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InDesign CC - Create The First Document

The document discusses the options available when creating a new document in InDesign CC, including defining the intent, choosing measurements and units, setting page size and orientation, adding columns, and saving document presets. It focuses on understanding the various settings in the New Document dialog box to properly define the document being created.

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37 views8 pages

InDesign CC - Create The First Document

The document discusses the options available when creating a new document in InDesign CC, including defining the intent, choosing measurements and units, setting page size and orientation, adding columns, and saving document presets. It focuses on understanding the various settings in the New Document dialog box to properly define the document being created.

Uploaded by

yeguyqwesi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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InDesign CC - Create the First Document

7 strategies to

Being able to properly define the document that you intend to create is a
fundamental prerequisite to get the best out of InDesign. You can create a
new document by pressing Ctrl+N on Windows or Command+N on the
Mac or go to the File menu, select New, and then click on Document. This
opens the New Document dialog box.

There are other options in the New menu, which allows you to create a Book
or a Library which we will deal with in laterXchapters. We shall focus on the
Document command for now. It pays to have a general understanding of the
various options available in the New Document dialog box so let us have a
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Before moving on, it helps to turn on the Preview checkbox in the lower left
corner of the dialog box. This creates a preview of the document in which it
is easy to visualize changes such as page dimensions and other properties
before creating the actual document. Note, that the preview will disappear
when you cancel creating the document.

Defining the Intent of the Document


We see that there are a lot of options in the New Document dialog box. The
first step is to define the intent of the document. Expanding the Intent
dropdown menu gives us three options – Print, Web and Mobile.
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The Print option is the de facto option that is chosen by most working with
InDesign. It is not just for printing documents on a printer, but also used for
almost all forms of publishing such as a product sheet or template or even a
document for uploading to the Web.

Selecting the Print option changes the measurements to picas and the color
space to CMYK. Of course, these can be changed later.

The Web option can be slightly confusing as it doesn’t actually mean a web
page. It means documents that are delivered electronically such as PDFs or
other on-screen documents. Selecting the Web option changes the document
measurements to pixels and the color space to RGB, which is ideal for on-
screen documents. Of course, the measurement values can be custom set.

The Mobile option (sometimes called Digital Publishing in older versions of


InDesign), lets you prepare documents as independent apps or eBooks
targeting specific device form factors.

When you choose Mobile, the Page Size now gives you an option of directly
choosing from popular devices and populates the Width and Height fields
accordingly by changing the units of measurement to pixels.
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You can also specify a custom screen size for your device.

Selecting the Right Measurements


If you are comfortable with other scales of measurement, you can change
them by going to the Edit menu, Preferences and selecting Units and
Increments. InDesign gives you a whole range of units to choose from.

Once, you’ve determined the intent of the document, you need to decide if
:
you need to have facing pages.

The Facing Pages option should only be selected if your document has left
and right pages that face each other like in a book. If you are only going to
create a single page document or a document that has different information
in different pages such as a brochure, it is better to turn the option off.

The Primary Text Frame adds a text frame to your Master Page which is
useful if the text flows from chapter to chapter like in a book. This can be left
off by default.

Setting the Number of Pages and the Page Size


You can also set the number of pages the document will contain. This can
also be left at 1 and additional pages added later. If you are working on a
multi-chapter book, you can choose to select from which page of the book
you want to start from. Again, this can also be set later.

The Page Size field is important to determine how this document will be
printed. Selecting the right page size is important so that the printer knows
the exact measurements of the printed page. You can choose from a set of
default page sizes or define your own. Notice that the Width and Height will
change automatically based on the chosen option.
:
When you select the Custom option, you get to input your own values in the
Width and Height boxes. You can input the values in a measurement of your
choice and InDesign will automatically convert that into the current
measurement used in the document as defined in the Units and
Measurements preferences.

Say, for example, you input a value of 10 inches in the Width field by
entering 10in and pressing the TAB key. InDesign will automatically convert
that value to 60p0 (60 picas) which is the default measurement unit for this
document.

You can also toggle the Orientation between landscape or portrait which
essentially swaps the Width and Height values.

The Columns area helps you define how many columns are to be created in
the document. The default is 1. The Gutter helps in defining the separation
space between these columns.
:
Setting the Margins, Bleed, and Slug
The Margins area helps in defining the margins of the page. You can
obviously go outside the margins with your content but defining the margins
helps in providing a perspective to your document.

Notice that there is a chain icon in the middle, which means that the values
are linked. If you change a value for the Top margin, then the other values
will also change. You can also toggle the chain icon to decouple the values of
the margins if you want custom margins on each side. Note that the older
versions of InDesign have Left and Right for the Inside and Outside margin
values respectively.

There is a Bleed and Slug option that is usually collapsed but can be revealed
by clicking the arrow beside it. Bleed is the amount of space outside the
margins that you set so that the printing press doesn’t cut off the actual
content near the margins. Slug is the space where you enter information for
the printer to understand such as the color space used or the number of
pages, etc.

Again, these options can be linked or set alone and generally need to be set
only when sending the page to an actual printing press.

Saving a Document Preset


As one works with a lot of document types and dimensions, you may find the
need to recall the settings in a click for each of the document types you work
with. You can save each of your settings as a custom preset and recall them
:
whenever necessary.

Click the Save Document Preset icon right next to the Document Preset field
and give a name that you can remember so that it becomes easy to recall
the settings later. You can also delete the preset by clicking the Delete
Document Preset icon right next to the Save Document Preset icon.

Viewing the Document Display


The final two-column document looks like this and you can start adding your
assets to this document. Your workspace may vary a bit but that can be
easily customized too. It is imperative to get the right document settings in
order to get the most out of InDesign.
:

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