6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Starting Point for Learning the Basics, May 29, 2008
This review is from: InDesign CS3 Essential Training (DVD-ROM)
I've been taking copious notes while watching this video series since Monday. David Blatner, who blogs on InDesignSecrets.com, is the host. His style is very straightforward as he teaches you both the basics of this program and tricks on how to maximize your time by using keyboard shortcuts, customizing your menus, adding special characters, importing text, etc.
The video on importing text is especially valuable to me because I have relied on the Place feature as well as the "Copy and Paste" method when importing text for my books. David explains why you should get out the copy and paste habit. He also explains how to import Word files so InDesign will format them correctly. This is a huge timesaver.
If you have 9 hours of straight time to sit in front of your monitor or TV, you can easily get through these video series in one sitting. But I recommend that you take your time because this program is complex. I've listed the truncated version of the table of contents to give you an idea of what you'll be learning. To see the full TOC, visit Lynda.com.
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Workspace
3. Getting to the Tools
4. Creating a Document
5. Managing Pages
6. Text
7. Graphics
8. Formatting Objects
9. Managing Objects
10. Transforming Objects
11. Character Formatting
12. Paragraph Formatting
13. Styles
14. Working with Tables
15. Color
16. Exporting
17. Printing
18. Conclusion
InDesign and InCopy overview
Where to go next
Goodbye
Is the DVD worth the price? It depends on how and where you're going to use it. If you're training primarily from home and have a good Internet connection, then I suggest you consider signing up for the basic subscription at Lynda.com because you'll not only get access to this basic course, but you'll have access to the other six at a fraction of the cost. Once you finish with this course, you'll want to move on to the others to learn more. If you don't have a good Internet connection or need to train others, the DVD is definitely worth getting.
For visual learners, this course is an excellent way of mastering the basics of Adobe InDesign.
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