InDesign® CS4 Bible

Chapter 26. Fitting Graphics and Frames Together

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Cropping and positioning graphics

• Working with graphics in irregular shapes

• Fitting graphics into frames and vice versa

• Importing, creating, and using clipping paths

Getting a graphic into your layout is one thing, but that's not the end of the story. At a minimum, you want to make sure the image fits in the layout.

The most common actions you'll probably take are cropping, repositioning, and resizing. Cropping is a fancy term for deciding what part of the picture to show by altering the dimensions of the frame holding the graphic. Repositioning is essentially the same as cropping, except that you move the graphic within its frame. And if you want to get really fancy, you might work with clipping paths to create "masks" around image portions or even cut the graphic into pieces. Resizing (also called scaling) changes the size of the graphic, either larger or smaller.

Note

Transformations such as resizing, flipping, rotating, and skewing that you're likely to apply to imported graphics use the same tools as for any InDesign objects, so I cover all these transformations in one place, Chapter 10. I cover other effects that you can apply to any object, including graphics, in Chapter 11.

Fitting Graphics within Their Frames

Remember, when you import a graphic using the Place dialog box (choose File

Note

In almost every case, you select ...