This introductory class is instructor led with students learning how to use Adobe InDesign CS4 to its full potential by completing exercises producing stationery, brochures, magazine, newsletter layouts and forms. Best practices relating to design and typography, as well as shortcuts, are emphasised. You will learn how to work with text and images and create press-ready and web-ready PDF files. The workshop focuses on document construction, page layout, typography and image-manipulation.

On conclusion it is expected you will have gained a working knowledge of Indesign and be able to set up and lay out single and multi-page documents, import and format text, import and work with images and prepare documents for a service provider.

Course outline
Introduction: covering setting preferences and defaults; customising display performance options; tools; working with files and templates; zooming in and out.
Setting up documents: covering creating new documents; pages and spreads; ruler guides.
Working with graphics: covering paths and shapes; paths and frames; setting stroke attributes; selecting; duplicating and grouping/ungrouping.
Working with text: covering creating text frames; threading text frames; selecting text; adding text; flowing text; wrapping text; typing on a path; formatting characters; formatting paragraphs and checking spelling.
Drawing: Covering drawing a straight line, ellipse, rectangle or polygon; drawing with the pencil tool; adjusting segments; applying stroke and compound paths.
Applying colour: covering selecting; the swatches palette; tints; creating gradients; copying attributes between objects; transparency and specifing how colours blend.
Creating PDF Files: covering exporting to Adobe PDF; PDF compression and downsampling options; Packaging files for print.

NOTE: Basic computer skills and a working knowledge of Apple Macintosh are required.

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