What is InDesign?

In this post, we’re diving into desktop publishing and InDesign. InDesign is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud app and an industry standard for page and layout design. Don’t worry, I’ll break down what desktop publishing is, highlight why InDesign is an awesome tool for both print and digital projects, and share some of the most common ways designers, publishers, and marketing professionals use it. We will also take a peek at InDesign’s built-in templates, approach share and team collaboration features, check out the competition, and explore opportunities to learn more about this powerful software. 

This post is based on my InDesign Essentials and Advanced courses, make sure to sign up at Bring Your Own Laptop! When you become a BYOL member, you gain access to this course as well as my 30+ additional courses on Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Head here to sign-up!

Let 's get started!

What is Desktop Publishing?

Desktop publishing is the process of using computers and software to create documents that combine text and images to deliver high-quality, creative, and accessible printed and digital materials.

There are key features to desktop publishing:

Page layout

Think about magazines and newspapers, art books and brochures. All of these require proper planning and arranging of typography and graphic elements across a page or page spreads, to ensure principles like visual hierarchy and provide a clear and enjoyable reading experience.  

Typography

Software like InDesign gives us full control over the fonts we use and how text sizing and styles can combine to add structure and aesthetics to contents.

Graphics

A good image is worth a thousand words. Strong imagery incorporated into an efficient layout transforms a design, adding depth, meaning, and visual appeal.

One of the biggest perks of desktop publishing is having a real-time preview of how the final documents will look, whether they’re going to be printed or published online. There are more benefits to desktop publishing, of course, like time and cost-efficiency.

 Uses for Desktop Publishing:

• Print and Marketing: Books, magazines, newspapers, flyers, posters, stationery, etc.

• Digital: eBooks, interactive PDFs, presentations, social media and web contents, etc.

Already feeling excited? Ready to dive into the fun and creative world of desktop publishing? Adobe InDesign is the perfect starting point!

What is InDesign?

Adobe InDesign is a leading desktop publishing app! It’s used by designers, publishers, and marketing professionals worldwide, sets top industry standards, and seamlessly integrates with other Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Creative Cloud (CC) Libraries to offer the best design experience.

InDesign gives us advanced typography tools, allowing control over text and layout, ensuring consistency and balance across diverse projects, from 1-page flyers to complex and content-heavy documents.

InDesign is primarily used for print media like books, magazines, newspapers, and marketing materials like posters, brochures, and flyers, but it’s also a top-notch software for digital media, from eBooks to interactive documents, social media and web contents, and professional presentations or reports.

InDesign also includes a vast offering of templates and presets to inspire new projects and speed up workflows.

InDesign Top Features

To understand why InDesign is a favorite among professionals, let’s explore some of the app’s most impressive tools.

Master Pages

Master pages are templates within your document. Whatever you place or design inside a master page will be automatically replicated on all pages linked to it. Cool, huh?

This is a major step for consistency and productivity, ensuring that the same design elements are used across all pages and that any update to a master page will also automatically change the whole document.

Pro tip: You can set up multiple master pages and assign them to different sections of the document you are working on, allowing not only for consistency but also having a different style applied to each of these sections.

Master pages are perfect for setting up headers, footers, page numbers, decorative elements and logos.

Paragraph Styles and Character Styles

Paragraph Styles store and apply preset attributes to entire paragraphs, adjusting both the character and paragraph settings:

• Fonts: Sets font type, size, and style for the entire paragraph.

• Alignment: Sets how text is aligned in the paragraph (left, right, centered, and justified).

• Indentation and Spacing: Defines indentations and spacing before and after paragraphs.

• Rules: Adds lines above or below paragraphs for clearer readability.

• Topics and Lists: Sets bullet point or numbered lists specific formats.

Character Styles store and apply preset attributes to text or parts of a text within a paragraph, including:

• Fonts: Defines font type, size, and style to specific characters or words.

• Color: Changes text color.

• Spacing: Adjusts kerning (spacing between two letters) and tracking (uniform spacing throughout all letters in a word).

Text Frame Fitting

Text frame fitting is all about making sure text best fits within a text frame and creating responsive elements inside a desktop publishing document.

• Fitting Frame to Content: Adjusts the size of the text frame to exactly fit the text content, without changing text settings or leaving any extra space.

• Fitting Content to Frame: Adjusts text size to fit a size-fixed text frame. Useful to keep a structured and tight layout but may affect readability if there are significant differences between text content and frame size.

• Auto-Size: Dynamically adjusts frame size as text content is added or removed, allowing to define resizing to height only, width only, both directions, or from a specified point.

Text wrap

Text wrap is another exciting feature in InDesign. We can wrap text around objects within a document, like images, shapes, or other text frames. Text wrap allows us to design unique layout styles, improve readability, and break static or long documents with appealing visuals. Text can be wrapped:

• Around a bounding box.

• Around the object’s shape.

Text can also avoid an existing object by:

• “Jumping” the text to the next available space.

• In multiple column layouts,  “jumping” the text to the next column.

Timeout #1

Taking your first steps into Desktop Publishing and InDesign? Check out this quick read about how basic design principles apply to this industry.

AI Text to Image and Content-Aware Fit in InDesign

Adobe has started integrating AI generative technology into InDesign. Text to Image Beta version is available to help designers add placeholder (or definitive) images to their documents. Powered by Adobe Firefly, Text to Image generates stunning images from simple to more complex text prompts, streamlining workflow to whole new levels of efficiency and productivity.

Content-aware Fit automatically adjusts the generated image inside its destination frame, ‘reading’ the image in order to keep visible the most relevant content. Awesome!

Checking Out the Competition

I’ll quickly compare InDesign with three current competitors. I won’t be reviewing them exhaustively. I just want you to know that there are alternatives to InDesign and that each can be more or less fitting to your design style, clients needs, or budget. Learn more about them and get to know their strengths and weaknesses. Then you can make the smartest decision for your project. 

Adobe InDesign

Best used for: Professional print and digital publishing, ranging from books, magazines, brochures, to marketing materials and web elements.

• Pros

  • Advanced typography and Layout features.

  • Strong integration with other Adobe CC apps, like Illustrator and Photoshop.

  • Versatile solutions and customizable templates for both print and digital media.

• Cons

  • Requires an Adobe CC subscription.

  • Designed for professionals and high-quality production, has a steeper learning curve.

• Cost: Subscription-based, monthly or annual plan.

Canva

Best used for: Quick and Easy design projects, like social media posts, presentations and marketing materials.

• Pros

  • User-friendly interface.

  • Vast library of templates and design assets.

  • Collaboration features for teams.

  • Low learning curve, accessible for beginners and intuitive features.

• Cons

  • Limited advanced design features when compared to InDesign.

  • Depends on online connection for full functionality.

• Cost: Limited Free-version available, requires subscription for advanced users.

Affinity Publisher

Best used for: Professional print and digital publishing, similar to InDesign, but standing out with a one-time purchase plan.

• Pros

  • One-time purchase and no further subscription required.

  • Efficient and diverse layout and design features.

  • Compatible with Windows and Mac platforms.

• Cons

  • Smaller community and fewer learning resources, when compared to Adobe apps.

  • Some advanced features may be less intuitive or effective.

• Cost: One-time purchase makes Affinity a smart investment.

Microsoft Publisher

Best used for: Basic desktop publishing documents, like newsletters, brochures, and flyers.

• Pros

  • Integrated with Microsoft Office Suite.

  • User-friendly for basic design tasks.

  • Easy to learn to those familiar with Microsoft Office interface and workflows.

• Cons

  • Limited advanced design features.

  • Limited to Windows platforms.

• Cost: Requires Microsoft Office monthly or yearly subscription.

Team Collaboration and Sharing Files in InDesign

As other Adobe CC apps, InDesign offers powerful team collaboration and sharing for Preview tools.

Share for Review

This is Adobe’s quick and easy way to share your InDesign project with other team members or clients, asking for feedback and review. Viewers can comment and annotate the document in a web browser, accessible even if they don’t have an Adobe subscription. It’s all kept within InDesign, without any need for adding other software or reading long email threads about the process.

Cloud Documents

InDesign supports Cloud documents, stored in the Adobe Creative Cloud. These documents can be set up to allow other team members to view and edit in real-time, ensuring that everyone is working on the latest version, keeping the project safe and cohesive throughout the design process.

CC Libraries

Perfect to store and share all the assets and styles your team needs to further develop a project. You can create Libraries and share them with team members, so everyone can have access to the same font, colors, graphics, and styles, ensuring consistency on all design stages. 

Packages 

You can also create a Package when exporting an InDesign document, that collects all files used in a project into a shareable folder, making sure that all necessary assets are sent down the chain and nothing gets lost. 

Timeout #2

Explore Behance and these inspiring desktop publishing portfolios from creatives and designers from all over the world and get your creative juices flowing before crafting your own masterpieces! 

Career Opportunities

InDesign and desktop publishing skills can open doors to multiple career opportunities in various companies and fields, including advertising, publishing, and digital media.

Graphic Designer

InDesign skills, combined with Illustrator and Photoshop, can make you an all round graphic designer, expert in visual communication that inspires, informs, and captivates users and consumers.

Marketing Coordinator

Implement strong marketing strategies and create appealing marketing materials, like posters, flyers, brochures, etc.

Social Media Manager

Combine InDesign with graphic and video editing skills to create social media content to promote yourself, create social media campaigns for companies, clients, and influencers across diverse social media platforms. 

Technical Illustrator

Adding illustration skills with InDesign can launch a career as technical illustrator, making you ready to create manuals, textbooks, and other instructional and informative materials.

Design Editor

Craft unique visual styles and layouts for print and online media, like newspapers and magazines, giving them new layers of depth and appeal while providing readers with higher accessibility standards.

Desktop Publisher

InDesign proficiency will give you the opportunity to design and produce design work for print and online media as a desktop publisher.

Of course there are many other career paths for everyone who dives deep into Adobe CC apps like InDesign. Keep your eyes open, carefully review what skills and experience hiring companies are asking for, and invest in yourself. Keep a solid goal in front of you and believe that with time and persistence your opportunity will come and you will shine as a designer, publisher, artist, or production professional.

And there we have it!

We have taken the awesome first step into the world of InDesign! I hope you are just as excited as I am, because there is so much more to learn and explore that the possibilities feel endless! Now you know what desktop publishing is all about, and how all this knowledge and all of these tools can enhance your design game, gather all your energy and push on through an amazing journey from Zero to Hero level in InDesign! Good luck!

What 's Next?

The sky's the limit for you, as a professional desktop publisher and designer. Start building your skill set and portfolio, right now! At Bring Your Own Laptop, we work hard to help you achieve your goals. When you become a BYOL member, you will gain access to my InDesign courses as well as my 30+ additional courses on Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Head here to sign-up!

See you in class! – Dan