Chapter Five. Drawing Lines and Shapes

Although InDesign is not a dedicated illustration program like its close cousin, Illustrator, it includes several drawing tools and illustration features that can create virtually any kind of line or shape you can imagine. You can use the lines and shapes you create as graphic elements, as containers for text and graphics, and as paths along which text flows.

In this chapter, you'll start by learning how to use the Line and Pencil tools to draw relatively simple lines. Next, you'll learn how to use the Pen tool to create complex lines and shapes. Then you'll move on to drawing basic shapes with the Rectangle, Ellipse, and Polygon tools. And finally we'll show you how to create more complex shapes using the Pathfinder palette and other InDesign drawing features.