USING OTHER RESOURCES

When you install the Creative Suite 2, you not only get a great collection of software, you also install files and fonts that can help you create great-looking documents. InDesign's templates and the OpenType fonts Adobe provides are both helpful in creating knock-out designs.

Templates

InDesign comes with a variety of templates and documents that can help you get started, or help you practice some of the skills we've discussed throughout this section.

To view or open the templates, click the New From Template button on the InDesign Welcome screen, which appears when you open the application for the first time. You can also access the screen at any time by selecting Help, Welcome Screen.

When you click New From Template, Bridge launches (see Figure 32.8). You see previews of various templates that you can double-click to open. Any of these templates can be used as a starting point for your own documents, and there are lots of great effects applied in them that can help add excitement to your document. You can also use them as inspiration for your own creations.

Figure 32.8. InDesign's included templates can help jump-start your own designs.

Typography Resources

In Chapter 27, "Working with Type in InDesign," we talked about some of the great effects you can add to your InDesign documents using nothing more than typography. One great resource that comes with InDesign is a collection of OpenType fonts, including several Chinese and Japanese fonts. Use the Glyphs palette to compare an OpenType font to the average TrueType font (see Figure 32.9)you'll see quite a difference in the number of characters and therefore the amount of information you can communicate!

Figure 32.9. Compare the average TrueType font with an OpenType font. The number and variety of characters that OpenType fonts provide is staggering.