Graphic designers are increasingly adopting InDesign as their preferred page layout tool and are constantly singing its praises. I’ve personally been conducted numerous conversion courses for designers keen to make the switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign. However, as a trainer, I have noticed another trend: the widespread adoption of InDesign by corporations keen to have their own staff produce in-house documents which have hitherto been outsourced. Running training courses for this new type of user accounts for a significant amount of the InDesign training that I offer.
When providing training courses for general users of InDesign, one has to do more than just explain the use of the tools and commands. As well as learning how to use program, delegates need to be given an insight into some of the basic techniques and principles of page layout, typography, colour specification and image manipulation.
InDesign offers a much greater degree of accuracy than programs like Microsoft Word. It allows users to precisely determine how and where elements will print on the page. Anyone attending an InDesign training course should learn about the tools that are used to achieve this accuracy. They should be shown how to use the grid, the baseline grid and ruler guides. They should feel confident about getting elements to print out precisely where and how they should.
The terminology which InDesign uses often looks back to the pre-electronic typographic age and is often a mystery to the general computer user. InDesign training should clarify these terms, perhaps by offering trainees some background facts and, wherever possible, by showing the similarity with parallel features in more familiar software. For example, we might compare what InDesign calls “leading” with what Microsoft Word calls line spacing in.
Because InDesign offers so much flexibility in transforming imported images, your average user often gets carried away and ends up scaling images up or down by huge factors. It needs to be explained that scaling up or down by more than 10% or so is undesirable since this can cause artefacts to appear in the printed image.
Another frequent cause of confusion is the colour terminology used in InDesign. The general user will need to be taught three main things hers. Firstly, the difference between the CMYK and RGB colour spaces. Secondly, how a colour print job will be separated into four different plates. And, thirdly, the difference between a spot and a process colour.
InDesign is meant to be used for creating high quality output. New users of the program must be told how vital it is to pre-flight documents, fix errors and then package the job so it can be sent off to a printing company. They should also be taught how to produce a high-resolution PDF file.
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Tags: Internet & Online
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