Hi - How can I set up a book in Adobe Indesign? I have been using Quark XPress for a while now, but I've never done a book in any program and never used Indesign...and now I will be doing both for work. If this is too complicated a question for this forum, could you recommend a good online resource or book that could help me learn the basics of this program and how to set up a book? Thank you,
Setting up a book in Adobe Indesign is similar to that of setting a book using QuarkXpress. The process includes Master page creation, creation of paragraph styles and creation of character styles. The functionalities of the menus in Indesign and QuarkXpress are the same but the names of the menus are different. The inbuilt 'Help' section of Indesign would help you through all the steps involved in setting up a book. You can also refer to the online resources on Indesign in the following site:
Hi, Alissa. This is, indeed, a complicated question, since you're trying to learn two things at once:
1. how to use InDesign; 2. how to lay out and typeset (and possibly design?) a book.
There are many, many resources available on these topics, but most will tend to deal with one or the other.
If you're on a deadline, I recommend going for the highest-bandwidth connection possible: find someone else who knows how to do what you're trying to do (make sure they *really* know how to do it, though) and ask him or her to walk you through it, at a computer, in person. A human being can show you the quick and dirty basics faster than any book or video, and a person can answer in real time any questions that arise.
When/if you have time for self study, there are a lot of online and printed resources, many of them free. A good place to start is at the Adobe site, which has lots of tutorials in the "InDesign Design Center" (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/designcenter/search.cfm?product=InDesign&go=Go) including
* Migrating from QuarkXPress to InDesign * Setting up a new document * Working with master pages * Setting pagination * Creating running headers and footers * Creating a table of contents (though I think this feature is overkill for all but the most lengthy and complicated book projects)
You should also check out the "Learning Center" at the InDesign User Group website (http://www.indesignusergroup.com/learning_center/). There you'll find links to podcasts, tutorials, white papers, videos, all about how to use InDesign.
And About.com offers a free basic InDesign tutorial to familiarize you with the program (http://desktoppub.about.com/od/indesign/a/id_class.htm).
Layers Magazine has a free "Getting Started with InDesign CS" video online (http://www.layersmagazine.com/indesign-started.html), but it's from two versions ago, so some aspects may be slightly out of date. The instructions will probably still work, but there may be easier ways to do some things in CS3--or not; I haven't used the newest version yet, so I don't know.
Since you've used Quark before (though it's unclear from your post how well--is "a while now" a couple of months, or a couple of years?), you may know a fair amount about digital typesetting. I would still recommend, however, reading James Felici's "Complete Manual of Typography," which is a solid, practical book for digital typesetting in any application. And although it's not InDesign-specific, he does explain how to use some tools or options that are exclusive to InDesign.
Oops--I have to go to work now. But I hope this helps!
I hope this is a simple question. I contracted with a print-on-demand publisher to reprint an old picture book of mine. Rather than pay the outlandish fee charged by their designer (the book was, after all, already designed), I had the preparatory work done by a very experienced publications person locally. The publisher required that the files be sent in an InDesign format compatible with PDF/X-1a:2001. My local person used InDesign CS4 to produce the files and sent them to the publisher. The publisher maintains they are not PDF/X-1a:2001 compatible and has refused to forward them to the printers (the real experts). My local person says they have to be compatible. They are now no longer speaking. I'm late fulfilling orders and have run up some significant (for me) expenses.
The question: Are files produced by InDesign CS4 always PDF/X-1a:2001 compatible? If not, how do I check?
Less than 3 steps. From InDesign Export to PDF From the Export to PDF dialog, select the preset PDF/X-1a:2001 Verify bleeds & crop marks (off if there are no bleeds, crops on, use document bleed settings if bleeds are required and properly defined). The result would be a PDF/X-1a:2001 compliant file.
The long answere - "InDesign PDF/X-1a:2001 compatible" would be incorrect usage of terms. A pdf file can meet compatiblity standards and InDesign is able to create pdf's meeting the PDF/X standards. I doubt that any print-on-demand facility would ask for InDesign files as that creates the likelyhood of receiving InDesign files without the supporting links/graphics and fonts. The print-on-demand facility most likely wants pdf files, properly paginated, sized, in the correct color space, hence X-1a compatible
Excellent answer pdan. Sounds like your local person knew how to design in ID CS4, and your publisher knew to say PDF/X-1a:2001, but the disconnect was that your publisher wanted PDF files and didn't know to say to export from ID to PDF.
Your publisher should be able to send you and your local person specifications [specs, a spec sheet] that spell out exactly what is required for imposing/printing your PDF files (probably single pages).