbers on the left. In the book design that we want to make, we want the right-hand pages (those with the uneven page numbers) to have their page numbers on the right. They should also have the narrow column for graphics on the right-hand side of the page. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to create a second Master Page, based on the A-Master Page.

To create a second Master Page, do the following:

• In the Pages Palette, click on the button that you can find in the top right corner of that palette.  
• In the menu that appears, choose New Master...
• A new window will appear. In the Based on Master drop menu, choose A-Master. If you choose None in this menu, this means that you will create an new Master entirely from scratch. However, the differences between the B-Master and A-Master will be only slight: The only thing that needs to be changed is the position of the folio and the header. Therefore, choose A-Master in the Based on Master drop menu and click OK.

Doubleclick the icon of the B-Master page so that it will highlight, select the Zoom tool and enlarge the left corner of the page on the screen. In order to change the text in the text frame containing the page number and the header, you need to select it with the Pointer tool. However, because this text frame is a Master element, copied from the A-Master, you cannot select the text in that frame. This item is, as it were, frozen on the page. In order to be able to select it, you need to override it (to unlock it). Master elements can be overridden both on Master pages and on document pages by holding down Apple + Shift while you click and select the frame with the Pointer tool. When you have successfully overridden the master item, the folio will change: a "B" will appear in the text frame instead of an "A".

Next, select the words "Book and Publishing" and cut and paste them (using the Edit menu or the keyboard shortcuts [Apple + X and Apple + V] to a position to the left of the folio. Having the Hidden Characters on screen, make sure that header and footer are divided by two spaces (two blue dots). Align all the characters in the frame to Right, using the Paragraph palette. If you did not make your text frame the same width as the text page (the two columns, from guide 3 to guide 4) as you were advised to do, you should now move it into position. Hold down the shift key to keep it in a straight vertical line and slide it across the guide until it snaps to the right guide (guide number 4).

To complete the B-Master, unlock the gutter (the vertical guides that separate the columns) and slide it to the right. Make a column of 30 mm on the right-hand side of the B-master. Realise that when the function Lock Guides is activated under the View menu, you cannot move the column, even when you have unlocked it. Change the zero-point of the rules, if necessary. Two Master pages will be enough for the present publication.

Applying Master Styles to Document Pages

Now we are ready to apply the style of the template to the document pages. The style of the B-Master needs to be applied to the uneven pages (pages 1 and 3), and the style of the A-Master to page 2. To apply a Master style to a document page, simply click on the Master page icon and drag it down into the lower half of the Pages palette and place it onto the document page icon. Do not release it until the thin black border of the page icon becomes thick. For the brochure, make sure that page 1 and 3 are labelled "B" and that page 2 is labelled "A". The template is now finished, and with it you have finished the first half of the stylesheet.

2. The Styles palette

The second half of the design involves the specification of the appropriate styles for each separate structural item that occurs in the publication. You need to create styles for the body text, the caption, the chapter headings and the subheadings. Go to Type > Paragraph Styles to put the Styles palette on the front of your screen. As yet, the Style palette has no items in it. As this publication's designer, you need to define them first.

To get to the appropriate dialog box, you can do either one of the following two things. If you press the Add Style Icon on the bottom right of the Style palette a new style will appear in the Styles palette, named Paragraph Style 1. If you doubleclick on that new style, a dialog box will appear in which you can modify its settings. Alternatively, choosing New Style from the palette menu (on the right of the palette) will bring up the same dialog box. Paragraph Style 1 already contains a standard style which can be used as it is. Of course a designer can also create entirely new styles. A middle way, which will be followed here, is to define your own styles by editing the preset style.

• Place the cursor in the field that says "Paragraph Style 1". Delete these words and rename the style "Body Text".
• Next, look at the menu that you can find under General. You will find options which activate dialog boxes, which are locations where you can fill in the required specifications for Indents and Spacing, Justification, Tabs, Hyphenation, Basic Character Formats, etc.
• Go to Basic Character Formats to select the following:
  • Font: Palatino (click the box and draw the cursor to select it), Regular
  • Size: 11pt (change by typing it in the box)
  • Leading: 13pt
• Next, go to Paragraph Rules.
• • Make sure that the box before Rule On is unchecked (empty). You will get horizontal lines in your document if the Rule On function is activated.
  • set all indents (offset, left and right) to 0
• Select Indents and Spacing
  • set all indents to 0
  • set Alignment to Left Justify
• select Tabs
  • Leader: 0
  • x: type 5 for 5mm

The rest of the options may stay at their default value. Click OK and you will see that the Body Text style that you have just defined appears in the list in the Paragraph Styles Palette.

Next we define not one, but two caption styles: one for the pages based on the A-Master and another for the pages that are based on the B-Master. This is how you do it:

• press the Add Style icon at the bottom left of the Paragraph Styles Palette to create a new style: this again is called Paragraph style 1 because you have renamed the former Paragraph Style 1 to Body text. Doubleclick on this style.
• rename the style: Caption A
• select Basic Character Formats and adjust:
  • Font: Geneva
  • Size: 8pt
  • Leading: 9pt
  • Type style: Regular
• select Indents and Spacing
  • set Alignment to Left
  • click OK to leave the Modify Paragraph Style Options window

• create a new style, by clicking on the Add Style Icon in the Paragraph Styles Palette.
• rename it: Caption B
• Next, select Based on: Caption A. All style settings are now the same as caption A.
• Under General, select Indents and Spacing
• change Alignment to Right
• click OK to leave the New Paragraph Style box.

To create a chapter heading:

• open the New Paragraph Style dialogue box. (see above)
• change the name of "New Paragraph Style 1" to Chapter Heading
• select Basic Character Formats
• • Font: Palatino, Regular
  • Size: 16 pt (type it; there is no preselection for 16 in the pull down menu)
  • Leading: 20pt
• select Indents and Spacing
• • check that indents are 0
  • check that Alignment is Left
• select Hyphenation
  • switch it Off
• click OK

Again, you can base the style for the subheading on that of the Chapter heading:

• Create a new style (see above)
• rename the style: Subheading
• in the Based on box, select Chapter Heading; this way the Subheading will copy the specifications of Chapter heading.
• make only the following modifications in Basic Character Formats
  • Size: 14pt
  • Leading: 16pt
  • Type style: Bold

Character Styles

• Finally, also create a Character Style:
• • Click on the second tab in the Styles palette. This tab is labelled Character Styles
  • Click on the Add Style Icon bottom right of the palette and doubleclick on the new style that appears.
  • Rename the style: Italic
  • Go to Basic Character Formats and only select Italic.
  • Click Ok.

To delete a style from the styles palette, click on it so that it will highlight. Next, click on the Trash icon at the foot of the palette. You can use these instructions to delete both Paragraph and Character styles.

Next, you can turn to Part 3 of the course where you will use this design to make an actual publication.

Part 1

Part 2:

• The Master Pages
• The Document Setup
• Completing the A-Master
• More Master Pages
• Applying Master Styles to Document Pages
• The Styles palette
• Defining styles

Part 3

Part 4

Appendices:

Hypertext

Basic Macintosh Skills

Assignment

Index

e-mail