Excerpt from Dynamic Learning - InDesign CS3

What’s New in InDesign CS3?

InDesign CS3 is a significant step forward in page-layout software. Whether you are a creative professional or a production artist, InDesign CS3 includes enhancements that make it easier to produce and distribute compelling content. We’ve highlighted some of the program’s key new features in this lesson, and included references to the lessons in which they’re discussed in more detail.

Starting up

This lesson provides an overview of the new features of CS3. If you are new to InDesign, or prefer to get started with the hands-on projects, skip to Lesson 2, “Essential Skills.”

Before starting, make sure that your tools and panels are consistent by resetting your preferences. See “Resetting the InDesign workspace and preferences” on page 3.

You will work with several files from the id01lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have loaded the idlessons folder onto your hard drive. See “Loading lesson files” on page 3.

See Lesson 1 in action! Use the accompanying video to gain a better understanding of how to use some of the features shown in this lesson. Click here to view this lesson's training video. This video is delivered by AGI instructors. You can take an InDesign Class delivered by AGI instructors or register for any of the InDesign Training Classes at AGI.

Improved styles

When designing your layouts, you may want to create the same border for all the picture frames or assign the same text attributes, such as color, size, and font, to all the headlines. InDesign makes it easier than ever to save a snapshot of these attributes, called Styles, for repeated use. You can save an enormous amount of time and maintain consistency in your layouts by using styles to apply formatting. You can create text styles for individual characters, such as the numbers used in the step-by-step instructions in this book, or for an entire paragraph. Object styles can include attributes such as the border or drop shadow applied to a graphic frame.

InDesign CS3 introduces styles for tables and the cells within a table. This allows you to quickly and easily format tables so they maintain a consistent look.

1 Open Adobe InDesign CS3. 

2 Choose File > Open. In the Open a File dialog box, navigate to the id01lessons folder within the idlessons folder you placed on your desktop, then double-click the id01.indd file to open it.

This is a one-page brochure with information about Stockholm, Sweden. If you receive any warnings relating to missing fonts, press OK and don’t worry about them, as you’ll be formatting the text over the next few steps.

3 From the Tools panel, choose the Type tool (). Click the cursor anywhere in the table listing city names in the upper-right corner of the document so that the insertion point is blinking within the table.

4 Press the Table Styles button () in the dock on the right side of the workspace to display the Table Styles panel. You can also choose Window > Type & Tables > Table Styles to display the panel.

5 In the Table Styles panel, select the City Table Style to apply this style to the table where the cursor is located. The table formatting, including rules (lines), background color, and text formatting, changes. You will work more with table styles in Lesson 7, “Creating and Using Tables.”

Table styles let you quickly format an entire table, including cell and text attributes.

Styles applied to text characters and paragraphs can be grouped together into a nested style. Nested styles let you quickly and easily apply multiple formats to text in a single step. InDesign CS3 now lets you repeat nested styles in a paragraph, such as a list, in a single step.

6 With the Type tool still activated, click anywhere within the text listing statistics about Sweden, located along the bottom of the document.

7 Press the Paragraph Styles button () in the dock, or choose Type > Paragraph Styles. The Paragraph Styles panel opens.

8 In the Paragraph Styles panel, click to select the Nested List Style and apply it to the text. Notice that two alternating formats apply to the text. This is called a nested style, or a style that accommodates multiple styles within it. You will learn more about nested styles in Lesson 5, “Working with Styles.” 

Use nested styles to apply repetitive formatting to text.

9 Choose File > Save As. In the Save As dialog box, type id01_work.indd into the Name text field. Navigate to the id01lessons folder, then press Save.

Quickly apply formatting to text and objects

Styles and other commands can be applied using the enhanced Quick Apply option to speed up the formatting of your documents. Simply select the object or text you wish to format, then press Ctrl+Enter (Windows) or Command+Return (Mac OS) to access the Quick Apply feature. When the Quick Apply panel opens, type the first few letters of the style you want to apply, and when that style is highlighted, press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to apply it to the object or text.

1 From the Tools panel, choose the Type tool () and click the cursor in the blue headline text so the blinking insertion point appears anywhere within the word Stockholm.

2 Using your keyboard, press Ctrl+Enter (Windows) or Command+Return (Mac OS). The Quick Apply panel appears.

3 Type ch and the Quick Apply panel lists all styles that start with the letters ch, including the chapter heading style. Click on the chapter heading style to apply it to the Stockholm text.

Use Quick Apply to easily format text or objects.

Quick Apply lets you apply character, paragraph, object, and table styles. It also lets you apply key commands and scripts. You can learn more about working with styles in Lesson 5, “Working with Styles.”

4 Choose File > Save to save your work. Keep this file open for the next part of the lesson.

You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through the various Quick Apply options, then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to apply the desired style or command.

Importing files

When designing a page, you need to pull together assets from different locations. These can include a variety of content, such as images, illustrations, and text. InDesign CS3 took a process that had been relatively unchanged for the past decade, and improved it dramatically. You can now import multiple files in a single instance, obtain a preview of text or graphic files as they are being placed, and cycle through files before they are placed into your document. These capabilities save you time, and help ensure that you are importing the correct file before you place it into your document.

Additionally, you can now place native InDesign files, which means that it is no longer necessary to create a PDF of an InDesign page that you wish to use in your layout. This is useful if you have a cover design, created using InDesign, for a book or magazine that you want to promote in a brochure.

Import InDesign documents into your layout without converting them to another file format.

You’ll find these features demonstrated throughout this book, especially in Lesson 4, “Working with Text and Type,” and Lesson 6, “Working with Graphics.”

Fitting frames

In the past, you would have to manually fit the frames of text and images placed into your layout to the content. While this level of manual control is still possible within InDesign CS3, you can now set your text and graphics to automatically fit to a specific size. If you have dozens, or hundreds, of images to import into a catalog layout, InDesign can now automatically reduce or enlarge each item automatically to the appropriate size as it imports the image.

You can define frames’ fitting settings even before you import the content.

Synchronizing master pages

Book publishers need to keep their individual sections and chapters consistent. In previous editions of InDesign, this involved building one template file and hoping that all designers working on the file maintained the original design. If a master page needed to be changed, all chapters had to be manually updated.

InDesign CS3 makes this a one-step process; master pages can be defined in a single document and then distributed to all documents that are part of a book. You can learn more about these capabilities in Lesson 10, “Advanced Document Features.”

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