Setting Up a New Publication | Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible

After you launch InDesign, you have two options: You can choose the Open command (File ‚ Open, or z +O or Ctrl+O) to open a previously created document or template (more on opening documents and templates later in this chapter). Or you can choose File ‚ New, or z +N or Ctrl+N, to create a new document.

When you create a new document, the New Document dialog box, shown in Figure 4-1, is displayed. It is here that you implement many of the decisions ‚ including page size , number of pages, number of columns , and margin width ‚ you arrived at during the planning stage. Although you're free to change your mind later, you'll save yourself time and potential headaches by sticking with the basic page parameters you establish in the New Document dialog box.

Figure 4-1: The settings you make in the New Document dialog box establish the basic framework for the pages in your publication. This example shows the settings used to create a standard 2-x-3 ‚ ½-inch business card. Notice that Facing Pages and Master Text Frame are not checked because they're not necessary for a one-page document.

Tip ‚

To change the measurement units displayed in the New Document dialog box, choose InDesign ‚ Preferences ‚ Units & Increments on the Mac or Edit ‚ Preferences ‚ Units & Increments in Windows, or press z +K or Ctrl+K, then choose the measurement system you want from the Horizontal and Vertical pop-up menus in the Ruler Units area. If you change preferences when no documents are open, your changes are applied to all subsequently created documents.

Here's how to create a new document:

Choose File ‚ New or press z +N or Ctrl+N.
If you know exactly how many pages your publication will have, enter the number in the Number of Pages field.

If you don't know for sure, you can always add or delete pages later as needed.
If you're creating a multipage publication that will have a spine, such as a book, catalog, or magazine, check Facing Pages. If you're creating a one-page document, such as a business card, an ad, or a poster, don't check Facing Pages. Some publications , such as flip charts , presentations, and three-ring bound documents, have multiple pages but use only one side of the page. For such documents, don't check Facing Pages, either.
If you want to flow text from page to page in a multipage document, such as a book or a catalog, check Master Text Frame. (See Chapter 16 for more information about using master text frames .)

If you check this box, InDesign automatically adds a text frame to the document's master page and to all document pages based on this master page. This saves you the work of creating a text box on each page and manually threading text through each frame.

In the Page Size area, you can choose one of the predefined sizes from the pop-up menu.

Your options are Letter (8.5" by 11"), Legal (8.5" by 14"), Tabloid (11" by 17"), Letter Half (5.5" by 8.5"), Legal Half (7" by 8.5"), A4 (210mm by 297mm), A3 (297mm by 420mm), A5 (148mm by 210mm), B5 (176mm by 250mm), Compact Disc (4.7222" by 4.5"), or Custom. If you choose Custom, you can enter values in the Width and Height fields ‚ and if you enter values in those fields, the Page Size automatically changes to Custom. The minimum height and width is 1 pica (0.1667"); the maximum is 216". Clicking the Portrait icon next to Orientation produces a vertical page (the larger of the Height and Width values is used in the Height field); clicking the Landscape icon produces a horizontal page (the larger of the Height and Width values is used in the Width field). You can also specify Height and Width values by clicking the up and down arrows associated with these fields.

Tip ‚

When you specify page size, make sure the values you enter in the Height and Width fields are the size of the final printed piece ‚ and not the size of the paper in your printer. For example, if you're creating a standard- sized business card, enter 3.5i in the Width field and 2i in the Height field. If you want to print n-up ‚ meaning several "pages" on one sheet, such as several business cards on an 8 ¹ / ₂ -x-11-inch sheet of paper ‚ you can create a letter-sized document (8.5" by 11"), but you'll have to arrange the business cards within the page boundary and add your own crop marks for each card.

Specify margin values in the Margins area.

The margin is the white area around the outside of the page within which page elements ‚ text and pictures ‚ are placed. A document doesn't have to have margins (you can enter into these fields), and if you want you can place text and pictures in the margin area. If Facing Pages is checked, Inside and Outside fields are available in the Margins area. Designers often specify larger inside margins for multipage publications to accommodate the fold at the spine. If Facing Pages is not checked, Left and Right fields replace the Inside and Outside fields. You can also specify margin values by clicking the up/down arrows associated with the fields.
To specify how many columns your pages have, enter a value in the Columns field.

You can also specify the number of columns by clicking the up/down arrows associated with the Column field.
Specify a gutter distance (the gutter is the space between columns) in the Gutter field.

You can also specify a gutter width value by clicking the up/down arrows associated with the Gutter field.
If you click the More Options button, you'll get the Bleed and Slug area of the New Document dialog box (refer to Figure 4-1).

The More Options button provides options to set bleed and slug areas. A bleed area is a margin on the outside of the page for objects you want to extend past the edge of the page ‚ you want them to extend at least ¹ / ₈ inch so if there is any shifting of the paper during printing, there's no white space where the image should be (touching the edge of the page). The slug area is an area reserved for printing crop marks, color plate names , and other such printing information ‚ some output devices will cut these off during printing unless a slug area is defined. For both bleed and slug areas, you can set the top, bottom, left, and right margins independently.

New Feature ‚
Bleed and slug areas are new to InDesign CS.
Click OK to close the New Document dialog box.

When you do, your new, blank document is displayed in a new document window. Figure 4-2 shows the window of a newly created document (a business card) that uses the settings shown in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-2: The business card settings in the New Document dialog box shown in Figure 4-1 resulted in the document you see here. The view percentage field in the lower-left corner of the document window shows that the business card is currently displayed at 352.38 percent of actual size.

New Feature ‚
InDesign CS lets you create predefined document types, called document presets, to supplement the standard ones such as Letter.

There are three ways to create document presets:

You can save these new-document settings by clicking the Save Preset button in the New Document dialog box. These saved settings will then appear in the Document Style pop-up menu in the future.
You can also add custom pages by editing the New Doc Sizes.txt file in the Presets folder (in the InDesign applications folder) and adding a new line for each document style as follows : name [tab]width[tab]height. For example: Business card[tab]3.5"[tab]2" . This is a handy way to distribute document styles to multiple users. An example would be building a document style for every standard ad size for a magazine or newspaper to ensure correct dimensions on new ad documents.

You can choose File ‚ Document Presets ‚ Define to create (via the New button) a new document style or import (via the Load button) one from another document. You can also edit and delete document presets via the dialog box shown in Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3: The new Document Presets dialog box lets you create, import, edit, and delete document styles.

Tip ‚

You can bypass the New Document dialog box by pressing Shift+ z +N or Ctrl+Shift+N. When you use this method, the most recent settings in the New Document dialog box are used for the new document.