Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout [Paperback]

Gabriel Powell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321495713 | ISBN-13: 978-0321495716 | Publication Date: December 9, 2007 | Edition: 1

Instant InDesign is the first comprehensive guide to Adobe InDesign that focuses exclusively on the art of template design and production. You’ll learn everything you need to know—from key design principles and basic template architecture to advanced automation techniques. With practical tips and real-world examples, you’ll discover how to translate your great ideas into industrial-strength templates. Magazine, newspaper, book, and catalog publishers, as well as ad agencies, graphic design firms, and independent designers can all use this guide to boost productivity and enhance their creative process. Instant InDesign is the best single resource for fast and
efficient page layout and production. This comprehensive guide shows you step by step how to:

•   Use the powerful new features in InDesign CS3—text variables, frame fitting options, and table styles—to create templates for ads, brochures, books, magazines,catalogs, and more.

•   Make the most of master pages, paragraph and character styles, nested styles, object styles, and table styles to automate formatting.

•   Optimize the use of typography, graphics and images, color, object libraries, and layers in your templates.

•   Work with the new transparency options and nondestructive effects in InDesign CS3.

•   Set up Data Merge and XML-based templates to automate page production.

•   Utilize and modify the templates that ship with InDesign CS3.

•   Use Adobe Bridge to manage your text, image assets, and templates.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gabriel Powell is the Senior Training Director for Metafusion Training and teaches InDesign to individuals and Fortune 500 companies nationwide. He specializes in automated publishing, template building, and streamlining publishing workflows. An Adobe Certified Instructor, Gabriel is also the founder of the Portland InDesign User group and is a contributing author to InDesign Magazine and The Illustrator CS2 WOW! Book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Press; 1 edition (December 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321495713
• ISBN-13: 978-0321495716
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have book, February 27, 2008

By 

Pica Pete "Ed" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout (Paperback)

A few years ago I started producing a monthly newsletter for a nonprofit while getting my feet wet with Adobe InDesign. Although I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, and refined certain elements over time, this was a very inefficient way to produce the newsletter and took much more time than I anticipated. So much so that at times I wanted to back out of the project.

If I had a copy of Instant InDesign back then and followed its guidance to the letter, it would have saved me a tremendous amount of time. And because I was receiving a flat-fee, my per-hour compensation would have increased greatly by virtue of how much quicker I could have completed the task.

This well-organized book takes the reader through the step-by-step process of creating templates. This is a great way to learn InDesign and reinforce earlier training. With this method, you can see how all the elements--style sheets, grids, object styles, etc.--fit into the whole process of creating a publication. With standard instruction books, the various elements of InDesign seem disjointed, so it's tempting to skip or gloss over some of them. Yes, it can be tedious to create a template, but the payoff is well worth it and a good return on your time investment.

While the book makes mention of InDesign CS3, the underlying concepts apply to all versions of InDesign. Bonus chapters and tutorials from the publisher's website make this book even more compelling. The bonus files are in CS3 format, so you can't open them with earlier versions of InDesign. However, if you can get someone with CS3 to convert the files to the INX format, you can open them in earlier versions such as InDesign CS2. Considering the overall value of the book, this is a minor inconvenience.

In short, this is easily one of the top three books on InDesign that I've seen. If you want to save time, boost productivity and produce more professional publications, this book is for you.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, February 18, 2008

By 

Software Maniac (Mill Creek, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout (Paperback)

Just received this book and I can't believe how well-structured this is. There is a lot to say for how information is presented and this looks and feels like a professional trainer put this together. Wait! The author IS a professional trainer! The examples and text are clear and what's so cool is that he actually used InDesign CS3 to create this.

So - buy this book and don't forget to retrieve the goodies by registering the purchase on the publisher's web site.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Total power of Adobe InDesign, February 11, 2008

By 

Diane Cipollo (Editor at BellaOnline.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout (Paperback)

InDesign is an extensive and powerful program which can be used for the layout and design of any project from business cards to catalogs. Those who have used InDesign for years, know it quite well and have even mastered the use of Master Pages, have not used the total power of Adobe InDesign until they have added templates to their InDesign toolbox.

This book by Gabriel Powell teaches the reader how to build a template customized for any project. However, this is also a great book for InDesign novices. Powell takes a comprehensive look at the InDesign tools and techniques in general as well as how they relate to the specific task of designing templates.

As you would expect, Powell begins with an explanation of what a templates is and how it can be used to the best advantage to increase consistency and production. He discusses the principles of good template design while examining the mockup for a project. Next, he uses InDesign's built-in templates as a teaching tool to explore the many elements of a template. Once you have learned how to edit existing templates, Powell moves on to the major part of his book which guides the reader step-by-step through the template design process.

He begins by discussing frames and how they are the building blocks of InDesign and how page dimensions, margins, columns and grids are the framework for your template. Next are master pages, libraries, layers and text variables. When color is added to the mix, Powell explains how the all-too-familiar elements such as fills, strokes and styles apply to template design. Finally, he covers text and table formatting with paragraph and character styles.

Now that the basics of template design are covered, Powell moves on to production issues for complicated documents such as large catalogs and how to build a template that will control elements that span throughout these documents such as running lists, footnotes and table of contents. Next, he discusses the markup rules for XML for data merge. Finally, its time to test and implement your new template. Powell walks you through the finishing touches such as deciding on default settings, integrating with Adobe Bridge and creating a style guide for your template.

Gabriel Powell is the Senior Training Director for Metafusion Training, an Adobe Certified Instructor and a contributing author to InDesign Magazine and The Illustrator CS2 WOW! Book.