Explore InDesign basics
Learn about the primary tools you will interact with when you first launch InDesign.
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While InDesign has many tools to perform a wide array of tasks, what I'm going to do is show you the primary tools that you'll first interact with.
On the left-hand side, you'll find the tools panel.
And by default, the tools panel is displayed in a single-column view.
This is great if you're concerned about screen real estate, but if you wish to expand it to a two-column view, all you have to do is click the double arrow in the top left-hand corner.
And it acts as a toggle, so if you click it again, the panel will be restored to its default single-column view.
What's great about the tools inside of this panel is that they each have a keyboard shortcut and if you hover over a particular tool, a tool tip will appear giving you a name of the tool and it's corresponding keyboard shortcut.
So for example, if I press the T key on the keyboard, I'll activate the type tool.
If I press the V key on the keyboard, I'll activate the selection tool.
With the selection tool active, if I come over and click on this image, I'm going to select the frame that contains that image and you'll notice with the frame selected, I have a series of resize handles giving me the ability to increase the size of the frame or decrease the size of the frame.
If you decrease the size of the frame, you'll notice in this case, I'll be cropping off a portion of that image.
You also have the ability to rotate the frame by placing your cursor outside of one of the corners of the frame.
You click and drag; you'll rotate it.
You'll also have the ability to manipulate the artwork inside of the frame by using this content wrapper.
This appears as you hover over inside of the selected frame.
If you click and drag with the content grabber, you're going to be changing the content within the frame.
So you're not moving the frame; you're moving the artwork within the frame.
If you want to move the entire frame, you can do that.
Just make sure you're not over the content grabber.
If I place my cursor just outside of the content grabber but within the selected frame, I could then click and drag to move the frame.
And as you move the frame, you'll see a series of smart guides appear, making it easier for you to align this object with other objects within the document.
I'm going to go ahead and undo the last couple steps by using the keyboard shortcut Command Z On the Mac.
It would be Control Z on Windows.
With this selection tool still active, if you double click within a frame that contains text, you'll notice you immediately activate the type tool.
If you wish to get back to the selection tool, you can't use the keyboard shortcut V because you'll type that character within the frame.
So instead, you have to press the escape key on the keyboard.
Another tool that you'll find that you'll use often is the rectangle frame tool, and it gives you the ability to create frames if you wish to add text or other artwork to the document.
In this case, I'll drag out a rectangle frame, then I'll press the T key on the keyboard to activate the type tool and click inside of that frame, and then all I have to do is come up to the Type menu, and from the Type menu, I can choose Fill with Placeholder Text to add text to that frame.
You have several options for navigating within the document.
The first tool that I want to show you is the zoom tool.
Z is the keyboard shortcut.
And you can click inside the document to zoom in to that area.
If you hold down the option key on the Mac, Alt on Windows, you'll zoom out.
You also have the ability to click and drag a marquee around an area to zoom in to that area.
And once you're zoomed into that area, you may want to use the hand tool— H is the keyboard shortcut— to pan around within the document.
However, if you have the zoom tool selected, you may want to hold down the spacebar which will quickly activate the hand tool as well.
The great thing about the spacebar is once you let go of the spacebar, you return back to the zoom tool.
There's several different ways to zoom in and out of a document.
You'll notice that you have an option up here towards the top of the interface.
You also have options under the View menu.
From the View menu, you can choose Zoom In and Zoom Out.
You can also choose Fit Page in Window or Fit Spread in Window if you're working with a spread.
There's also actual size, and there's corresponding keyboard shortcuts for these options as well.
For example, Command 0 or Control 0 on Windows will fit the page within the document.
The last thing that I want to point out is that many of these tools have nested tools.
You can identify a tool that has nested tools by the little arrow in the bottom right-hand corner.
And if you click and hold down, you'll see the hidden tools revealed in a flyout menu.
So like I said earlier, there's many tools inside of InDesign, but these tools are the tools that you'll most likely work with as you start working with the program.
Contributors
Train Simple
Matthew Pizzi
