Adobe InDesign is one of the best and most popular programs for graphic design and formatting. The layers facility is a feature of several of the programs within the Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and InDesign. Their function differs from program to program but, in general, the use of layers serves to offer flexibility of composition. Items of related content can be placed on their own individual layers. Layers can then be made visible or hidden or can be locked to prevent their content being changed. Equally, the stacking order of layers can be changed to determine which elements are displayed in front of which other elements. Layers are not always required when creating documents in InDesign but they can beneficial in several situations.
1. One of the most common reasons for using layers is where you need to produce several different versions of a publication. For example, there may be one version of a catalogue for in-house use and another for clients; or you may need to create different language versions of the same document.
2. Another situation in which layers is useful is where certain page elements take a long time to redraw. For example, if you’re creating a large poster with a high resolution background image, you may find it useful to place it on a separate layer and hide the layer when you are working on other elements.
2. Using layers can also help to speed up your screen redraw. For example, if you’re creating a large poster with a high resolution background image, you may find it useful to place it on a separate layer and hide the layer when you are working on other elements.
4. Complex page layouts often require the creation and intricate manipulation of many different InDesign elements. This process can sometimes be made much easier by placing elements on a series of layers.
5. Another trick is to use layers for creating a document by using a similar publication as a template. A full sized scan of the original document can be placed on a locked background layer and used to ensure that each part of the layout is in the right place, has the right dimensions and so forth.
4. Many complex page layouts demand the creation and intricate manipulation of numerous InDesign elements. The process of manipulation of these elements can sometimes be made much easier by placing elements on a series of layers.
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You have probably noticed that whenever you choose File – New in Adobe’s InDesign CS4, you may have noticed the option to create a new book without ever knowing exactly what a book is. Well, in fact, books are a fairly nifty feature: they allow you to take a series of related Adobe InDesign document and treat them as a single entity; a book. All documents in the book can then share resources such as paragraph and character styles, colour swatches, master pages, sections and page numbering.
Once you have created a book, by choosing File-New-Book, the Book panel is displayed. It features a panel menu with all the necessary Book options. Your first task is to add documents to the book: from the Book panel menu, choose “Add Document” and select the documents you want to be treated as part of the book.
There is also some useful feedback about the status of each chapter in the book by displaying an icon next to the name of each chapter. The “Available” icon indicates that the book may be opened by one member of the team of people using the book. The “Open” icon indicates that you have the book open and that no one will be able to use it until they have finished with it. The “In Use” icon will appear when someone else has that chapter open; this means that you have to wait until they have finished with it before you can use it. The “Modified” icon shows that changes have been made to the book since last time you opened it. And, finally, the dreaded “Missing” icon indicates that the InDesign document associated with that chapter has been moved from its original location.
Once the book file is saved, the book becomes a separate entity to the documents it contains and the documents in a book do not have to reside in the same location as the book or as each other. To save a book, choose Save Book in the Book panel menu.
It is possible to replace an existing chapter of a book with another InDesign document by simply selecting an existing book chapte and choosing Replace Document from the panel menu. Next, navigate to the replacement document and double-click to select it. InDesign will then replace the selected chapter with the new document. Deleting chapters from a book is equally straightforward. Just highlight the chapter(s) and choose Remove Document from the panel menu, or click the Remove Document icon at the bottom of the Book panel.
You must also choose which of the documents in the book will be treated as the style source. The document elected as the style source will be used as the master document in the process known as synchronization whereby InDesign replaces the colour swatches and styles of all documents in the book with those in the style source document.
To set page numbering across the whole book, choose Book Page Numbering Options in the Book panel menu. The default is “Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers”: this will cause InDesign to number pages in the documents within the book according to the order in which they are listed in the Book panel.
The Book panel can also serve as as a navigation aid or launch pad from which you can open any InDesign document which has been specified as a chapter of the book. To work on any chapter of a book, simply double-click the name of the chapter in the Book panel. The chapter will open like any regular InDesign document and can be closed when you have finished editing without it being removed from the book.
InDesign books are a great tool for collaboration since the fact that a document is part of a book does not stop it from being a regular InDesign document. If a book contains five documents, five different people can work on each of those documents and then, at the end, the whole book can be preflighted, printed and output as PDF as a single unit.
Both Tables of contents and indexes can also be generated for an entire book as well as for a single document. Simply design and create the table of contents or index in the normal way but activate the option “Include Book Documents”.
Author is software consultant with a computer training company who carry out Adobe InDesign CS4 training classes all over the UK.
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