Work Efficiently with Text Text comprises the most space in the average InDesign document. Unfortunately, editing and restyling text occupies the majority of a creative’s time in the document. Used wisely, paragraph and character styles, nested styles, text variables, and data merge eliminate repetitive actions and hours of work.
Master It Use Excel, a database, or Notepad/TextEdit to create a new flat-file database of information. The data may be anything you like—a mailing list, product listings for a catalog, directory listings, etc.—but should include at least three fields and three rows. Save the file as either comma or tab delimited; this will be your data source file. Beginning with a blank InDesign document, build a variable data target document to hold the records from the data source file. Include static information as well as field placeholders. Format all text—static and placeholders—and create paragraph and character styles to make the initial and follow-up formatting easier. If you have appropriate places to employ nested styling, do so. When the target document is ready, effect a data merge to generate a press-ready variable data project.
Solution Owing to the multiple steps and complexity of this exercise, a great deal of variance in learners’ results is to be expected. Upon completion, the learner should have a merge document with all data correctly imported. Additionally, all text in the document should be assigned to paragraph and/or character styles.
Work Efficiently with Tables Barring additional investments in third-party plug-ins, each table created in prior versions of InDesign had to be individually and manually formatted. The more creative the formatting, the more arduous the task of styling multiple subsequent tables to match. New table and cell styles make it a one-click operation to format tabular data and to instantly update all tables to match future formatting changes.
Master It Begin with a table of data. If you have tables in preexisting InDesign documents, use those (save the document under a different name, just in case). If you don’t have such documents already, create a new layout and add at least two tables; the sports or financial sections of today’s newspaper are excellent places to find tabular data you can use for FPO. Style one table with alternating fills, custom strokes of your choosing, and with appropriate text formatting using paragraph styles. When the first table is styled to your liking, build table and cell styles, and then use them to format the second table.
Solution Results will vary, but learners should end up with two (or more) identically formatted tables. Additionally, all text within the tables should be assigned to paragraph styles and cell styles.
Work Efficiently with Objects Working efficiently doesn’t end with text and tables. Graphics, paths, and containers are part of any InDesign document, and creating and editing them productively is also important to the efficient InDesign-based workflow.
Master It Using either your own or a client’s various media logos (RGB, CMYK, grayscale; with and without taglines; iconic and full logos; and so on), build a shareable, reusable logo library. Now create a second library of text frames and other objects you use at least occasionally. Make sure to give each an object style before adding them to the library so that other objects can quickly be styled to match and so that formatting changes don’t take too much time. Don’t forget to label objects in both libraries for rapid identification and filtering by you or your coworkers.
Solution When finished, learners should have two INDL libraries. Every object in each library should be labeled. The majority of objects in the second library should have object styles assigned to them.
Master It Use Excel, a database, or Notepad/TextEdit to create a new flat-file database of information. The data may be anything you like—a mailing list, product listings for a catalog, directory listings, etc.—but should include at least three fields and three rows. Save the file as either comma or tab delimited; this will be your data source file. Beginning with a blank InDesign document, build a variable data target document to hold the records from the data source file. Include static information as well as field placeholders. Format all text—static and placeholders—and create paragraph and character styles to make the initial and follow-up formatting easier. If you have appropriate places to employ nested styling, do so. When the target document is ready, effect a data merge to generate a press-ready variable data project.
Solution Owing to the multiple steps and complexity of this exercise, a great deal of variance in learners’ results is to be expected. Upon completion, the learner should have a merge document with all data correctly imported. Additionally, all text in the document should be assigned to paragraph and/or character styles.
Work Efficiently with Tables Barring additional investments in third-party plug-ins, each table created in prior versions of InDesign had to be individually and manually formatted. The more creative the formatting, the more arduous the task of styling multiple subsequent tables to match. New table and cell styles make it a one-click operation to format tabular data and to instantly update all tables to match future formatting changes.
Master It Begin with a table of data. If you have tables in preexisting InDesign documents, use those (save the document under a different name, just in case). If you don’t have such documents already, create a new layout and add at least two tables; the sports or financial sections of today’s newspaper are excellent places to find tabular data you can use for FPO. Style one table with alternating fills, custom strokes of your choosing, and with appropriate text formatting using paragraph styles. When the first table is styled to your liking, build table and cell styles, and then use them to format the second table.
Solution Results will vary, but learners should end up with two (or more) identically formatted tables. Additionally, all text within the tables should be assigned to paragraph styles and cell styles.
Work Efficiently with Objects Working efficiently doesn’t end with text and tables. Graphics, paths, and containers are part of any InDesign document, and creating and editing them productively is also important to the efficient InDesign-based workflow.
Master It Using either your own or a client’s various media logos (RGB, CMYK, grayscale; with and without taglines; iconic and full logos; and so on), build a shareable, reusable logo library. Now create a second library of text frames and other objects you use at least occasionally. Make sure to give each an object style before adding them to the library so that other objects can quickly be styled to match and so that formatting changes don’t take too much time. Don’t forget to label objects in both libraries for rapid identification and filtering by you or your coworkers.
Solution When finished, learners should have two INDL libraries. Every object in each library should be labeled. The majority of objects in the second library should have object styles assigned to them.
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