InDesign CC: Book Production, Laying a solid foundation

Name: InDesign CC: Book Production, Laying a solid foundation
Rating: 4.1 (65 reviews)

What you need to know before you start putting your book together

Created byDavid Bergsland

Last updated 8/2017

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Select book size, margins, column width, and more for the print version of their books
Develop typographically excellent paragraph designs coupled with the knowledge needed to make professional decisions
Will be able to set up an efficient default set of paragraph styles and character styles

Course content

4 sections • 27 lectures • 3h 55m total length

Introduction to the course10:24
Just saying hi and covering what you will be covering in the course—what you can expect.
The current publishing world and in-demand publishing19:44
Trace the shift from traditional publishing to on-demand and self-publishing, driven by digital printing, proofs, and Amazon Kindle, revealing how authors control production and royalties with InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.
Here's the 500+ page book I wrote about book production. It covers more...0:02
This book covers quite a bit more than we do in this course. So, if you feel you need any additional information about a particular lecture, just look it up in the book.
As we get started, you have several decisions to make17:30
First Demo: Starting a new document the dialog box3:42
The single-story concept and the PTF: how crucial this is!10:17
How the PTF [Primary Text Frame] works: Demo9:50
Explore how the primary text frame links editorial content across a book, controlling flow, master page setup, page numbering, and index updates for scalable layouts.
Create a document preset to use for your book

What is typography? You probably don't know...6:04
The basic characters in a font: the 256 character ASCII set9:12
Explains the 256 basic ASCII characters and how OpenType expands a font to thousands of characters, and covers baselines, ascenders, x-height, cap height, and optical alignment.
Typographically necessary characters inside and out of ASCII15:26
There are many characters which you are expected to use as a typesetting professional. In fact, to not use them is considered a typo. Here we talk about some the more common issues you'll face.
A demo on finding OpenType features and special glyphs8:03
This demo demonstrates locating and applying OpenType features and special glyphs in InDesign, including ligatures, small caps, figures, fractions, contextual alternatives, and font-specific options within a paragraph.
Fonts and simple classifications8:14
Explore basic font classifications, from serif and sans to obliques and weight ranges, and learn how font families, readability, and type color shape effective book production.
Exploring fonts10:08
Picking fonts for your book

Paragraph design: the core of typography7:15
Learn to design readable paragraphs in InDesign by mastering paragraph styles, typography fundamentals, and layout decisions that guide the reader with clarity, comfort, and visual cohesion.
Paragraph Style Options: the New Style dialog box5:40
Master paragraph style options in InDesign CC: learn basing new styles on existing ones, naming schemes, and applying updates across the document using the paragraph styles dialog.
Adding the Character Panel options7:28
Explore the character panel options in InDesign, including font family, size, leading, tracking, kerning, ligatures, and baseline shift, and learn how typography choices affect readability and layout.
Taking a quick look at TypeKit6:39
Alignments, Indents, & Paragraph Spacing tips3:49
Master alignment options (left, right, center, justified) and tune indents and paragraph spacing to improve readability with soft returns and balanced line breaks.
Tabs & Paragraph Rules8:26
Master tabs and ruler to align text, set decimal and left tab stops, and create leaders for column layout; apply paragraph rules and borders for print, noting ebook reflow limits.
Paragraph shading, tint boxes, and sidebars5:25
Keeping your widows, orphans, & runts under control5:21
Neat, tidy paragraphs: Hyphenation & Justification10:11
Explore hyphenation and line-by-line justification to keep body copy neat and the right edges aligned. Learn how InDesign’s justification controls and words facing affect readability and paragraph balance.
Split/span columns, drop caps, and nested styles8:26
Explore when split columns, drop caps, and nested styles work in InDesign for book design, why single-column layouts are preferred, and how character and running styles automate typography.
Find & Change: GREP5:31
Building a list demo15:57
This is a slightly rambling demo designed to show you the workflow as you manipulate a paragraph into what you want. These things are always fluid with many adjustments to get the formatting just right. This will give you a feel for the process—plus it will show you several tips and shortcuts in the process.
Completing the Paragraph Style dialog box5:29

Requirements

Basic introductory knowledge of InDesign CC
A desire to make books look professional

Description

This is an essential typography course. Books, almost more than any project, need superlative typography to enable your readers to actually read the book. Without these skills and knowledge, your books will be compromised before you even release them.

You will discover why InDesign is necessary for book production. Word, and word processors in general, do not even have the capability of producing excellent typography.

This course covers the basic concepts you need to understand before you start putting your book together: how to set up your document—size, margins, and column width; Typography: what it is and how you produce excellent, readable typography so you can design your paragraphs to enable your readers to comfortably enjoy reading your book. By the time you finish the course, you will be amazed at all you didn't know about typography, readability, and how to communicate with your readers [or the readers of your clients].

Who this course is for:

An author or graphic designer who needs to produce better quality books and ebooks,
The designer who needs typographic skill

InDesign CC: Book Production, Laying a solid foundation

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

As we get started7 lectures • 1hr 11min

Section 2: Basic Typography6 lectures • 57min

Paragraph design for global control and readability13 lectures • 1hr 36min

Building a set of default styles1 lecture • 11min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: