This document provides instructions for creating a magazine spread layout in Adobe InDesign, including: 1) Setting up a document with columns, guides, and master pages for numbering; 2) Inserting text boxes and linking columns for text flow; 3) Adding images and adjusting text wrap settings; 4) Using layers to arrange and position elements; and 5) Advanced formatting techniques like typing along paths and adjusting type.

1. Creating a Magazine Spread in InDesign
This session will introduce you to the basics of InDesign, which is a design application for creating
and editing page layouts.
In this session you will learn:
1 - Setting up a document in InDesign
2 - Creating columns
3 - Inserting text boxes into your document
4 - Inserting picture boxes into your document
5 - Placing images into your document (using ‘text wrap’)
6 - Using layers to arrange and position items
7 - Adding specific colour swatches for CMYK colour
8 - Using transparency and tint to alter colour appearance
9 - Typing along a desired path of your creation
10 - Adjusting the appearance of your type with kerning and hyphenation.
Once you have been able to complete the exercise found in this document you should be able to
apply what has been taught to your own work. It will then become a valuable tool for you to either
create work or just to present it effectively.
Toolbar (in order)
Selection tool - selects, moves, resizes items in your document
Direct Select tool - edits text and pictures
Pen tool - use to create vector paths, either in outlines or solid shapes
Type tool - creates rectangular text boxes and accesses typing on a path tool
Pencil tool - freeform drawing
Line tool - creates straight or diagonal lines at any angle
Rectangle Frame tool - various frame shapes for holding images
Rectangle tool - creates various shapes
Button tool - create button items
Scissors tool - split paths
Rotate tool - rotate objects at angles
Shear tool - distort objects at angles
Gradient Swatch tool - add gradients to items
Free Transform tool - resize and reshape items
Note tool - applies a note to a specified area of the document
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2. Hand tool - move around the document
Zoom tool - zoom in or out of your document
Setting up a New Document
Choose ‘File - New - Document’ from the main menu.
Set up a document with two facing pages, A4 size, portrait, 3 columns, gutter 1p0, margin 3mm.
Setting up Guides and Margins
It is useful to use guides in order to enable precise positioning of text
and graphics in your document. These are placed from the rulers at
the top and sides of the page. If you can’t see them choose ‘View -
Show rulers’ from the main menu.
With your cursor drag the arrows from either the top ruler or the side
ruler to create a guide line that can be positioned in the document.
If you need to hide the guides at any time choose
‘Apple key and ;’.
Master Page Numbering
Go to your A-Master document, which you will find
on your Pages window and create a small text box
on each facing page where you would like the num-
bers to appear in your document.
- Text Box Tool (To select the
relevant A-Master
page double click
on it)
Here, I have used two rulers to help me line up my text box. It is directly un-
derneath the middle column.
While the text box is active, go to ‘Type - Insert Special Character - Markers -
Current Page Number’.
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3. An ‘A’ will appear in the text box. You
will now need to do exactly the same
thing for the facing page.
Congratulations you have now added
page numbers to all of your pages!
You can double-check you have done
everything correctly by double-clicking
on a page and checking that it’s page
number is sitting at the bottom.
Layers
Layers in InDesign work very similarly to those in Photoshop, in that the top layer is at the front of
the document and the layer at the bottom is in the background of the document.
The layers pallette can be found by clicking ‘Layers’ next to the ‘Pages’ tab.
When adding layers to a page it may benefit you to
create a new layer when doing so, this enables you to
have flexibility in your design. To add a new layer, right
click on Layer 1 and choose ‘New Layer’. For additional
control over layers you can assign a colour to each
layer. Just choose a colour from the colour drop down
list. You can also give the layer a name.
Text boxes
In our document we have 3 columns in each page, what we
need to do now is add text boxes in order to insert text.
Select the Type Tool and ‘click and drag’ over each column
individually.
To link the text boxes so that the text flows, click on the slightly
larger square at the bottom-right of the left-hand column and
then click on the middle column. Repeat this process to link
the other columns.
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4. Open the document named ‘text.indd’ in the folder named ‘InDesign bits’ on your desktop. Click
on the text 5 times to select the whole of the text. Go to ‘Edit - Copy’ (or ‘Apple and C’). Now go
back to your original document that you’ve been working on and double click in the first column.
Go to ‘Edit - Paste’ (or ‘Apple and V’). The text should now be pasted into every column of your
document.
Adding a Background Colour
Adding background colour is simple. Using the Rectangle Tool draw
a
rectangle which covers the whole page (including outside the mar-
gins).
Now select the Colour pallette and choose CYMK from the drop
down
menu. Next change the fill to a colour of your choice. Lastly lower
the Opacity (to, say 25%) so that your text is readable.
Content Box - Picture
In order to insert images into your document you need to create a content box of some form in
which to place the image.
You can choose content boxes from those provided, including rectangles, circles and polygons;
you can also create your own shapes using the pen tool to create a joined path.
Create a rectangle frame tool in column 1. Go to ‘File
- Place’ (or ‘Apple and D’) and choose the file named
‘Teacher_writing.psd’ inside the ‘images’ folder inside
‘InDesign bits’. This will now appear in your rectangular
frame.
But it will not be the right size, so we need to fit it into the
frame. Go to ‘Object - Fitting - Fit Content Proportionally’
to fit the image into the frame.
Text Wrap
Now we need to ‘wrap’ the text around the image we have
inserted. So we select the image and go to ‘Window -
Text Wrap’. A new pallette will appear.
Click on the option to ‘Wrap around bounding box’ and you
will see that the text separates. You can also set the distance
from the edge of the object that you would like the text to ap-
pear. Experiment with settings to your liking.
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5. Next, we will add another image, but to column 2 this time.
Create a rectangular frame in column 2. Go to ‘File - Place’ and choose the file named ‘Teacher_
writing_no_background.psd’ inside the ‘images’ folder inside ‘InDesign bits’. This will now appear
in your rectangular frame.
Again, it will not fit the box perfectly so you can go to ‘Object - Fitting - Fit Content Proportion-
ally’ to fit the image into the frame. As this image has no background we can add a text wrap that
wraps around the object rather than the box in which it is held.
Click on the image and choose ‘Wrap around object shape’ from
the Text Wrap pallette. Now choose ‘Contour options’ and ‘Alpha
Channel’ from the pallette. You will now see that the text now
wraps itself around the image. You can change the settings,
for example, the ‘top and bottom offsets’ will either increase or
decrease the distance of the text from the image.
Next, we will add a quote. Create a new layer and name this ‘quote’ , click ok. With your Type
Tool create a text box outside of your document (in the white space surrounding your document).
Type something in the box, for example I have typed “Here’s the quote”. Once again place this
box onto your document, this time onto the third column. Once again you can edit to your liking.
Typing on a path
Lastly, we will add a title. To make the title a bit more interesting we will type it on a swirly path!
Create another layer (call it ‘title’) and select the Pen Tool.
Make sure that the fill and outline colours are set to none.
Use the tool to draw a path. I have set 3 points and used
these to create bezier curves in an ‘S’ shape.
Select the ‘Type on a path’ tool from the toolbar and click on
the start of the path that you have created. Now just type
a title and it should follow the path. You can ‘Align center’
(found in your Paragraph pallette) or leave it aligned to the
left, whatever looks best.
You could also add another text box and type your name into it to complete the article. I’ve also
added a larger version of the ‘Teacher_writing_no_background’ to the background of my docu-
ment page 1. You can edit the three columns on page 2 as well to experiment. You can also
exchange the text for your own and use this example as a template for a piece of work. Then...
you’re finished!
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