InDesign CS5 For Dummies

Get up to speed on the latest features and enhancements to the new version of InDesign

As the industry standard in professional layout and design, InDesign delivers powerful publishing solutions for magazine, newspaper, and other publishing fields. This introductory book is an easy-to-understand reference for anyone migrating from another software application or those with little-to-no desktop publishing experience. You’ll explore InDesign basics and examine the enhancements to the latest version, while you also discover how pages work, build templates, create frames and shapes, manage styles, and much more.

• InDesign is proving to be an increasingly popular layout and design application; the latest version includes new functionality and enhanced tools
• Teaches all the basics for first-time users, including how to open and save your work, arrange objects, work with color, edit text, manage styles, finesse character details, add special type, import and size graphics, set paths, work with tabs, create indices, and more
• Demonstrates how to calibrate colors, export PDF files, fine-tune paragraph details, create frames and shapes, manipulate objects, and work with automated text

InDesign CS5 For Dummies offers a straightforward but fun approach to discovering how to get the most from your desktop publishing experience when using InDesign.

Get up to speed on InDesign CS5 and create great publicationsfor print or the Web

How do you design? Free-form, creating one-of-a-kind pieces? Or would you love a highly formatted template that you could modify as needed for regular periodicals? InDesign is the right tool for both approaches, and this is the right book to help you master the essentials. Learn to set up your documents, prepare them for output, and get creative!

• Take a tour — navigate around InDesign's menus, dialog boxes, panels, and panes, and customize preferences

• Master the template — set up and modify templates, use master pages, build libraries, and work with color

• The essential object — manipulate, organize, align, and arrange design objects

• Terrific text — see how to import and thread text, edit and style it, and finesse characters to make your words look great

• Must-have graphics — prepare graphics files, work with image layers, and create a clipping path

• Get down to business — create manuals and annual reports with tables, footnotes, and indexes

• Pretty in print — calibrate color and prepare your document for printing

• Present your project — export your work to the Web or make it an interactive presentation with animation and sound

Open the book and find:

• Tips on modifying defaults for views, colors, and styles

• How pages and layers work

• What you can do with color swatches

• When to align objects and when to stack them

• How to customize the spelling and hyphenation dictionaries

• Import options for Word, Excel, and RTF files

• How to handle automatic text

• Tips for cropping and positioning graphics

Learn to:

• Navigate the interface and set up reusable master pages

• Work creatively with lines, text frames, and graphics frames

• Manipulate text and spiff up your documents with graphics

• Create PDFs, Web pages, and Flash files from InDesign

Galen Gruman is the principal at The Zango Group, an editorial and book production firm. He has designed and produced numerous publications. Galen has authored or coauthored more than 20 books on desktop publishing, and he is currently the Executive Editor for InfoWorld.