Part III Object Essentials 12_614495-pp03.indd 11712_614495-pp03.indd 117 4/2/10 1:28 PM4/2/10 1:28 PM In this part . . . T he rubber really hits the road when you’ve got your basic layout structure in place. Now you can focus on the meat of your documents: the objects that contain your text and graphics. It’s amazing all the objects you can cre- ate — from simple rectangles to complex curves. And it’s equally amazing all the things you can do to objects, such as rotate them, color and align them, and apply special effects, such as drop shadows and directional feathers. And you can even save a lot of these settings so that you can apply them consistently to other objects later — a real timesaver that also ensures quality results. Note that you can apply most of these effects to objects whether or not they already contain their graphics and text — so if you’re a really structured kind of person, you’ll probably create your basic object containers first, apply your effects to them, and then bring in the text and graphics. But if you’re more free-form in your approach, you’ll likely bring in all your text and graphics, and then start arranging the objects that contain them to produce your final layout. That’s fine. Either way, you just apply the techniques in this part while doing so. 12_614495-pp03.indd 11812_614495-pp03.indd 118 4/2/10 1:28 PM4/2/10 1:28 PM Chapter 7 Adding Essential Elements In This Chapter ▶ Creating frames and shapes ▶ Making lines and paths ▶ Working with text shapes and paths ▶ Using strokes T he fundamental components of any layout are its objects. This chapter explains how to create these building blocks: frames, shapes, lines, and paths, as well as the strokes you apply to them. Working with Frames and Shapes An object is a container that can (but doesn’t have to) hold text or graph- ics, as well as display attributes such as color, strokes, and gradients. When an object contains an imported graphic or text, or if an object is created as a placeholder for a graphic or text, it’s referred to as a frame in InDesign. Otherwise, it’s called a shape. The difference between frames and shapes is artificial. Because a shape can easily become a frame simply by placing text or graphics into it, it’s easiest to think of shapes and frames as the same thing. I tend to use the word “frame” to mean either frames or shapes. Designing pages in InDesign is largely a matter of creating and modifying frames and shapes, as well as modifying the text and graphics that the frames contain. Creating frames and shapes As Figure 7-1 shows, the Tools panel contains several tools for creating both shapes and frames: 13_614495-ch07.indd 11913_614495-ch07.indd 119 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 120 Part III: Object Essentials ✓ The Rectangle, Ellipse, and Polygon shape tools: The Ellipse and Polygon tools are available through the pop-up menu that appears if you click and hold on the Rectangle tool. ✓ The Rectangle Frame, Ellipse Frame, and Polygon Frame tools: The Ellipse Frame and Polygon Frame tools are available through the pop-up menu that appears if you click and hold on the Rectangle Frame tool. ✓ The Type tool: You can use this tool to create rectangular text frames in addition to letting you work with text. Figure 7-1: The frame- and shape- creating tools in the Tools panel, as well as the other tools to create and manipulate lines and paths. Type tool Pencil tool Line tool Here’s how to create a frame (or shape): 1. Select the desired tool from the Tools panel. 2. Optionally, set up the polygon’s number of sides and the depth of its spikes. To do so, double-click the tool you’re using (Polygon or Polygon Frame) so the Polygon Settings dialog box appears. Figure 7-2 shows that dialog box and example starburst. Adjust the number of sides and their depth (the Star Inset field) as desired, and then click OK. If you don’t adjust the polygon’s settings and instead just begin drawing on as in the next steps, InDesign will use the last-used settings for the selected tool. 3. Move the mouse pointer anywhere within the currently displayed page or on the pasteboard. 13_614495-ch07.indd 12013_614495-ch07.indd 120 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 121 Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements Figure 7-2: The Polygon Settings dialog box lets you specify the number of sides your polygons will have. 4. Click and drag in any direction. As you drag, a cross-hair pointer appears in the corner opposite your starting point; a colored rectangle indicates the boundary of the frame. (The color is blue for objects on the default layer; objects on other layers have those layers’ respective colors. See Chapter 4 for more on layers.) You can look at the width and height values displayed in the Control panel or the Transform panel as you drag to help you get the size you want. Holding down the Shift key as you drag limits the tool to creating a frame or shape within a square bounding box. 5. When the frame is the size and shape you want, release the mouse button. Pretty easy, huh? At this point, you can begin typing in the frame, paste text or a graphic into it, or import a text or a graphics file, as Chapters 10 and 16 explain. If you create a text frame with the Type tool, be sure not to click in an existing text frame when your intention is to create a new one. If you click within an existing frame when the Type tool is selected, the flashing cursor appears, and InDesign thinks you want to type text. InDesign CS5 lets you create multiple frames at the same time, using a new capability that Adobe calls gridified frame creation. While dragging the mouse to create a frame, press the → key to add an additional frame horizontally (a new “column”) or the ↑ key to add an additional frame vertically (a new “row”). Each time you press → or ↑, you add another column or row of frames. Press ← to delete a column and ↓ to delete a row. 13_614495-ch07.indd 12113_614495-ch07.indd 121 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 122 Part III: Object Essentials As Figure 7-3 shows, when you release the mouse, InDesign creates a grid of frames, all with the same shape and size. If you’re creating text frames, all the text frames in such a grid are automatically threaded for text flow. The thread follows the order you dragged the mouse when creating the frame: If you dragged from upper left to lower right, the thread starts at the leftmost text frame in the top row and continues to each adjacent text frame, then continues at the leftmost text frame in the next row, and so on. Figure 7-3: The gridified frame-creation capability lets you create multiple frames at once. When any of the frame-creation tools is selected, you can create as many new frames as you want. Simply keep clicking, dragging, and releasing. After you create a graphics frame, you can modify it (without changing tools) by adding a border or a colored background or by applying any of the effects — such as rotation, shear, and scale — in the Control panel. You can also move or resize a graphics frame, but you have to switch to the Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool to do so. Chapter 8 explains how to resize, move, delete, and otherwise manipulate frames and other objects. Reshaping frames and shapes Sometimes, a frame or shape needs to be more than resized or moved. It needs to be reshaped. InDesign makes it easy to change an object’s shape: ✓ The simplest way is to select an object with the Direct Selection tool and then drag any of the handles or frame edges. Notice how the frame’s shape actually changes, as shown in Figure 7-4. 13_614495-ch07.indd 12213_614495-ch07.indd 122 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 123 Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements ✓ To change a shape more radically, choose the desired shape from Object➪Convert Shape’s submenu. Your choices are Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Beveled Rectangle, Inverse Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Polygon, Line, and Orthogonal Line. (Note that if you choose Polygon, InDesign will use whatever the last polygon settings were, which you can see by double-clicking the Polygon or Polygon Frame tool. Also, if you try to convert a text frame into a line, InDesign will abort the action, telling you it can’t do the conversion.) ✓ You can manually edit a shape by adding or removing anchor points — the points in a shape’s edges that you can adjust, as described in the next section. If you’re working with frames that contain graphics, InDesign CS5 has a quick way to switch from the Selection tool to the Direct Selection tool: Just click the content grabber (the doughnut shape at the frame’s center when you hover the mouse over the frame). If the content grabber does not display, turn it on by choosing View➪Extras➪Show Content Grabber. Note that in InDesign CS5 double-clicking a frame no longer switches between the Selection and Direction Selection tools. Figure 7-4: After creating a frame (left), reshape it by drag- ging its handle with the Direct Selection tool (right). Creating Lines and Paths When you’re drawing the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, you typi- cally use one tool to draw straight lines, curved lines, and free-form objects. InDesign is less flexible, using different tools for different kinds of lines. InDesign lets you create straight lines with the Line tool and zigzag lines, 13_614495-ch07.indd 12313_614495-ch07.indd 123 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 124 Part III: Object Essentials curved lines, and free-form shapes with the Pen and Type on a Path tools. (Those nonstraight lines and free-form shapes are called paths in InDesign.) Figure 7-1, earlier in this chapter, shows these tools on the Tools panel. Drawing a straight line Although not as flashy or versatile as shapes and paths, lines can serve many useful purposes in well-designed pages. For example, you can use plain ol’ vertical rules to separate columns of text in a multicolumn page or the rows and columns of data in a table. Dashed lines are useful for indicating folds and cut lines on brochures and coupons. And lines with arrowheads are handy if you have to create a map or a technical illustration. Follow these steps to draw a simple, straight line: 1. Select the Line tool (or press \). 2. Move the pointer anywhere within the currently displayed page or on the pasteboard. 3. Click and drag the mouse in any direction. As you drag, a thin, blue line appears from the point where you first clicked to the current position of the cross-hair pointer. Holding down the Shift key as you drag constrains the line to a horizontal, vertical, or 45-degree diagonal line. 4. When the line is the length and angle you want, release the mouse button. Don’t worry too much about being precise when you create a line. You can always go back later and fine-tune it. When you release the mouse button after creating a line, the line is active. As illustrated in Figure 7-5, if the Selection tool was previously selected, the line appears within a rectangular bounding box, which contains eight resiz- ing handles. If the Direct Selection tool was previously selected, moveable anchor points appear at the ends of the line. In either case, you have to choose the right tool if you want to change the shape or size of the bounding box or the line: ✓ The Selection tool lets you change the shape of the line’s bounding box (which also changes the angle and length of the line) by dragging any of the resizing handles. ✓ The Direct Selection tool lets you change the length and angle of the line itself by moving anchor points on the frame. As long as the Line tool is selected, you can create as many new lines as you want. Simply keep clicking, dragging, and releasing. 13_614495-ch07.indd 12413_614495-ch07.indd 124 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 125 Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements Figure 7-5: A line selected with the Selection tool (left) and the Direct Selection tool (right). When you create a line, it takes on the characteristics specified in the Stroke panel (Window➪Stroke [Ô+F10 or Ctrl+F10]), covered in the “Applying strokes” section later in this chapter. When you first open a document, the default line width is 1 point. If you want to change the appearance of your lines, double-click the Line tool and adjust the Weight setting in the Stroke panel that appears. If you make this adjustment when no document is open, all new documents will use the new line settings. Understanding paths Paths are a lot more complex than lines, so you need to understand some of the theory behind paths so that you can create and manipulate them more easily. Every object you create with InDesign’s object-creation tools is a path. Regardless of the tool you use to create a path, you can change its appear- ance by modifying any of four properties that all paths share: ✓ Closure: A path is either open or closed. Straight lines created with the Line tool and curved and zigzag lines created with the Pen tool are examples of open paths. Basic shapes created with the Ellipse, Rectangle, and Polygon tools and free-form shapes created with the Pen and Pencil tools are examples of closed shapes. A closed free-form shape is an uninterrupted path with no end points. ✓ Stroke: If you want to make a path visible, you can apply a stroke to it by selecting it with a selection tool, entering a Weight value in the Stroke panel (Window➪Stroke [Ô+F10 or Ctrl+F10]), and selecting a color from the Swatches panel (see Chapter 6). (An unselected, unstroked path isn’t visible.) 13_614495-ch07.indd 12513_614495-ch07.indd 125 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 126 Part III: Object Essentials ✓ Fill: A color, color tint, or gradient applied to the background of a path is called a fill. You apply fills by using the Swatches panel. ✓ Contents: You can place a text file or a graphics file in any path except a straight line. When a path holds text or a graphic, the path functions as a frame. Although InDesign can place text or graphics in an open path, placing text and pictures in closed paths is far more common than placing them in open paths. In addition to putting text inside paths, you can also have text on the path itself, following its shape, as Chapter 17 explains. No matter how simple or complicated, all paths are made up of the same components. Figure 7-6 shows the parts that make up a path: Figure 7-6: Anchor points between line segments can be corner (top) or smooth (bottom). End point Anchor point Segment End point Anchor point Segment Anchor point End point ✓ A path contains one or more straight or curved segments. ✓ An anchor point is located at each end of every segment. The anchor points at the ends of a closed path are called end points. When you create a path of any kind, anchor points are automatically placed at the end of each segment. After you create a path, you can move, add, delete, and change the direction of corner points. ✓ InDesign has two kinds of anchor points: smooth points and corner points. A smooth point connects two adjoining curved segments in a continu- ous, flowing curve. At a corner point, adjoining segments — straight or 13_614495-ch07.indd 12613_614495-ch07.indd 126 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM [...]... via the Control panel, Transform panel, and transform tools Choose Object➪Transform Again➪Transform Again (Option+Ô+3 or Ctrl+Alt+3) to repeat the last transformation on the selected object (It can be a different object than you last applied a transformation to.) Or choose Object➪Transform Again➪Transform Sequence Again (Option+Ô +4 or Ctrl+Alt +4) to apply all recent transformations to a selected object... until you perform a new transformation, which then starts a new sequence, so you can apply the same transformation to multiple objects Two other transform-again options are available through the Object➪ Transform Again menu option’s submenu: Transform Again Individually and Transform Sequence Again Individually You use these options on groups; they work like the regular Transform Again and Transform Sequence... Alspach or Adobe InDesign CS5 Bible by Galen Gruman (both by Wiley Publishing) for more details Blurring the Lines between Text and Graphics InDesign lets you create shapes out of text, as well as make text run along a path — blurring the boundary between text and graphics Converting text to shapes If you want to use the shape of a letter or the combined shapes of several letters as a frame for text... hold down the Option or Alt key before and while moving and object, InDesign copies the object and then moves that copy If you start rotating or resizing, or otherwise transforming an object and then hold Option or Alt, InDesign applies the transformation to a copy (If you hold Option or Alt first, InDesign opens a dialog box that lets you enter in the new values, such as for scaling or rotating, and choose... this chapter for drawing lines with curved and straight segments and smooth and corner points apply when you draw closed paths You can also, of course, edit and adjust your curves in InDesign, but doing so requires some more expertise with drawing tools such as those in Adobe Illustrator and is beyond the scope of this book Check out Illustrator CS5 For Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements Dummies by... need to practice with the Pen tool for a while before your drawing skills kick in The good news is that after you get comfortable using the Pen tool, you can draw any shape you can imagine (Of course, if you can’t draw very well in the first place, using the Pen tool won’t magically transform you into a master illustrator!) If creating a free-form path is new terrain for you, start simply and proceed... designer needs to have visible on-screen Another approach to nonprinting objects is to place them all on a layer and make the entire layer nonprinting, as explained in Chapter 4 143 144 Part III: Object Essentials Hiding Objects InDesign CS5 lets you hide objects in your layout, which also prevents them from printing To hide an object, select it and choose Object➪Hide or press Ô+3 or Ctrl+3 To show hidden... rotate it 145 146 Part III: Object Essentials To change the center of rotation, such as to a corner, select the desired control point representing that corner, side, or the centerpoint in the Control panel or Transform panel before rotating the object If you use the Rotate tool, you can drag the rotation point (it appears as a cross-hair pointer) wherever you want to get a custom rotation point For more... of 0 Flipping objects The Object menu has two flipping commands: Object➪Transform➪Flip Horizontal and Object➪Transform➪Flip Vertical They’re also available in the Control panel as iconic buttons (refer to Figure 8-3) Using the Free Transform tool Advanced users will like the Free Transform tool When you select this tool, InDesign lets you scale, rotate, and resize — but not shear — selected objects... active as the control point for that object The Control panel displays the current object’s flip status (Look for the large P in the panel when an object is selected; it’s to the right of the two flip buttons.) The P changes appearance so that it’s flipped the same way as the selected object Repeating transformations Whatever transformations you use, you can apply them repeatedly InDesign remembers the . tools such as those in Adobe Illustrator and is beyond the scope of this book. Check out Illustrator CS5 For 13_6 144 95-ch07.indd 13013_6 144 95-ch07.indd 130 4/ 2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 131 Chapter. it’s the active anchor point. 13_6 144 95-ch07.indd 12713_6 144 95-ch07.indd 127 4/ 2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 128 Part III: Object Essentials 6. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 for each additional anchor point. . lines as you want. Simply keep clicking, dragging, and releasing. 13_6 144 95-ch07.indd 1 241 3_6 144 95-ch07.indd 1 24 4/2/10 1:27 PM4/2/10 1:27 PM 125 Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements Figure 7-5: