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Key uses of InDesign
Next time you're in a bookshop you'll be surrounded by things created with InDesign: books, magazines, newspapers, as well as things like posters and flyers. InDesign was originally designed to create printed documents like these:
Whilst not originally created to produce digital design, InDesign has adapted to that purpose too. Below is an image for Facebook created in InDesign:
InDesign is still totally dominant in the world of graphic design – at least when it comes to creating designs for print. Of course when it comes to creating digital documents it has many rivals which are cheaper or even free, but professional designers often use it digitally too because they are already familiar using it for the print side of their work. Plus, they've already paid for it.
Key Terminology: Document, page, frame
InDesign creates documents, which contain pages, and on those pages will be frames. Frames can either contain images or text:
Below you're looking at the Facebook advert in InDesign. The very thin rectangle (that surrounds the "Take 50% off" text) with square white dots at each corner is a frame. This one contains text, as does the one directly above it. The other two frames contain images.
Key Tools: Selection Tool, Type Tool, Frame Tool
InDesign's Selection Tool is used, perhaps not surprisingly, to select things. The white squares at the edge of the frame, above, are showing because the frame is selected. It's the tool you'll use most of the time:
You'll use InDesign's Type Tool when you want to edit text. Notice that the frame containing the "Exclusive Offer" text is selected. I'm clicking on the Type Tool in InDesign's Tool Panel to choose it:
Now I can click onto the text in that frame, and my cursor changes to a typical flashing cursor, indicating that I'm now able to edit the text:
Now I can edit the text in the way you'd edit, say, text in an email. Here I'm dragging over the headline, and they I'll change it by overtyping:
InDesign's Rectangle Frame tool is the other tool that you'll use a great deal. It's the tool you use to create a frame in the first place, by clicking and dragging.
To look in more detail about how this document was made, read our InDesign digital & print design basics guide.
Read our other guides to InDesign
Explore our Graphic Design for Marketers course
