35 Tutorials For Learning And Mastering Indesign

• September 3rd, 2012
• Tutorials

InDesign is a highly valuable tool for print design, and learning it is not as difficult as it may seem. If you are already a digital designer and are familiar with applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator, then InDesign is an easy tool to add to your skill set. By mastering InDesign, you can become a versatile designer with knowledge in both print and digital design, which will definitely expand your job opportunities.

To help you get started, we have scoured the internet to find the best InDesign tutorials available. Our compilation is a comprehensive collection of tutorials that cover the fundamental features of InDesign. With over 30 tutorials aimed at beginners and intermediate level designers, you will gain a solid understanding of how to use this powerful tool to create stunning designs for print and digital media. So, take advantage of this great resource and start building your InDesign skills today!

I hope you find this resource useful, we have produced. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below upon the post.

1. Speed up your InDesign layouts

Neshantheny Kumana simplifies object selection and frame editing with InDesign’s easy-to-use Gap tool and Live Corner Effects.

2. Quick Tip: Designing a Basic Compliment Slip with InDesign CS5

Make the most of InDesign’s tools and features to create an Compliment Slip for yourself or client. During this tut we will explore the Page tool and palette, Guides and Rulers.

3. Quick Tip: Creating a French Fold Template in InDesign

In this Quick Tip you will learn how to make a French Fold template using Indesign version CS3 through to CS5. This tut will explain how to set your InDesign document up for printing, including guidance on safe areas/bleed, orientation of the panels and using guides.

4. Create a newsprint publication 

Creating your own newsprint publication doesn’t have to be difficult. With some forward planning and a smooth workflow in place, it’s possible to produce a well-designed publication with a clear purpose. Key to this process is having a clear knowledge of what your publication will be and who you’re targeting it at.

5. Master InDesign’s Page tool

Neshantheny Kumana demonstrates an easy way to control multiple page sizes within a single document.

6. Magazine Cover Design in InDesign

It may sound like a simple thing, but you better believe that a lot of thought goes into the design of a magazine cover. Covers compete for attention next to dozens of other magazines on the rack. In this tutorial, we’ll not only take you through the process of creating a cover, but also reveal techniques that designers use to make their covers stand out.

7. Design distinctive monotone layouts

Designing for print with one or two colours can create a beautiful, pared-back effect, giving a project a refined feel, and saving money in the process. Limiting your colour choice can also leave you to focus on layout, and the relationship between the type and images – it’s a good way to learn the basics.

8. How to Create a Professional Magazine Layout

Designing for print with one or two colours can create a beautiful, pared-back effect, giving a project a refined feel, and saving money in the process. Limiting your colour choice can also leave you to focus on layout, and the

9. Master multi-doc projects with the Book function

David Donaghy demonstrates the simple way to bring control and consistency to your projects.

10. Quick Tip: Creating Live Captions in InDesign CS5

Live captions are perfect for adding descriptions to images placed within an InDesign document. InDesign uses the metadata from an imported file and generates a text frame. For example, if you have a contact sheet set up from an image library you can use Live Caption to automatically add descriptions to each frame. If you are interested in saving time, read on.

11. Quick Tip: How to Make Tables With Rounded Corners in InDesign

This tutorial will show you how to make fully editable tables with rounded corners in InDesign, quickly and easily. It’s actually a bit trickier than you would expect it to be, but if you follow this Quick Tip you will be making great looking tables in no-time!

12. Designing a Business Card in InDesign

In this tutorial Christy Winter, Associate Designer for Layers Magazine, creates a Business Card in InDesign and shows how using Layers, Libraries and Object Styles can save you time.

13. Design a simple index with InDesign

An index can give any published title authority, as well as increased usability, yet some designers are still none the wiser about how best to create one. There are many different kinds of index, so I’ll walk you through the basics, which will enable you to get started. I’ll be using samples from a title that I’ve been working on recently, indexing just one section of the brochure.

14. Quick Tip: Using Nested Styles with InDesign

You probably use Paragraph Styles to format text. Nested Styles takes it a step further by allowing you to set up multiple styles within a paragraph, based on criteria that you specify. Taking some time to create a Nested Style upfront will save you lots of time in the long run.

15. Quick Tip: Using the Print Booklet Feature in InDesign CS5

Sitting at the bottom of the File menu within InDesign is the Print Booklet feature. This feature has the potential to virtually cut out imposition time and for that reason it should not be overlooked. As print machines, paper sizes and ways of working vary I will try to keep this tut as generalised as possible. However the tut will be easier to follow if your design is portrait, saddle stitched(stapled) and contains eight pages or more.

16. Preparing InDesign Files for your Print Service

Often times when it comes to preparing files for a printer it can get really complicated really fast. Often times when I’m creating a design there are a lot of elements that I use in a file, most of which are images and fonts. It’s so complicated to remember EVERYTHING you put into a file so I discovered this cool trick you can use in InDesign to help package up all of your information for you! That way you don’t have to worry about missing anything. The function is called packaging. Here is how to package a fileand what it does exactly.

17. Design a Coffee Shop Menu Layout from Scratch with Photoshop and InDesign

This is the second part of this tutorial series about creating a ready to print booklet menu for an imaginary coffee shop named “Violet Coffee.” In this final part of the two part series, you’ll learn to create a ready to print booklet on InDesign, work with master pages, text, tabs, paragraph and character styles, import external files and actually print the booklet.

18. Create a Five-color Magazine Cover using a Spot Metallic

This is an advanced tutorial commissioned especially for Graphic Design Week. I’ll demonstrate how to integrate a spot-colormetallic ink into your workflow using InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat Professional.

19. Design a Print-ready Ad in Adobe InDesign

Want to learn how to make an ad that could go into a magazine? Jump into Adobe InDesign with this real-world tutorial on creating a print-ready ad. This tutorial is perfect for you if you’re familiar with Adobe Illustrator and want to get started with a layout program suited toward publication design.

20. Create Numbered Tickets the Easy Way in InDesign

In this tutorial, It will ll explain how to do an easy setup in InDesign for automatically numbered tickets. We will look at the handy “Data Merge Tool,” which is a great time-saver.

21. Master PDF exports

Adobe instructor Tony Harmer shows you how use CS4 to create PDFs for every occasion.

22. Using InDesign to Publish Your iPad Magazine

Adobe just took the wraps off the long-awaited Digital Publishing Suite that powers the Wired magazine and The New Yorker iPad apps. With InDesign CS5 at the core, you can now author your layouts, including interactive content, and export it out in the new .issue format.

23. How to Create a Music Magazine Cover in InDesign

In this tutorial, you’ll look at how to create a magazine cover in InDesign. You’ll learn how to set up a page layout and add text. This is an introduction to InDesign and no previous knowledge is required. This is a simple project put together to help get you started with InDesign.

24. How to Create a Flag Graphic with Type in InDesign

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use InDesign’s ability to create type on a curve, and flow that type from one curve to another. Along the way, you’ll learn a slick technique for step and repeat and how to apply gradients to text. This technique will work in InDesign CS or later. This technique would also will work in Illustrator, with minor modifications.

25. Magazine Design with InDesign Part 1 of 3

As faculty advisor to a student newspaper, I’ve seen what problems university students often run into and concepts that are most useful to them when laying out a publication in InDesign. In my opinion, Adobe InDesign is the best layout software available. If you have Adobe InDesign CS2 or later (or an earlier version, though some steps may be slightly different), you can follow along with this three-part tutorial in creating a small four-page magazine, in order to learn a few techniques and concepts along the way.

26. Create a newsprint magazine

Studio Newwork walks through the design process behind its large-format biannual arts title magazine.

27. Create a Grid Based Resume/CV Layout in InDesign

Use the power of grid based designs to create a structured and professional page layout in InDesign, which can then be populated with a range of information to produce a polished CV or Resume.

28. Work with type in InDesign

When it comes to typography, everyone has their own preferences, from typefaces to weight to alignment.

29. Work style magic in InDesign

Tony Harmer demonstrates how to harness various style options to speed up your work with both text and graphics.

30. How to Create a Coupon in InDesign

In this tutorial, you’ll explain how to create a coupon, double-sided in InDesign. This is a beginner level tutorial and by no means meant for print. It gives you a small intro into tabs, style sheets and glyphs.

31. Create and Print a Brochure with Photoshop, Indesign and UPrinting.com

Years ago when I first decided that I’d like to try out print design (my background is in web and screen work), I had this impression that there was some magically difficult things you had to know to get stuff printed. The reality is that for simple projects it’s actually very easy. In this tutorial I will walk you through the complete process of designing a simple brochure, getting it ready for print and then actually uploading it to a commercial online printer, checking the proof and seeing the finished product.

32. Design a multi-page mag feature

One of the new features introduced in InDesign CS5 is Live Captions; this feature enables you to generate captions using information stored or added to an image’s metadata. It also offers you a number of different methods you can use to generate captions, controlling the look, location and style of the caption.

33. Working with Text and Images

A great short quick tip, which is a must check out tutorial.

34. Creative Uses for Paragraph Rules in InDesign

Another essential tutorial for rules for creating paragraphs using Indesign.

35. Invitation Design in Adobe InDesign

Associate Designer for Layers Magazine, Christy Winter creates a Baby Shower/Party Invitation in InDesign with downloadable files so you can follow along!.