Chapter 2: A Tour of InDesign

Overview

The first time you use a program, it can be overwhelming. You're not sure what you can actually do with the program, and each program has its own idiosyncrasies. InDesign is no different. If you're familiar with other Adobe applications, such as PageMaker or Photoshop, the InDesign software interface will be familiar to you. Even if you've been using QuarkXPress, you'll be able to translate much of what you see in InDesign to QuarkXPress terms.

But because every program is unique, each has its own style and approaches. So now that you're ready to start using InDesign, follow through this chapter to find out where InDesign puts its capabilities and how to access them. When you first launch InDesign, you'll see a Tools palette on the left, and you may see several other palettes on the right. InDesign is ready and waiting for you to open a document and start working.

However, taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the interface is invaluable to learning new software. After all, without a basic understanding of what you're looking at on-screen, it's difficult to begin working in InDesign.

Note ‚  

InDesign CS lets you change the shortcuts associated with menu and other commands. (Chapter 3 covers this feature in more detail.) Throughout the book, I assume the shortcuts in use are the default ones.