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InDesign Fast-Track

Name: InDesign Fast-Track
Rating: 4.7 (45 reviews)

Get proficient in InDesign in the shortest time possible! New Workflow-based learning experience!

Created byMartin Perhiniak

Last updated 4/2025

English

What you'll learn

Master The Most Effective Workflows in InDesign: Learn to use InDesign at its best and skyrocket your progress.
Develop Practical Skills: Gain practical editorial design skills through fun, project-based learning that grows in complexity.
Enhance Creativity: Boost your creative vision and design intuition through complex editorial workflows.
Build a Professional Portfolio: Don’t just learn; showcase! Use each project to enrich your portfolio with diverse, exciting works.

Course content

14 sections • 102 lectures • 12h 50m total length

Introduction1:35

Setting up the document5:53
Preparing the opening spread3:00
Adding the main elements to the second spread8:10
Learn to build the second spread in InDesign fast-track, placing two image frames, aligning to column guides and gutter, and adding text frames with standfirst, byline, and rotated department title.
Defining Paragraph Styles11:32
Explore how to set up and use paragraph, character, and object styles in InDesign, with side-by-side panels and fonts like Montserrat, tracking, and hyphenation controls for consistent editorial design.
Additional Paragraph Styles8:53
Defining Character Styles9:32
Formatting the subheadings7:28
Adding GREP to Paragraph Styles7:31
Formatting the byline and captions6:35
Refining the captions6:25

Defining the layout of the third spread7:39
Refining the layout5:05
Setting up the Parent page design9:29
Footer and header elements7:45
Adding image credit placeholders7:52
Creating a Parent page variant5:52
Adding jumpline icon and end mark11:26
Finalising credits and captions6:45
Finalize captions and credits across spreads in InDesign by applying the caption frame object style, cleaning text formatting, and fixing object style conflicts, then align with the baseline grid.
Designing the headline for the opening spread in Photoshop8:14
Completing the headline in InDesign6:42
Archiving the project by saving a Package2:50
Exporting a PDF2:29
Saving the layout as a template for future issues7:04

The assets we will work with9:12
Database terminology4:21
Single record layout - Setting up the image placeholder7:30
Single record layout - Text placeholders10:52
Explore setting up text frames and layers in InDesign, inserting data merge placeholders for location, description, and host, and applying table and cell styles with previews.
Single record layout - Setting up Paragraph Styles10:50
Set up paragraph styles in InDesign for a single record layout with data merge. Define Montserrat fonts, leading, spacing, and table text styles for location, description, host, and table headers.
Single record layout - Inline icons and refinements8:32
Single record layout - Parent page setup7:49
Four record layout - Adapting the record layout9:46
Four record layout - Setting up placeholders for the additional records10:42
List layout - Adapting the record layout9:40
List layout - Data Merge with Multiple Records10:31

GREP Style for treehouse descriptions8:52
XML terminology5:40
Assigning tags and setting up the layout9:57
Fixing the XML structure10:43
Additional corrections to the XML structure11:01
Refine the XML structure by correcting the parent page setup and text frame sizes, import the data, apply paragraph and character styles, and save a reusable template.
Creating a template9:28
Combining layouts4:04
Learn to map tags to styles in in design, then combine merged documents by moving pages, comparing data merge with xml import, and choosing the right workflow for different layouts.

Setting up the document5:48
Using the Van De Graaf canon for defining margins6:33
Apply the van de graaf canon to define margins by drawing diagonals, align frames at intersections, and set top 1 in, outside 1 in, inside 0.75 in, bottom 1.5 in.
Importing the text10:46
Dividing up the book into smaller sections (if necessary)4:49
Finding poems with Find/Change GREP9:07
Finding remaining poems manually with the Story Editor3:30
Use the story editor to scan and verify poem styling across the document, applying poem style where needed and correcting mismatches with grep expressions for fast, near-complete accuracy.
Fixing copy10:34
Using a custom JavaScript for formatting the first paragraph in each story7:36
Choosing typeface for body copy7:58
Testing and comparing typefaces6:25
Compare three typefaces—pro, Merryweather, and Minion Pro—side by side to study body copy density and readability, and adjust font size, leading, and tracking to balance typographic color.

Formatting the body copy7:54
Refining the body copy5:05
Drop caps techniques9:43
Refining image drop caps6:09
Refine image drop caps by applying text wrap, adjusting offsets and size, saving as object styles, and duplicating across stories while managing conditional text.
Formatting the story title (heading)7:30
Format story title as centered heading in fairy tale j at 30 points, with CMYK color and spacing, and ensure it starts on the recto page with a rule above.
Formatting the story subtitle (sub-heading)7:21
Refining the story subtitles5:01
Formatting the poems8:43
Edit the poem style to remove shading, set Terza Pro 9/11 in medium italic, adjust tracking to 15, indent 0.75 in, and keep poems together with a body first script.
Improvements to the body copy7:19
Final GREP for body copy7:24

Requirements

No prior experience in Adobe InDesign is needed to take on this course.
Students of all experience level can greatly benefit learning these workflows.
Adobe InDesign
Desktop/Laptop computer

Description

Are you ready to boost your InDesign skills in no time?

Whether you’re starting from zero or looking to level up your work speed, my new InDesign Fast-Track course on Udemy is designed to make you proficient with the latest, most efficient, AI-enhanced workflows in Adobe InDesign.

Who is this course for?

This course is perfect for both:

absolute beginners who don’t want to get lost trying to memorize hundreds of features, but rather get to the fun stuff right away.
as well as seasoned creative professionals who want to brush up on their skills and stay ahead in the fast-evolving digital landscape.

In short, if you want to work faster in Adobe InDesign and be more creative at the same time - this is the course you have been looking for.

InDesign Fast-Track is a project-based course with a unique workflow-focused learning approach.

You can start with any of the three editorial design projects and quickly improve your skills, boost your confidence and build a comprehensive and professional graphic design portfolio.

What will you learn?

Forget about dragging through disconnected tutorials that just add more confusion rather than building applicable skills and confidence fast.

You will:

Master the latest and most effective InDesign workflows to enhance your speed and quality of work.
Develop hands-on skills with projects that grow in complexity, designed to mirror real-world challenges.
Produce unique, creative pieces that you can proudly feature in your creative portfolio.

Key Benefits of this course:

Efficiency and Speed: Learn to navigate Adobe InDesign at a professional pace, cutting down project time significantly.
Creative Freedom: This project-based approach encourages experimentation and personal expression, so you learn to produce editorial designs in a way that is uniquely yours.
Portfolio Ready Projects: Every assignment you complete is an opportunity to add a stellar piece to your portfolio, helping you stand out in the job market or freelance world.
Flexible Learning Structure: Pick and choose the modules that interest you most or complete them in any order. You control your learning journey.

Editorial design projects you will work on:

Magazine layout: Design a beautiful travel magazine article about Greece by using advanced style techniques, parent pages, inline icons, GREP and much more.
Catalog design: Master the most useful editorial automation techniques InDesign offers: Data Merge and XML Import.
Book design: Learn how to design a long-format book using InDesign’s time-saving features, like GREP Find/Change, Scripts, Nested Styles, Text Variables, and more.

As you follow along with these fun projects, your portfolio grows, your confidence increases and you become a more proficient, creative, and versatile designer.

Whether you're looking to break into the field of graphic design, refresh your existing skills, or simply unleash your artistic vision, this course is going to get you there faster.

Enrol in my new InDesign Fast-Track course today and start using the latest, most effective AI-enhanced workflows in Adobe InDesign!

Who this course is for:

This course is perfect for aspiring design students who are eager to dive into the world of InDesign without getting bogged down by overly technical tutorials. If you want to gain practical skills in the shortest time possible - skills that are directly applicable to real-world projects, this is the course for you.
Creative professionals looking to enhance their skill set will also find tremendous value in this course.
If you're a graphic designer or work in any creative job that needs proficiency in editorial design, completing the projects in this course will help you stay current with the most effective workflows in InDesign.
It's perfect for anyone wanting to work faster in InDesign and be more creative at the same time.

InDesign Fast-Track

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Getting Started1 lecture • 2min

Magazine Project | Introduction4 lectures • 20min

Magazine Project | Spreads 1-210 lectures • 1hr 15min

Magazine Project | Spreads 3-413 lectures • 1hr 29min

Catalog Project | Introduction6 lectures • 47min

Catalog Project | Data Merge11 lectures • 1hr 40min

Catalog Project | XML Import7 lectures • 1hr

Book Project | Introduction5 lectures • 23min

Book Project | Part 1 - Preparations10 lectures • 1hr 13min

Book Project | Part 2 - Formatting the Copy10 lectures • 1hr 12min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: