(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to this video tutorial,
brought to you by tastytuts.com.
In this tutorial, I will be demonstrating
how to layout placeholder frames in an InDesign composition
ready to place in images and text.
So here I am in Adobe InDesign,
and here is my blank document,
which I set up in a previous video,
and I still have the numbers in each page.
If you've not seen this video,
the link is in the description under documents
setup in InDesign.
Before we begin, I'm just going to delete these numbers
as we have no use for them anymore.
In InDesign, all elements contained in a composition
such as text, images and tables are contained
in placeholder frames.
To layout my composition, I will be referencing
my scamp drawing, which I also created in a previous video.
So basically, I'm going to copy this drawing and achieve
the same layout here in InDesign.
Now sometimes, I might not work from a scamp like this,
I'll bring in elements individually
and move them around and into place.
But for this example, I'm going to keep it dead simple
and work with my pre-designed layout.
Now I'm going to start to draw my frame boxes,
and I'm going to do this in Normal View.
This means I'll be able to see all my marks and guides,
which I'll be placing my frames into.
I can toggle this for you by pressing W on the keyboard.
So if I take a quick look at my scamp.
I'm going to start with the outside spread,
the spread featuring the cover page, back page
and inside full page on the far left.
Looking at the cover, I can see the image fills
the entire page, with the page title at the top left
and a logo in the bottom right.
So back in InDesign, I'm going to draw a frame box
to fit the entire page, then I'm going to draw another frame
in the top left for the text title
and a box in the bottom right for the logo.
So if I come over to my toolbar on the far left,
I'm going to select the Rectangular Frame tool.
I'm going to start by making a frame to fill the page,
then I'm going to draw a frame on top for the text title,
then another frame in the bottom, like so.
So a box for my image, a box for my text
and a box for the logo, great.
Now something important to mention here,
and something for you to keep in mind,
in InDesign, when you draw a frame box
and then draw another frame box,
the second frame box will set on top of the first,
and if I draw another frame box
that will set on top of that.
So the most recent frame box you draw,
will always be the frame at the top.
So as you just observed, I just composed three frame boxes.
First I placed the full frame box,
then I placed the top left frame box,
and then the bottom frame box to the right.
So now I know that the big frame box will be behind
the others I created after this.
So whatever content I place in the frames
on top created after, will be seen above,
unless of course I change the order.
For example, let's fill the background frame with a color,
and then fill the top left frame with the color,
and we can clearly see that the top left frame
is sitting on top.
Though, if I wish to bring a background frame to the top,
I only have to select the frame, right-click,
scroll down to a range and select bring to front.
Kicking this will now bring the frame to the top
and I cannot see the other frame anymore.
Now sometimes you will find yourself with a lot of frames
on your composition and then maybe lots of frames
on top of each other, and it might prove troublesome
to select the frame you want.
One technique to keep in mind is the following,
so I just brought the background frame to the top,
I know there is another frame below,
if I move my cursor over it and click,
I will click the big frame and not the smaller one,
this is because the frame is on top.
Now if I hold down Command or Control for PC,
and click again, it will select through the frame
and look for the next frame below it, like so.
So let's say we have five frames on top of each other,
I would have to press and hold command and click five times
to get to the bottom one, so keep that in mind.
So with the top right frame selected, I will right-click,
scroll down to a range and this time, select bring to front
and know the frame is visible again on top.
I'm going to select both and remove the colors,
so I can continue.
So back to my scamp, I can see that the next page
to the cover is the back page.
So I want to add an image about a third of the way down,
some text to span the width of the page
under this to the left some bullet points,
and to the right and image and below this some footer text
and another logo to the right.
So back in InDesign,
I'm going to use the Rectangular Frame tool to draw
my frames for each part, like so.
With another quick look at the scamp,
I can see on the next page, I want a big text header
on the top and a two-column paragraph
text layout under this.
So back in the InDesign, I'm going to draw a frame
spanning across the two columns, and another box under this,
but this time just in the left side column for now.
So that completes the frames on the outside spread.
Next, I'm going to take a look at the inside spread.
So back to the scamp, and I can see on the far left page,
we have a simple grid that will contain some images.
So back in InDesign, I will first draw a frame on the top
about a third of the way down, then I can draw another frame
under this down to the bottom of my page,
but within the left column guide.
Next, I will draw another frame to the right of this filling
the width of the column, like so.
Next, I'm going to duplicate this frame,
if I press V on the keyboard, this will pull up
my Selection tool, or I can come over to the menu
and select it from there.
By pressing and holding Alt on the keyboard,
if I click and drag the frame,
this will duplicate the frame.
I'm going to place this frame immediately
beneath the frame above.
So now we have two frames, what I want to do next is expand
these two frames down, so they fill the page nicely.
With the Selection tool active, I can click and drag over
the two frames and now I have them both selected.
Now you can see eight squares around them both,
with these I can select the bottom middle point like so,
and click a drag and I'm gonna drag this down
to fill the page, this will expand
the two frames down together.
So now we have two frames, the same size fitting
the area we want.
But if I look at the scamp, I can see that below
the middle frame, I want to fill the two frames.
So back in the composition, I want to select this frame
below and make it slimmer.
I can do this by first clicking off the two frames
that are currently selected to deselect them,
then come back to the bottom frame and select it,
by clicking on the frame and clicking
on the right middle point and dragging it in like so,
this will make the frame slimmer.
Again like earlier, I'm going to click on the frame,
by pressing Alt, I will drag and duplicate this frame.
So now I have two side by side,
if I select them both, by clicking and dragging over them,
again, I can click and drag the right middle point and pull
them out or push in until I have the desired effect.
So now we have a rough layout of our grid on this page.
Back to the scamp, I can see here in the middle page
that we have some text on the top and three rows
of motorbike images in two rows.
Back in InDesign, I will use the Frame tool to draw box
on the top spanning the entire width of my page
within the Margin Guides, like so,
then below this, I will draw a frame box spanning
the width of my first column on the left,
then I will press V pull up my Selection tool,
click on my frame box and press and hold Alt,
and click and drag this to the right to duplicate
my framework like so and I'll position
it within the guides of my second column.
Now you can see these two frames are not aligned.
Well, there is a useful trick.
if we use the Selection tool,
the click and drag to select the two frame boxes,
with them both selected, I can come up to the control panel
on the top, and we can use the Align Tools here,
towards the right, to help us align the two frames.
As you can see, we have a choice,
but in this instance, I want to align to the top.
So if I press this, my bottom box will snap in line
with the top box, nice.
With the two boxes selected, I'm just going to click
and drag these to expand the size slightly.
Now with the Selection tool, press V and I'm going to hold
Alt on the keyboard and click and drag these two frames
to duplicate them below, like so.
So now I have four frames, I want to do this again
so I can get six frame boxes.
So again, pressing and holding Alt and dragging,
I can duplicate the frames,
so that's the frames for that page.
Back to this scamp, I can see on the last page
I want some text on the top on both sides,
a table down the left side and to the right to bike images.
So back in InDesign, I'm going to draw a frame box
on the top about so big, again within the width
of my margins and guides, then I will draw another frame
under this, staying on the left all the way down
to the bottom, then on the right, I will draw a frame
and on the right side about so big within the margins
and guides and I'll quickly duplicate this,
by pressing and holding Alt and clicking and dragging
like so, I'll place this box just under it.
Then with the Selection tool, by pressing V I can select
both these frames and drag them down to fit my page.
And lastly, I'll draw a text frame
in the top right hand corner.
So after a little while, I have created a rough layout
of my design, at this point it is not important
whether frames are the exact size yet, as we will be making
lots of modifications to these as I bring in text
and images later.
In InDesign when you place content into frames,
such as images and text, upon placing the contents
this actually changes the nature of the frame,
which will allow you to apply various effects
and alter various properties regarding the content.
At the moment all these frames are neutral
and are ready for elements to be placed inside.
So once I'm finished with my frame box layout,
it is time for me to move on to the next step.
In the next video, I will be introducing the text
and the table into my composition, and I'll be demonstrating
how we can manage and format this text.
So I'll see you in the next video.