InDesign Setting up a Document Part 3

Third of the series InDesign tutorials about setting up a document. This article will talk about setting up the page, grids and margins.

Setting up Your Page.

First of all open a new document: File> New > Document. Now have a look at your New Document window. The first thing you see is the Document Preset section. Did you see that? Good. Ignore it because we will cover it shortly.

Look at the rest of the window. Everything is pretty much straight forward. You will see that in Page Size you have several page settings (letter, legal, tabloid, etc.) You can choose the size of your page from that menu or you can enter a custom size yourself.

If you want to know what the word “gutter” in the Columns section means, go to the About Desktop Publishing Glossary.

You will probably also wonder what the Master Text Frame option is. First of all you need to understand what a Master Page is. A master page is a special page which will not print, unless you tell InDesign to do so. It’s a page where you can set a basic layout and then all of the other pages that you will add to your document and which are based on that master page will look the same. You can obviously add or take off items from any page that is based on your master page and you can have more than one master page. We will have a look at the master pages a bit more in-depth later on in this course. Right now you just need to know what they are.

So let’s get back to our New Document window. If you check the Master Text Frame option, you will have a text frame (or text box) on your master page. This frame will have the column and margin attributes specified in the New Document window.

Now you can click on the More Options button if you want, but that is at your own risk. I know you are tempted… Ah-ah, I caught you, you just click on it! Well now you saw them: here are the extra options which allow you to set bleed and slug. Well, if you need to outsource your artwork to a printshop, make sure you set these right, otherwise you will get a black eye … from your printer! Usually bleeds are set in a symmetrical way, usually 3 mm or 0.125 inches, while slugs tend to be just in one place. Just enter the sizes of bleed and slugs in their respective fields and you are set to go.

Setting up Margins.

Read this article: Perfect Proportions – Using Margins in Desktop Publishing.

So how do you set up margins in InDesign? There are several ways. The first one and the most simple one is by opening and document and then set up the margins in the New Document window. Here it is step by step:

1. Go to File > New > Document.
2. There is a section called Margins. By default, margins in InDesign are all the same. But, didn’t we just read that they shouldn’t be that way? Exactly! You have paid attention. Aahh! These DTP software producers! Why do we have to teach them everything! You will have to enter different values.

Let’s take Jacci’s sample and make margins the way she suggested. That example took two facing pages so we will do the same. Make sure that Facing Pages in your New Document window is checked.

Let’s make the inside margin 12 mm. The outside margin is supposed to be double the inside margin. So we will type 24 mm in the outside margin. The inside margin is also supposed to be 1/3 of the bottom margin. So we type 36 mm in the bottom margin. The top margin is 1/2 of the bottom margin, so we type 18 mm in the top margin. Et voilat! You have just set up your margins. Don’t forget to press OK when you have finished.

What if I find myself using the same set of margins regularly? You just open a new document and once you have set up your margins, go to Save Preset. Name your new preset, press OK and you have now recorded all of your settings into a new preset which will be available in future when you open a new document. If you want to use that preset again, you just need to select it from the Document Preset drop down menu which is located at the top of the New Document window.

Let’s say you have now have your new document and you feel that you need to change the margins. You can still change them without having to open another new document. Just go to Layout > Margins and Columns… A new window named (guess what?) Margins and Columns will open up and you can then change your margins from there.

The measurements I have used here are arbitrary and, as Jacci herself said, you should not let strict formulas keep you from finding the right balance of margins. But you will find that once you got used to the rules and to how your jobs look by following them, you will then begin to understand where you can break the rules. It will become easier for you to judge.

Setting up Columns and Grids: The Use of Guides.

Grids are a very important tool for a designer. A design without grids looks unfinished and elements in a layout might look like they are disconnected and not part of a whole, due to lack of misalignment. A design based on grids is also more consistent than one that is not based on grids. Here is an article by Jacci Howard Bear about the different types of guides in InDesign and their use:
Types of Guides in Adobe InDesign.

This is a series of 4 articles.

1. Slugfest and Bleeds: The Ring Match of InDesign
2. Rulers and Spine
3. Setting up the page, grids and margins
4. Master Pages

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