Skip to Content
InDesign® CS4 Bible
book

InDesign® CS4 Bible

by Galen Gruman
January 2009
Beginner to intermediate
991 pages
23h 58m
English
Wiley
Content preview from InDesign® CS4 Bible

Chapter QS. Quick Start: Building a Document from Start to Finish

IN THIS CHAPTER

  • Creating a new document

  • Working with frames

  • Working with text

  • Working with lines

  • Creating and applying colors

  • Working with graphics

  • Applying lighting effects

  • Printing a composite

Although InDesign CS4 is a complex program that lets you do everything from designing a fashion magazine to indexing a book to generating separation plates for professional printing, you can get started building documents with just a few simple skills. If you're in a hurry to get started on a document — or you have a job interview tomorrow based on your "proficiency" in InDesign — work through the steps in this section. You can learn the basic building blocks of documents (frames and lines) and the two primary tools (Selection and Direct Selection).

By all means, do not assume that these steps provide all you need to know about InDesign CS4. From here, head to related sections of the book and explore the full functionality of the program. If you're not sure where to start, figure out what you'll be doing the most. For example, if you'll be flowing text into a newsletter template, head to Part IV.

To create the sample document shown in Figure QS.1 — from my book QuarkXPress to InDesign: Face to Face (Wiley, 2005) — you need InDesign, a text file from a program such as Microsoft Word, a graphic file such as a TIFF file, and a laser or inkjet printer. You can follow the steps exactly (substituting your own text, graphic, and fonts), or ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Adobe® InDesign® CS5 Bible

Adobe® InDesign® CS5 Bible

Galen Gruman
Real World Adobe InDesign CS3

Real World Adobe InDesign CS3

Olav Martin Kvern, David Blatner

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470405116Purchase book