Working with Objects

Most of the drawing tools found in InDesign come straight from Illustrator and work in the same way. We don't cover tools like the Pen or Rectangle tools here, but rather, we talk about some of the things that InDesign enables you to do with objects in your layout.

Grouping Objects

Any objects you create (paths, text objects, images) can be grouped so that they stay with each other when they're moved or otherwise manipulated. You can even group groups to keep things more organized.

To group objects, select the objects and choose Object, Group. When objects are grouped, clicking on any one of the objects in a group selects the entire group (see Figure 8.42). You can still use the Direct Selection tool to select a single object or point, however.

Figure 8.42. You can easily identify a group by the dashed-line bounding box that appears when the group is selected.

The Pathfinder and Align Palettes

The Pathfinder palette is used to control the way shapes interact with each other. For instance, you can use the Pathfinder Add button to merge three circles to form a snowman (see Figure 8.43). Access the Pathfinder palette from the Window menu.

Figure 8.43. Combining multiple shapes with the Add function in the Pathfinder palette.

Did you Know?

The Pathfinder functions in InDesign aren't "live" the way they are in Illustrator, so the original objects are gone after you click the button, leaving the resulting shape(s) only.

To use any of the Pathfinder functions, select the paths you want to affect and then click the button. Here are the different buttons and what they do:

• Add merges two or more paths into a single path.

• Subtract removes the area of the frontmost objects from the backmost object.

• Intersect leaves only the overlapping area of the selected objects.

• Exclude Overlap removes the overlapping area of the selected objects.

• Minus Back removes the area of the backmost object from the frontmost objects (pretty much the opposite of Subtract).

Additionally, you can use any of the Convert to Shape buttons to change the shape of an existing frame.

Aligning and Distributing Objects

InDesign has the capability to quickly align and distribute several objects at once. This is done through the Align palette, accessed by choosing Window, Align. You can align and distribute objects in the exact same way as you do in Illustrator, by clicking on the different icons in the palettes.

Unfortunately, InDesign doesn't have the capability to "lock" the position of one object by defining a key object, like Illustrator can. If you want to align several objects relative to a particular object, you can lock the position of that object by choosing Object, Lock Position. Then select the objects and perform the Align function.