Getting Started With Adobe InDesign

March 5, 2009

By system

a href=http://www.macresource.co.uk/courses/indesign1.htm target=_blankInDesign CS4/a is a great piece of software. As part of the Adobe Creative Suite, it provides a great solution for professional page layout and is now being used by just about every designer under the sun. However, not everyone needing to learn InDesign works in the field of design. A lot of organisations are buying InDesign so that, wherever possible, their staff can produce corporate literature in-house, often saving them considerable expense. So how do you run a href=http://www.macresource.co.uk/courses/indesign1.htm target=_blankInDesign CS4 Training Courses in London/a for corporate users whose background is often in admin rather than design?br /
br /
If someone attending an InDesign training course comes from an admin background and is used to programs like Microsoft Word, the training needs to give them some insights into the world to which InDesign belongs. They need to learn something about typefaces, fonts and typographical controls. They need to understand image file formats, image manipulation and the definition of colours for print.br /
br /
InDesign is a precision tool, allowing the user to very accurately specify the attributes of all elements on the page and the relationship between them. Most general users will remain unaware of this precision unless it is pointed out to them. During training, they should learn the use of ruler guides, grids and baseline grids and basically how to make elements align correctly and print in the right place on the page.br /
br /
The terminology used in InDesign often harks back to the pre-electronic typographic age and is often confusing to the general user. Its important to clarify these terms, perhaps by offering users a bit of background information and, wherever possible, by making comparisons with similar features in familiar software. For example, we might compare leading in InDesign with line spacing in Microsoft Word.br /
br /
Because InDesign offers so much flexibility in transforming imported images, your average user often gets carried away and ends up scaling images up or down by huge factors. It needs to be explained that scaling up or down by more than 10% or so is undesirable since this can cause artefacts to appear in the printed image.br /
br /
Colour terminology is often another cause of some confusion. The key facts that people will need to learn here are the difference between the CMYK and RGB colour spaces, how a colour print job is separated into the different plates and the difference between spot and process colours.br /
br /
InDesign is created with high quality output in mind. New users, regardless of their background must learn how to pre-flight a document, fix any errors and then package the print job and/or produce a high- resolution PDF file.br /
br /
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Training, an independent computer training company offering Adobe InDesign training courses in London and throughout the UK.br /
br /
Find free points of view to a href=http://www.freetrafficsystem.com target=_blankFree Traffic System/a – your personal knowledge base.