This document provides an overview of four modules for learning advanced InDesign techniques: (1) working with tabs to position and format text, (2) creating books from multiple documents, (3) generating a table of contents, and (4) building an index. It describes best practices for each element and step-by-step instructions for setting up styles, formatting references, and updating the components as documents change. The goal is to teach readers how to professionally structure and link related content within a single publishing project.

1. 1
Advanced InDesign Techniques
Creating Tabs, Books,
Table of Contents,
and Indexes

2. 2
Agenda
 Module 1—Tabs
 Module 2—Creating Books
 Module 3—Creating a Table of Contents
 Module 4—Creating an Index

3. 3
Advanced InDesign Techniques
Module 1—Tabs

4. 4
Working with Tabs
 Tabs position text at specific horizontal
locations in a frame.
 Tabs apply to an entire paragraph.
 Use the Tabs palette to set or adjust tabs.
 Click on Type > Tabs

5. 5
Using the Tabs Palette
 Tab alignment buttons
 Left-justified tab
 Center-justified tab
 Right-justified tab
 Decimal (or special character) tab

6. 6
Using the Tabs Palette
 Tab position
 Lists the exact horizontal position of the selected
tab

7. 7
Using the Tabs Palette
 Tab leader box
 The character you type in the leader box will
appear in a repeated pattern in front of the text
that uses this tab.

8. 8
Using the Tabs Palette
 Align On box
 This box only works with the Align to Decimal
tab. It allows you to choose any character with
which to align your tab … not just decimals.

9. 9
Using the Tabs Palette
 Tab ruler
 Shows the location of your tab(s)

10. 10
Using the Tabs Palette
 The magnet
 Aligns the tabs palette ruler with your text
 Scroll through your document to display the
top of the text frame, then click the magnet
icon.

11. 11
Setting Tabs
1. Press the Tab key in the text where you
want to add horizontal space.
2. To specify which paragraphs will be
affected, select a paragraph or a group of
paragraphs.
3. For the first tab, click a tab-alignment
button in the tabs palette to specify how
text will align to the tab’s position.

12. 12
Setting Tabs
4. Specify a location for the tab by either:
 clicking a location on the tab ruler, or
 typing a position in the X: box.
4. Follow steps 3 and 4 to create subsequent
tabs.

13. 13
Moving Tabs
1. In the tabs palette, select a tab on the ruler.
2. Either:
 Type a new location in the X: box, or
 Drag the tab to a new location on the ruler.

14. 14
Changing a Tab’s Alignment
1. In the tabs palette, select a tab on the ruler.
2. Click a tab-alignment button.
 Keyboard shortcut: You may also Alt-click a
tab marker to cycle through all four alignment
options.

15. 15
Deleting a Tab
1. Drag a selected tab off the tab ruler.
2. You can clear all tabs from the selected
paragraph(s) by clicking Clear All in the
tabs menu (the triangle in the upper-right
corner).

16. 16
 The Repeat Tab command creates multiple
tabs based on the distance between the
selected tab and the left indent.
Repeating a Tab

17. 17
Repeating a Tab
1. Select a tab on the tab ruler.
2. Click Repeat Tab in the tabs palette menu.

18. 18
Setting Indents
 You can set indents using the tabs palette,
the control palette, or the paragraph
palette.

19. 19
Setting Indents: Tabs Palette
 Use the indent markers to indent the first
line of text or the entire paragraph.
 Drag the top marker to indent the first line of
text.
 Drag the bottom marker to move both markers
and and indent the entire paragraph.

20. 20
Setting Indents: Tabs Palette
 You can also use the X: box to type the
horizontal position of the indent markers.

21. 21
Setting indents: Paragraph Palette
and Control Palette
 To display the Paragraph palette, click
Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph.
 To display the Control palette, click
Window > Control.

22. 22
Setting Indents: Paragraph Palette
and Control Palette
 The paragraph
palette and control
palette adjust the
indent the same way:
by using the numeric
position.

23. 23
Setting indents: Paragraph palette
and Control palette
 To indent the entire
paragraph one pica,
type 1p in the Left
Indent box.

24. 24
Setting Indents: Paragraph Palette
and Control Palette
 To indent the first line
of a paragraph one
pica, type 1p in the
First Line Left Indent
box.

25. 25
Setting Indents: Paragraph Palette
and Control Palette
 To create a hanging
indent of one pica,
type 1p in the Left
Indent box and -1p in
the First Line Left
Indent box.
 This is useful for
creating bulleted
paragraphs.

26. 26
Working with Tables
 If you want to design a complex table,
consider using the Table feature of
InDesign instead of the Tabs palette.
 If you want to insert a tab in a table cell,
click Type > Insert Special Character >
Tab. If you simply hit the Tab key, InDesign
will select the next cell in the table.

27. 27
Advanced InDesign Techniques
Module 2—Creating
Books

28. 28
Benefits for Creating Books
 Changes to individual documents don’t
affect the entire book.
 Documents can be updated painlessly.
 Can separate out the table of contents from
the book.
 Easier to manage individual components of
the book.

29. 29
Benefits for Creating Books
 Easier to manage the master pages a book
requires.
 Can add or subtract documents to make a
book universal (i.e., you may want to write
a manual that can support two different
products but have a couple a chapters that
are different from each other (conditional
text)).

30. 30
Design Phase
1. Determine what the book will contain—
table of contents, index, appendix,
chapters, etc.
2. Establish a convention for naming the
separate documents (e.g., Chap1, Index,
TOC, Glossary).
3. Create the individual documents.

31. 31
Design Phase
4. Set the document properties. Number of
pages should be at least three.
5. Select the Facing Pages check box.
6. Create the master pages. Create at least
two master pages—one for the chapter
page and the other for the document body.

32. 32
Design Phase
7. Page number the individual documents.
(Important—Be sure to set the numbering
in the document to Automatic Page
Numbering. The exceptions will be for
table of contents, forwards, prefaces,
introductions, and blank pages.)
8. Create headers and footers. Headers are
applied to the body pages but not the
chapter page or blank pages.

33. 33
Design Phase
9. Apply the chapter title master page to the
first page of the document.

34. 34
1. Create a book by going to File > New >
Book.
2. Save the book by clicking the floppy disk
icon or by going to File > Save As.
Creating the Book

35. 35
Modifying the Book
1. Add documents to the book by clicking the
Add documents icon at the bottom of the
Book palette.
2. Select the document you want to add, and
then click the Add button.
3. Remove documents from the book by
clicking the minus icon.

36. 36
Modifying the Book
4. Shuffle documents by dragging the
document you want to move to just below
the document you want it to follow.

37. 37
Advanced InDesign Techniques
Module 3—Creating a
Table of Contents

38. 38
Table of Contents Basics
 Separate the chapters from one another.
 Use 1.5 to 2 lines of space; i.e., if using 14
point line spacing, the space between heading
paragraphs should be 18 to 24 point.
 Create a hierarchy.
 Right-justify the page numbers.
 Use leaders (periods between the topic and
the page number).
 Use Roman numerals when numbering
pages.

39. 39
Table of Contents Basics
 Use the same font size for the table of
contents and the index headings.
 Don’t use a title page, and don’t use a
header on the first page.

40. 40
Creating Table of Contents Entries
 Choose a heading paragraph style for the
chapter, topic, and subtopic headers in the
main document.

41. 41
Creating the Table of Contents
1. Create a new document for the table of
contents.
2. Create paragraph styles for the chapters,
topics, and subtopics.
3. Name those styles after the headings they
represent in the main document (e.g.,
Heading 1 would be TOC Heading 1).

42. 42
Creating the Table of Contents
4. On the Paragraph Styles tab, double-click
the appropriate TOC heading.
5. In the left-hand side of the Paragraph
Style Options dialog box, click the Tab
button.
6. Set your right-justified arrow to match the
right-hand margin value.
7. Set your First Line Indent.

43. 43
Creating the Table of Contents

44. 44
Creating the Table of Contents
8. In the Leader text box, type a period, and
then click OK.
9. Add the Table of Contents to the book.
10. Go to Layout > Table of Contents.
11. Verify the Title text box is blank. If not,
remove any text in the box.
12. Under Other Styles, highlight the
paragraph style you want to include in the
table of contents.

45. 45
Creating the Table of Contents
13. Click the <<Add button.
14. In the Page Number text box, select the
appropriate page numbering scheme.
Note: Chapter title pages should not have
visible page numbers.
15. In the Level text box, select the hierarchal
level for the entry.

46. 46
Creating the Table of Contents
16. In the Entry Style text box, select the
appropriate TOC heading for that
paragraph style.
17. In the Between Entry and Number text
box, select Tab Character (^t).
18. Verify that the Include Book Documen
check box is checked.

47. 47
Creating the Table of Contents
19. Click the Save Style button.
20. In the Save Style As text box, type in a
name.
21. Click OK.
22. Click OK.
23. Click inside the text box with the cursor.
24. Save the table of contents.

48. 48
Updating the TOC—Long Method
 Perform this step any time you add or
remove topics with new paragraph styles.
1. In the Table of Contents dialog box, verify
that the Title box is empty.
2. Verify that the Replace Existing Table of
Contents box is checked.
3. Make any additional changes to paragraph
styles, and then click OK.

49. 49
Updating the TOC—Short Method
 Perform this step any time you simply add
or remove topics.
1. Make sure you have the table of contents
open.
2. Go to Layout > Update Table of
Contents.

50. 50
Advanced InDesign Techniques
Module 4—Creating
an Index

51. 51
Index Basics
 Creating an index is an art form.
 You must think of the various ways a
reader will attempt to look up information.
 Use at least two columns.
 Create a hierarchy.
 Don’t use a title page, and don’t use a
header on the first page.

52. 52
Index Basics
 Don’t use a letter if no words starts with that
letter.
 Bold the letter headings.
 Separate the topic and the first page
number by two spaces and no comma.
 Rule applies to technical manuals.
 Separate page numbers with a comma.
 Use the same page numbering as the main
document.

53. 53
Index Basics
 If an index entry has page references and a
“See also” phrase, place the “See also”
phrase on a separate line from the page
references.
 When similarities exist between topics, use
the phrase “See also.”
 Use an en-dash to separate the range of
page numbers.
 Keep the entries to no more than three
levels.

54. 54
Index Basics
 Categories and entries should not be
capitalized unless they are proper nouns.
 The index category should not stand alone;
i.e., make sure at least one entry exists
below the category. Otherwise, insert a
column break to force the category into the
next column.

55. 55
Creating Index Entries
1. In the document, highlight the word you
want to use as the topic.
2. Click the Index tab in the Document
palette.
 If the Index tab isn’t visible, go to
Window > Types & Tables > Index.
1. Click the Create a new index entry icon.
(the word you highlighted automatically
shows up on box 1.
2. In box 2, enter a subtopic.

56. 56
Creating Index Entries
5. In the Type text box, select the page range.
6. Click the Add button.

57. 57
Creating the Index
1. Create a separate document with the
formatting you want.
2. Save the document, giving it a name like
Index.indd.
3. Add the Index to the book.
4. In the Book palette, click the Generate
index icon.
5. Delete the entry in the Title text box.

58. 58
Creating the Index
6. Make sure the Include Book Documents
box is checked.
7. Clear Include Empty Index Sections.
8. In the Following Topic box, type in two
spaces.
9. Click OK.

59. 59
Creating the Index
10. Click inside the first column on the first
page of the index with the cursor.
11. Place a column break on any entries where
the letter heading is at the very bottom, the
subtopic entry is split from the topic, or the
topic entry has word-wrapped to the next
column.

60. 60
Creating the Index
In the end, an index should look something
like this:
color
see also RGB and CMYK
editing 123–125
palette 112–113, 124
selecting 117–119
cropping 62–64

61. 61
Updating the Index
1. Click the arrow next to the letter
corresponding to the subject.
2. Click each subsequent arrow until the page
number or range appears.
3. Highlight the number(s), and then click the
Go to selected marker icon.
 If the page or range is still correct, nothing
more needs to be done.

62. 62
Updating the Index
4. If the page number(s) is/are incorrect,
double-click the numbers to open the Page
Reference Options dialog box.
5. Make any changes to the index entry or
numbering as necessary, and then click
OK.
6. Open the index document.
7. Click the Generate index icon and repeat
the steps you performed to create an index.