Change the size of the pasteboard in InDesign

4/8/14 • 1 min read

This post was originally posted on April 9, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

The InDesign pasteboard is narrow on the top and bottom and wide on the sides. But it can be changed. Before…

Go to InDesign > Preferences > Guides & Pasteboard… and change the “Pasteboard Options” at the bottom of the preference screen.

Change the horizontal margins to 10 inches and the vertical margins to 2.5 inches and it looks a little different…

I’m not sure how often I’ll change the margins. The defaults have always worked pretty well for me. But especially on large format designs, it will be nice to have the option.

Customizing an underline

4/1/14 • 1 min read

This post was originally posted on April 2, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

I don’t typically underline much. I usually don’t like the default thickness of the line or the positioning. But in InDesign, you can completely customize your underline styles.

To change the appearance of an underline, select some text. Go to the flyout menu on the far right of the Control palette. (That’s the wide palette docked by default underneath the menu bar.) Choose “Underline Options….” from the menu to pull up a dialog box:

Change the weight, stroke style, positioning and color of the underline.

You can easily change the appearance of the underline – the thickness, positioning, color, stroke style and more.

Two additional tips:

1. If you have created a custom stroke, you can use it as an underline too. (See last week’s tip for how to create a custom stroke pattern.)
2. You can save “Underline Options” in a paragraph style to apply it throughout your document. And you can save style sheets and load them into other files.

Custom strokes in InDesign

3/25/14 • 1 min read

This post was originally posted on March 26, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

Need to build a custom stroke in InDesign? Easy. Go to the flyout menu on the Stroke palette and choose “Stroke Styles…”

A dialog box will open with several options and a list of custom strokes. Choose “New…” to get the stroke editor. You can make dashed, dotted or lined patterns, change the length and pattern of the stroke and preview your designs at different weights.

InDesign provides lots of options for designing custom strokes.

The custom strokes are saved on a document level, but you can save your designs and load strokes into other documents. If you want a custom stroke to be added to all new documents by default, simply add the stroke with no documents open.

Keeping colors in proportion

3/11/14 • 2 min read

This post was originally posted on March 12, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

NOTE: While this page may have useful insights, be aware that it was published more than 10 years ago and may not be relevant for current software versions.

In InDesign, you want to modify a color slightly, keeping it in the same basic hue. Maybe you’ve duplicated a color and need a slightly lighter or darker color to complement your design. You double click the swatch in the palette and you get this:

Moving the sliders individually will radically alter the color. You need to move all the sliders at once, keeping them in proportion. And InDesign has a way to do this. Simply hold down the shift key as you click and drag the sliders. They will all move together:

Look at the numbers in the screenshot above. I simply clicked on the Cyan slider and moved it to the left while holding down the shift key. All of the sliders moved in proportion. Cyan went from 72% to 62%. And the other colors moved, too. Here’s another screenshot where I’ve moved the Cyan slider to 52%:

And the same trick works in Illustrator, too. Just hold the shift key to move the Color palette sliders together. It’s a simple and powerful way to adjust your color palette.

InDesign is good at math

3/4/14 • 2 min read

This post was originally posted on March 5, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

Many designers think they are bad at math. Thankfully, InDesign is good at math.

Input fields in InDesign can do simple math. For example:

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Have a box that is 4.25 inches wide and you want it to be 1 inch wider? Just type “+1” after the curent measurement. Need to resize a box to 1/3 the current width. Type “/3” behind the measurement in the width field.

Conversions. InDesign will also convert measurements for you. If your document is set up for picas and you need to input a measurement in something other than picas, just type the measurement AND the unit of measure (for example, “7 in” or “3 mm”) and InDesign will convert it to picas. This works for lots of different units – inches, millimeters, centimeters, points and more. You can even do addition or subtraction between numbers with different units of measure and InDesign will figure it out for you. For example, typing “7 in + 3 pts” will yield 7.0417 inches.

Enjoy. I’m sure this is a reminder for many of you, but I run across people everyday that don’t know that InDesign can do simple math. I typically use unit conversion and division a lot in InDesign. As a bonus, most Adobe apps have fields that can do math – not just InDesign. I use it in Illustrator all the time.