Five must-know layout tips and tricks in Adobe InDesign
- Angelo Montilla
- Apr 4, 2024
- 5 min read
Whether you're working on a print or digital publishing project in Adobe InDesign, utilizing some of the key tools in the app can really help your workflow and enhance your layouts.
In this tutorial, let's look at five tips and tricks that every layout designer should know.
Instead of creating a new document, there's a ready-to-use template included in this tutorial. It's called Magazine Layout_BEGIN.indd. The text and image frames are already placed in the spread, so we'll walk through adding the content and focusing on the five must-know tips.
Use the link below to download the practice files to follow along step-by-step with the video.
1. Column Rules
The first tip we'll look at is how to add Column Rules. This allows you to add rules in the gutters of the columns without having to draw them manually.
With the Selection Tool, click on the text frame at the bottom of the first page in the spread.
Go to File > Place and select the text file called Main Copy.txt.
Click Open.
Copy/Paste the title What's In This Spring into the headline frame.
Copy/Paste the second title into the deck headline frame.
With the Selection Tool, hold Option (Mac) / Alt (Windows) and double-click the frame. Alternatively, you can go to Object > Text Frame Options.
Under General, increase the Gutter width to 0.3125.
Click the Column Rules option on the left and choose the Insert Column Rules option.
Set the Weight to 0.25.
Adjust the Start/End and Offset values accordingly and click OK.
Here's a look at the Text Frame Options and Column Rules settings as explained in the steps above:
For the text formatting settings, select all the text in the main copy frame and set the font to Baskerville (Regular) with a pt size of 11, and a leading pt size of 13. Select the main title and set the font to The Seasons (Bold), the pt size to 75 and leading pt size to 68.
Select the deck headline and set the font to The Seasons (Bold), the pt size to 22 and leading pt size to 26.
Here's how the layout will appear after making those typesetting changes:
The video tutorial will cover another example of adding Column Rules to a sidebar above the main title, as seen in the example above.
2. Color Theme Tool
Stuck on what colors to use in a layout? The Color Theme Tool is an amazing way to pull colors from an image on a page to build a theme and complete a design.
For the example in this tutorial, we'll import a .PSD file included in the practice files, saved as Fashion Main.psd.
With the image frame selected, go to File > Place and locate the file mentioned above.
Select the file and click Open.
Right-click, go to Fitting > Fill Frame Proportionally to fill the frame. Then use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to position the image you like.
Click the Color Theme Tool in the Tools panel. This is the icon with the Eyedropper and Swatch Palette.
Hover over the main image and when the border turns blue, click to generate color themes.
Choose from one of the themes – in this tutorial, let's go with the Bright Theme.
Click the icon to the right of the themes (see arrow in image) to add the colors to a group within the Swatches Panel.
You can now add some of the colors to the text and other objects in the layout like you see in the example below:
3. Paragraph Styles and Drop Cap Nested Style
Magazine design layouts traditionally use drop caps on featured stories. A drop cap is a large capital letter and design element used at the beginning of a paragraph. It can take up 2 to 4 lines and in this tutorial, we'll set a three-line drop cap.
For this next step, we'll set two Paragraph Styles – Body Copy and Drop Cap. We'll also apply a nested character style within the drop cap style.
Select all the body copy and in the Paragraph Styles section within the Properties Panel, click the plus icon to add a new Paragraph Style. (Tip: You can also add this with the Paragraph Styles panel by going to Window > Paragraph Styles)
Name this style Body Copy.
Place your cursor in the first paragraph and in the Properties Panel, set the number of drop cap lines to 3.
Select the first paragraph and add a second Paragraph Style called Drop Cap.
Select the A character in the drop cap and give it a color fill of orange from the color theme in the Swatches Panel.
With the A character still selected, go back to the Properties Panel and add a new Character Style called Drop Orange.
Open the separate Paragraph Styles panel for this next part as it's easier to apply the nested character style.
Double-click the Drop Cap Paragraph Style and then go to Drop Cap and Nested Styles from the left-side menu options.
Click New Nested Style and from the style dropdown, choose Drop Orange – this is the Character Style.
Apply it through 1 and change the word to character so only the first character (the drop cap) will have the orange fill color and nothing else.
To test out the styles, place your cursor anywhere in the first paragraph and toggle between the Body Copy and Drop Cap styles to see it in action.
4. Object Layer Options
The Object Layer Options feature allows you to use Photoshop documents (.PSD) and adjust the layers directly in InDesign. In this next example, we'll create a copy of the image and use the Object Layer Options to turn off the background layer to have the subject's jacket flow into the first page.
Click on the image frame – not the content – with the Selection Tool.
Go to Edit > Copy and then Edit > Paste in Place.
Right-click the copied version and select Object Layer Options.
In the Object Layer Options window, hide the background layer and click OK.
Expand the left side of the frame to the left to expose the subject's jacket.
Here's a slide show of the steps as explained above:
5. Select Subject Text Wrap
To complete the layout, let's add a Select Subject Text Wrap to the jacket so the main copy on the first page wraps around it nicely.
Open the Text Wrap panel by going to Window > Text Wrap.
Click on the top image with the transparent background and in the Text Wrap panel apply the Wrap Around Object Shape option.
Under Contour Options, choose Select Subject.
The text should now wrap around the jacket using the steps explained above. Here's a look:
