In early November, we all woke up to find Adobe Creative Cloud waiting to be updated. What—again? Well, it turns out that this update, CC 2017, does provide some InDesign enhancements that might help you work more effectively and improve your design. We’ll discuss the significant ones here. [Read more…]
Typesetting
This is a test introduction to the Typesetting archive, where you'll find links to all the information about typesetting on the Book Design Made Simple website, book, videos, and blog.
Adding images and numbers to tables in InDesign
There are lots of features you can add to your tables in InDesign to make them more appealing and easier to follow for your readers. Three of the most useful features are explained below: (1) creating two header rows that repeat at the top of every page of a multi-page table; (2) adding images to your table; and (3) aligning columns of numbers.
We’ll use the basic table from our first blog post about tables as a starting point to explain step-by-step how you can set up all of these features in your table. [Read more…]
Want to import from Excel into InDesign?
Recently we’ve been asked how to import an Excel spreadsheet into InDesign. In Book Design Made Simple we walk you through importing tables from Word, but importing a spreadsheet from Excel is a bit different so we’ll walk you through it here. And, because spreadsheets and tables rarely import into InDesign looking like they did in Excel and Word, we’ll give you a few tips on the easiest way to get started. [Read more…]
Typesetting math in InDesign
Have you ever tried to typeset any kind of math and driven yourself almost mad? And have you ended up setting each part of the equation in a different type frame, then piecing it all together and grouping it? I confess that I have done both. But with a little perseverance I figured out a way to do it properly in InDesign, and I’m hoping that this article will prevent you from suffering as long and as hard as I did. [Read more…]
Developing an eye for good design
In Book Design Made Simple, we have given you samples and instructions that serve as foundations for your own book designs. And if you follow them, you can be certain that you have produced something very good. But are you confident about your work? Do you think it looks good? Do you wonder if anyone else will think it’s good? Do you worry that if you come up with ideas of your own they might be “bad”? [Read more…]
Designing a cookbook
In Book Design Made Simple, we mention cookbooks a few times but never sit you down and explain in detail how to go about designing one. Once you’ve had some experience with designing and laying out other books, you’ll see at once that you’ll need to apply some extra effort to make a good-looking, readable cookbook. [Read more…]
