Getting Started: Working with Text

Topics Covered in This InDesign Tutorial:

Setting Preferences, the Control Panel, Text Frames, Basic Text Attributes, Basic Keyboard Shortcuts

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

A basic letter—this is about as simple as it gets! This exercise will introduce you to the basics of creating a document, drawing text boxes, and formatting text.

Setting InDesign’s Default Measurements

1. Download the class files. Refer to the Downloading the Class Files page at the beginning of the workbook on how to download and install the class files.

2. Launch InDesign.

   NOTE: This book has been tested with InDesign 2020. If you’re using an older or newer version, most things should still work the same or similarly.

3. If you have any documents open, close them all.

   NOTE: By setting preferences before any documents are open, you are setting the default for how new documents from now on will be created. (If a document was open, you’d only be changing that document’s preferences instead of setting the defaults as we are about to do now.)

4. Go into the InDesign menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows) and choose Preferences > Units & Increments.

5. On the right, set both Horizontal and Vertical Ruler Units to Inches.

   NOTE: Eventually, we will prefer to work in Picas. But for now, all our measurements will be in inches.

6. Click OK.

Creating the Letter

1. From the File menu, select New then Document.
2. Set the following:
   • At the top of the dialog that opens, click on the Print tab.
   • Click once on the Letter (8.5 X 11 in) preset.
   • On the right, uncheck Facing Pages.
   • Expand the Margins section if needed.
   • Under Margins, make sure the link button is checked on, enter 1 in for any side, then press Tab to apply it to all sides.
3. Click Create.
4. InDesign starts with a minimal default workspace that does not show some useful panels. It includes a better workspace though, so go to Window > Workspace > [Advanced].
5. Workspaces remember how they were last set up. To reset any possible changes to your workspace, go to Window > Workspace > Reset Advanced.

6. Choose the Type tool .

   The pointer arrow (shown below) is the point you aim with for positioning the text frame you’ll create. The arrow it is normally black as shown below, but turns white when you hover directly over or near a margin or the edge of a page.

   

7. On the page, drag to create a text frame using the margin guides to make the text frame fills the whole area inside the guides.
8. A cursor should now be blinking in the text frame. If not, click back into it.
9. From the File menu, select Place.
10. Navigate to the Desktop, then go into the Class Files folder, then into the InDesign Class folder. Double–click the text file named Letter Text.txt.
11. From the View menu, select Zoom In.

12. Scroll so you can see the top right-hand corner of the page.

    TIP: An alternative to using scrollbars is to use the Hand tool . To use the Hand tool via a keystroke, hold Option–Spacebar (Mac) or ALT–Spacebar (Windows). Just be sure to hold Option/ALT first, before pressing Spacebar.

13. Choose the Rectangle Frame tool .
14. Create a small frame in the upper right-hand corner of the page (about 3 in wide X 2 in high).
15. With the frame still selected, go into the File menu and select Place.
16. Double–click Letter Address.txt.
17. With the frame still selected, choose the Selection tool .
18. Hold Shift and click on the large main text frame. Now both text frames should be selected.
19. Select the Type tool .

20. The Control panel that is docked to the top of the screen should be showing the type options shown below.

    NOTE: If this panel isn’t open, you can open it by choosing Window > Control.

    It has 2 sets of options: Character and Paragraph Formatting Controls. The 2 buttons on the left switch between them. On smaller screens InDesign only displays one section, but on wider screens, InDesign will display some of the other section’s options in whatever space it has to the right.

    

21. As shown below, in the Control panel, set the following:

    Font:	Myriad Pro Regular (or Myriad Variable Concept Regular)
    Font Size :	14 pt

    

Navigating the Document: Zooming & Scrolling

1. Let’s get a better feel for moving around within InDesign. We want to see the text larger on-screen. Select the Zoom tool .

2. Click a few times on the text. With each click it will appear larger.

3. To zoom out, hold Option (Mac) or ALT (Windows) and click a few times.

4. Let go of the keys. Let’s zoom in a different way by dragging. On the page, drag to the right to zoom in, and drag to the left to zoom out.

5. Select the Type tool .

6. Click on one of the text boxes as though you are ready to edit the text.

7. To scroll around, hold Option–Spacebar (Mac) or ALT–Spacebar (Windows) and drag anywhere on the document (be sure to hold Option/ALT first; see sidebar for details).

   When done, let go of the mouse and the keys.

   Scrolling Best Practices

   You may notice that sometimes you can scroll by using just Spacebar or Option/ALT. Since it depends on which tool you’re using, we teach you to always use Option/ALT, then Spacebar so that you don’t make unexpected duplicates of objects, or add unwanted space characters to your text.

8. To zoom back out and see the entire page, go to View > Fit Page in Window (or press Command–0(zero) (Mac) or Control–0(zero) (Windows)).

9. Instead of using the Zoom tool , we can use keystrokes:

   Mac:	Command–Plus(+) to zoom in and Command–Minus(-) to zoom out
   Windows:	Control–Plus(+) to zoom in and Control–Minus(-) to zoom out

10. From the File menu, select Save As.

11. Name it yourname-letter.indd and before clicking Save:

    Mac:	If you are already in the InDesign Class folder, just click Save. If not, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > InDesign Class and click Save.
    Windows:	If the top bar with a file path already says InDesign Class, just click Save. If not, from that menu choose Desktop. Then go into Class Files > InDesign Class and click Save.

    NOTE: The document will be saved as yourname-Letter.indd because it is an InD esign D ocument.

More Practice (Optional)

Create a second letter but this time using Reply Letter Text.txt and Reply Letter Address.txt. Try doing this without following the steps in this exercise, but you can refer to them as soon. This time you can choose whatever font and size you like.