Saturday, July 17, 2010

Creating a quick newsletter using Indesign

1. Launch Adobe InDesign.

2. On the top menu, go to File--> New --> Document From Template

3. Click on the newsletters folder, choose a design, double click on that.

4. Go to File -->Save as say, cake_recipe.indd (make sure format indesign CS4 document)

5. RESIZING A FRAME/COLUMN: On the tool bar look for the Selection tool (an arrow pointed towards the top left ) - this would let you choose any object. That is click on this icon, and click on the object you want to change or delete. Once chosen you could use the handles to resize that or hit delete to get rid of it.
Note: If you do not see the tool bar, go to the top menu, Window --> Tools and check that.

6. CHOOSING & MODIFYING AN IMAGE: If you would like to delete/modify say, an image but once you click you find some other object say, a frame is highlighted, it should be because the border of the image is behind this frame. Then just right clicking -->Arrange--> send to back /send to front and then you should be able to precisely choose what you want.
Note: Or alternately, to select an image, on the top menu , go to object -->select-->last object below, then you should see the red frame around the image that you want to work on.

7. PLACING YOUR IMAGE: Now, of course you want to place your image, to do that on the top menu, go to place -->browse and choose the image-->open. This brings your image in its original size. Now to scale it down, right click on the image -->transform-->scale

Note: You could actually place multiple images on the sides of the page - this also helps in choosing the best while not having to browse and open multiple times.

8. CHANGING THE SHAPE OF AN IMAGE: To modify an image, say, to make it an oval, select image, go to object-->convert shape (at the bottom) -->ellipse

9. CROPPING AN IMAGE: Choose the image and use the handles at the corner and sides to actually crop ( In MS Publisher, you actually use that to resize)

10. REPLACING TEXT: Now we need to replace the text in the template with our text. For this select, the 'T' icon on the tool bar. Highlight the text you would like to replace and paste the text you have copied say from Word. Or highlight, delete the existing text and start typing in.

11. FORMATTING TEXT: Once text icon is chosen, you should see all text options docked at the top. If you do not see it , go to windows-->check controls.
In here you should be able to change font style, font size etc. keeping the text highlighted.

12. CHANGING THE COLOR: To change the color of the text or the background in a frame, keeping the text highlighted or the object chosen, double click on the color in the swatches (If you do not see the swatches, go to the top menu bar
Window-->check swatches).

13. GENERATING PDF: Go to File-->export-->save as cake_recipe.pdf, choose format as Adobe pdf.

Just print - your first newsletter is ready!