Adobe InDesign CS4

Duration: 2/3 days
Time: 10am - 5pm. Breaks are scheduled throughout the day and lunch is typically scheduled between 12-1pm
Course Materials: Vendor Authorized Courseware provided
Locations: Reston, VA / On-Site
Related Courses: Photoshop - Flash - Illustrator - Acrobat
Download Course Outline (PDF)
Cost: $1295
Registration: Click Here to Register

Design professional layouts for print and digital publishing
Adobe® InDesign® CS4 software breaks down the barriers between online and offline publishing. Create compelling print layouts, immersive content for playback in the Adobe Flash® Player runtime, and interactive PDF documents.

Course Synopsis

This class provides you with the concepts and skills to use Adobe InDesign CS4 effectively. You get hands-on practice working with basic through advanced techniques to get the most out of your experience. You will learn type controls, graphics file management, layers and document setup. Whether you are a designer, prepress professional or just a beginner, you will fi nd InDesign to be a powerful but intuitive page layout application. We also recommend this course for those planning to obtain the Adobe Certifi ed Expert status.

Who Should Attend

Graphic professionals who need an essential understanding of page layout using Adobe’s flagship page layout application, with an emphasis on real-world issues.

Prerequisites

Because of the amount of material we cover in class, we do require students to be comfortable using a mouse, opening and saving files, and the general operations of computers. While we will make every reasonable effort to help, students with insufficient skills may be required to observe the class lessons or do their best to keep up without slowing down the rest of the class.

What You Will Learn

Navigating within InDesign
Creating and Formatting Text
Working with Layers
Adding Graphics
Working with Color
Working with Master Pages
Formatting with Styles
Creating and Editing Tables
Output and PDF Exporting

Lesson 1: InDesign CS4 Essential Skills

* Starting up
* InDesign tools
* The InDesign workspace
* The document window
* Using guides
* Viewing modes
* Working with panels
* The Tools panel
* Managing panels
* Working with the Control panel
* Saving your workspace
* Navigating through an InDesign document
* Using the Pages panel
* Changing the magnification of your document
* Working with type
* Entering and formatting type
* Placing and formatting type
* Flowing type
* Using styles
* Applying paragraph styles
* Applying character styles
* Apply styles using Find/Change
* Working with graphics
* Positioning graphics within a frame
* Applying text wrap
* Understanding layers
* Applying effects
* Resources for additional help
* In-product help
* On-line help
* Forums
* Conferences, seminars, and training
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 2: Building Documents with Master Pages

* Starting up
* Planning your document
* Creating custom page sizes
* Creating a new custom-sized document
* Creating and formatting master pages
* Formatting master pages
* Adding automatic page numbering
* Using text variables
* Basing master pages on other master pages
* Overriding master page items
* Adding layout pages
* Placing formatted text
* Creating the classified page
* Adding images and text to the master frames
* Applying master pages to multiple pages
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 3: Working with Text and Type

* Starting up
* Adding text to your document
* Creating a text frame
* Changing character attributes
* Changing font and type styles
* Adjusting size
* Adjusting line spacing
* Adjusting character spacing kerning and tracking
* Using a baseline shift
* Changing paragraph attributes
* Horizontally aligning text
* Changing the spacing before and after paragraphs
* Using tabs
* Adding rules above or below paragraphs
* Changing text color
* Creating drop caps
* Checking and correcting spelling
* Finding and changing text and text attributes
* Checking spelling
* Adding words to the dictionary
* Checking spelling as you type
* Automatically correcting spelling
* Editing text using the Story Editor
* Drag-and-drop text editing
* Special characters and glyphs
* Using the Glyphs panel and glyph sets
* Text frame options
* Adjusting text inset
* Vertically aligning text
* Importing text
* Flowing text manually
* Threading text between frames
* Using semi-autoflow to link several text frames
* Changing the number of columns in a text frame
* Baseline grid
* Viewing and changing the baseline grid
* Adding story jumps
* Using styles to format text
* Creating a headline and applying a style
* Importing styles from other documents
* Redefining styles
* Type on a path
* Importing text from Microsoft Word
* Missing fonts
* Finding and fixing missing fonts
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 4: Working with Styles

* Starting up
* Style types
* Applying a paragraph style
* Character styles
* Defining a character style
* Applying a character style Using nested styles
* Globally updating styles
* Loading styles from another document
* Quick Apply
* Organizing styles into groups
* Object styles
* Defining an object style
* Applying an object style
* Changing an object style
* Finishing up
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 5: Working with Graphics

* Starting up
* Understanding how InDesign handles graphics
* Locating missing images
* Working with the Links panel
* Customizing the Links panel
* Adding graphics to your layout
* Fitting an image within an existing frame
* Auto Fitting
* Using Adobe Bridge to import graphics
* Placing multiple graphics
* Using object styles for images
* Wrapping text around images
* Wrapping text around the bounding box
* Using graphics with clipping paths and alpha channels
* Removing an image background using InDesign
* Using anchored objects
* Advanced importing
* Importing layered Photoshop files
* Importing InDesign layouts as graphics
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 6: Creating and Using Tables

* Starting up
* Creating a table
* Designing a table from scratch
* Copying and pasting table information
* Converting text to table and table to text
* Importing a table
* Editing tables and table options
* Changing row width
* Editing the border
* Formatting rows and columns
* Using fills
* Formatting cells and text
* Resetting the cell styles within a table
* Text alignment and inset within a cell
* Formatting text within a cell and saving paragraph styles
* Formatting text in tables by column
* Working with tables in Story Editor
* Merging cells
* Defining a header cell
* Setting column and row dimensions
* Setting a fixed row height
* Setting column width
* Using graphics in tables
* Placing graphics in cells
* Cell styles and table styles
* Cell styles
* Applying cell styles
* Creating table styles
* Applying table styles
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 7: Using Color in Your Documents

* Starting up
* Applying colors to frames and text
* Applying color to text
* Applying color to frames
* Creating and saving a new swatch
* Applying strokes to text
* Creating a tint reduction
* Making a dashed stroke
* Creating and saving gradients
* Linear gradients
* Saving a gradient
* Adjusting fill opacity
* Radial gradient
* Adjusting the direction of a radial gradient
* One-click edits
* Using the Eyedropper tool to copy frame attributes
* Applying colors to multiple objects
* Updating and editing colors
* Using and saving spot colors
* Colorizing a grayscale image
* Setting up color management
* Color management essentials: about color models CMYK, RGB, and spot
* About the device-independent color space
* About profiles
* About color management engines
* Setting up color management
* Saving color settings
* Changing a source profile
* Assigning a new source profile
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 8: Using Effects

* Starting up
* Creative effects
* Applying opacity to objects
* Apply effects to stroke or fill only
* Drop shadow
* Adjusting effects for objects
* Bevel and Emboss
* Object styles with effects
* Basic Feather
* The Gradient Feather tool
* Converting text to a path
* Applying blending modes to objects
* The Screen blending mode
* The Multiply blending mode
* Working with imported files that use transparency
* Applying an alpha channel selection
* Applying a path selection
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 9: Advanced Document Features

* Starting up
* Adding text variables
* Creating a book from multiple files
* Defining pagination and document order
* Synchronizing attributes across a book file
* Creating a Table of Contents
* Building an index
* Adding topics
* Adding cross-references
* Generating the index
* Creating PDFs and printing from the Book panel
* Creating PDFs
* Printing
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 10: Document Delivery: Printing, PDFs, and XHTML

* Starting up
* Package inventory
* Preflight checks
* Packaging your document
* Creating an Adobe PDF
* Generating XHTML
* Adding CSS formatting
* Separation preview
* Printing a proof
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 11: Using XML with InDesign

* Starting up
* XML basics
* XML tags in InDesign
* Importing and applying XML Tags
* Using a DTD
* Viewing and organizing structure
* Viewing and applying attributes
* Exporting XML
* Importing XML
* Preparing the document template
* Applying an XSLT on import
* Mapping tags to styles
* Using data merge
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 12: Creating Interactive Documents

* Starting up
* Interactive design considerations
* Importing multimedia content
* Creating buttons to control multimedia content
* Adding more buttons
* Creating page transitions
* Creating an interactive PDF
* Viewing an interactive PDF
* Creating a Flash .swf file
* Viewing a Flash file
* Self study
* Review

Lesson 13: What’s New in Adobe InDesign CS4

* Starting up
* Improved navigation and user experience
* Scrolling with the Hand tool
* Hidden tools
* Additional cursor information
* Nudge buttons
* New method for creating styles
* The Edit With command
* Gone but not forgotten
* Joining objects
* Guides and rulers
* Delete all guides
* Ruler origin on spine
* Images and Contact sheets
* Placing a constrained image
* Creating a grid and placing images
* Dynamic autoflow
* Smart guides and Smart object alignment
* Smart dimensions and Smart spacing
* Smart dimensions
* Smart spacing
* Enhanced preflight capabilities
* Links panel
* Kuler panel
* Page transitions
* SWF export
* XFL export
* Self study
* Review