Adding Essential Elements
In This Chapter
ᮣ Creating frames and shapes
ᮣ Making lines and paths
ᮣ Using strokes
The 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 graphics, 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:
120 Part III: Object Essentials
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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.
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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. ߜ
The Type tool: You can use this tool to create rectangular text frames in addition to letting you work with text.
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. Figure 7-1:
The
frame-and
shapecreating
tools in the
Tools panel,
as well as
the other
tools to
create and
manipulate
lines and
paths.
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Figure 7-2:
The Polygon
Settings
dialog box
lets you
specify the
number of
sides your
polygons
will have.
3. Move the mouse pointer anywhere within the currently displayed page or on the pasteboard.
4. Click and drag in any direction.
As you drag, a crosshair 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 that layer’s color. 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.
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.
122 Part III: Object Essentials
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: ߜ
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 7-3.
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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.) ߜ
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.
InDesign has a quick way to switch between the Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool: Just double-click an object. (Of course, the Direct Selection tool has no effect on text frames, so double-clicking an object selected with the Selection tool changes you to the Type tool instead.)
Figure 7-3:
Reshaping
a frame by
dragging its
handle with
the Direct
Selection
tool.
Creating Lines and Paths
When you’re drawing the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, you typically 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, Chapter 7: Adding Essential Elements
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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 7-4, if the Selection tool was previously selected, the line appears within a rectangular bounding box, which contains eight resizing 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:
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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.
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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.
124 Part III: Object Essentials
Figure 7-4:
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 appearance by modifying any of four properties that all paths share: ߜ
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.
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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.)
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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. ߜ
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 7-5 shows the parts that make up a path:
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A path contains one or more straight or curved segments.
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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.
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InDesign has two kinds of anchor points: smooth points and corner points. A smooth point connects two adjoining curved segments in a continuous, flowing curve. At a corner point, adjoining segments —
straight or curved — meet at an angle. The corners of a rectangular path are the most common corner points.
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A direction line runs through each anchor point and has a handle at both ends. You can control the curve that passes through an anchor point by dragging a direction line’s handles, as I explain a little later on. Figure 7-5:
End point
Anchor
points can
Anchor point
be corner
Segment
or smooth,
resulting
End point
in angular
Anchor point
(top) or
curved
Segment
(bottom)
connections
between
segments. End point Anchor point
126 Part III: Object Essentials
Drawing your own paths
Even if you’re an artistic master with a piece of charcoal or a No. 2 pencil, you 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 slowly.
When creating paths, use as few anchor points as possible. As you become more comfortable creating free-form paths, you should find yourself using fewer anchor points to create paths.
For an easy way to draw free-form shapes, use the Pencil tool. This tool simply traces the movement of your mouse (or pen tablet) as you move it, much like a pencil works on paper. Although not as exact as the Pen tool, the Pencil tool creates Bézier curves that you can later edit. Note that the Pencil tool is not meant for creating straight lines — unless you’re capable of drawing perfectly straight lines by hand, that is.
Straight and zigzag lines
Follow these steps to draw lines with straight segments, such as a zigzag:
1. Select the Pen tool.
2. Move the Pen pointer to where you want to start your line segment.
3. Click and release the mouse button.
Make sure that you don’t drag before you release the mouse button.
An anchor point appears; it looks like a small, filled-in square.
4. Move the Pen pointer to where you want to place the next anchor point.
5. Click and release the mouse button.
InDesign draws a straight line between the two anchor points. The first anchor point changes to a hollow square, and the second anchor point is filled in, which indicates that it’s the active anchor point.
6. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 for each additional anchor point.
To reposition an anchor point after you click the mouse button but before you release it, hold down the spacebar and drag. Otherwise, you need to select it with the Direct Selection tool after you finish drawing the line and then click and drag it to its new location.
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How smooth and corner points work
Bézier paths have two kinds of points to join
direction lines determine the shape of the segsegments: corner and smooth. ments with which they’re associated.
The two segments that form a smooth point’s
A corner point that connects two curved segdirection line work together as a single, straight ments has two direction lines; a corner point
line. When you move a handle, the line acts like
that connects two straight segments has no
a teeter-totter; the opposite handle moves in
direction lines; and a corner point that connects
the opposite direction. If you shorten one of the
a straight and curved segment has one direcsegments, the length of the other segment tion line. If you drag a corner point’s direction doesn’t change. The angle and length of line, the other direction line, if there is one, isn’t affected.
7. To complete the path, Ô+click or Ctrl+click elsewhere on the page or simply choose another tool.
If
you
Ô+click or Ctrl+click, the Pen tool remains active, so you can continue creating new paths.
Curved lines
Knowing how to draw zigzag lines is fine (see preceding section), but chances are, you want to draw curved shapes as well. The basic process is similar to drawing straight segments, but drawing curved paths (technically called Bézier paths) is more complicated and will take you some time to get the hang of.
If you want to draw a continuously curvy path that contains no corner points and no straight segments, you should create only smooth points as you draw. Here’s how:
1. Select the Pen tool.
2. Move the Pen pointer to where you want to start the curve segment.
3. Click and hold down the mouse button.
The arrowhead pointer appears.
4. Drag the mouse in the direction of the next point you intend to create and then release the mouse button.
As you drag, the anchor point, its direction line, and the direction line’s two handles are displayed, as shown in Figure 7-6.
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Figure 7-6:
To create
a smooth
point when
Anchor point being
beginning a
dragged to next location
path, click
End point
and hold the
Direction line
mouse and
Direction line handle
drag in the
direction
of the next
point.
If you hold down the Shift key as you drag, the angle of the direction line is limited to increments of 45 degrees.
5. Move the Pen pointer to where you want to place the next anchor point — and end the first segment — and then drag the mouse.
If you drag in roughly the same direction as the direction line of the previous point, you create an S-shaped curve; if you drag in the opposite direction, you create a C-shaped curve.
6. When the curve between the two anchor points looks how you want it to look, release the mouse button.
Alternatively, when you want to connect curved segments to corner points (shown in Figure 7-7), move the Pen pointer to where you want to place the next anchor point — and end the first segment — and then press and hold Option or Alt as you click and drag the mouse. As you drag, the anchor point’s handle moves, and the direction line changes from a straight line to two independent segments. The angle of the direction line segment that you create when you drag the handle determines the slope of the next segment.
Figure 7-7:
Three corner points
join four
curved segments. The
direction
handles
of the two
rightmost
segments
are visible.
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7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 for each additional desired curved segment.
8. To complete the path, Ô+click or Ctrl+click elsewhere on the page or simply choose another tool.
If
you
Ô+click or Ctrl+click, the Pen tool remains active, so you can create new paths.
You can also complete the path by clicking the first point you created, which creates a closed path.
If you create two open paths that you want to join together into one path, you can do so in InDesign CS4 by selecting the two paths and then choosing Object➪Paths➪Join. InDesign usually joins the two closest points with a straight line, but it sometimes joins the last point of the first path and the first point of the second path.
Do note that if you try to join a text path with a regular path, the text will be deleted if it’s the second path selected. If you join two text paths, the second path’s text will also be deleted. Finally, if you select three or more paths and choose Object➪Paths➪Join, nothing will happen.
Closed paths
A closed path is simply a path that ends where it began. When it comes to creating closed paths with the Pen tool, the process is exactly the same as for creating open paths (such as curved lines and zigzag lines), as explained in the “Curved lines” and “Straight and zigzag lines” sections, earlier in this chapter, with one difference at the end:
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To create a straight segment between the end point and the last anchor point you created, click and release the mouse button.
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To create a curved segment, click and drag the mouse in the direction of the last anchor point you created and then release the mouse button. Just like an open path, a closed path can contain straight and/or curved segments and smooth and/or corner anchor points. All the techniques explained earlier in 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 CS4 For Dummies by Ted Alspach or Adobe InDesign CS4 Bible by Galen Gruman (both by Wiley Publishing) for more details.
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130 Part III: Object Essentials
Applying Strokes
All objects have a stroke with a width of 0 built in, so you never really have to add strokes. But to use them, you need to modify them so that they have some thickness onto which you can apply attributes, such as colors and gradients.
Setting stroke appearance
The Stroke panel is where you give the stroke its width, as well as apply the type of stroke and other attributes:
1. Select either of the selection tools and click the object whose stroke you want to modify.
2. If the Stroke panel isn’t displayed, show it by choosing Window➪Stroke (Ô+F10 or Ctrl+F10).
Figure 7-8 shows the panel.
3. To change the width of the stroke, enter a new value in the Weight field.
You can also change the Weight value by choosing a new value from the field’s pop-up menu or by clicking the up and down arrows. (Each click increases or decreases the stroke by 1 point.)
4. Set the Miter Limit.
The default of 4 is fine for almost all frames. You rarely need to use this feature, so don’t worry about it.
Figure 7-8:
The Stroke
panel (left)
and the
Swatches
panel that is
often used
at the same
time (right).
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131
5. Click any of the three Cap iconic buttons to specify how dashes will look if you create a dashed stroke (covered in Step 9).
Experiment with them in your objects to see which looks best for your situation.
6. Click any of the three Join iconic buttons to specify how corners are handled.
Again, experiment with these buttons to see what works best for you.
7. Choose an Align Stroke option.
The default is the first button, Align Stroke to Center, which has the stroke straddle the frame. You can also choose Align Stroke to Inside, which places the entire thickness inside the frame boundary, or Align Stroke to Outside, which places the entire thickness outside the frame boundary.
8. You can also choose end points for your strokes by using the Start and End pop-up menus.
End points appear only on lines and other open paths, not on rectangles, ellipses, and other closed-loop shapes.
Figure 7-9 shows the options.
9. To create a dashed line instead of a solid line, choose an option from the Type pop-up menu.
These options are also available from the Control panel.
Choose from 18 types of predefined dashes and stripes. The Gap Color and Gap Tint fields at the bottom of the Stroke panel become active as well, to let you choose a specific color and tint for the gaps in dashes and stripes.
Figure 7-9:
The Start
options in
the Stroke
panel. (The
End options are
identical.)
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Adding fills
The option to add a stroke to any shape becomes
Adding a fill to a shape is much like adding a
even more powerful when combined with the
stroke, and the options available for specifying
option to fill any shape with a color or tint. For
color and tint are identical. The only difference
example, adding a fill to a text frame is an effecis that you click the Fill iconic button in the Tools tive way to draw attention to a sidebar.
panel or Swatches panel rather than the Stroke
iconic button.
After you have a visible stroke, you want to color it. Here’s how:
1. Select either of the selection tools and click the frame to which you want to add a stroke.
2. Click the Stroke iconic button in the Swatches panel or Tools panel.
3. Click a color, tint, or gradient from the Swatches panel; or click one of the three boxes at the bottom of the Tools panel, which let you use (from left to right) the last-selected color, last-selected gradient, or None.
(The None option removes the stroke’s color, tint, or gradient.) For information about adding colors to the Swatches panel and applying colors to objects, see Chapter 6.
Creating stroke styles
InDesign lets you create custom strokes, known as stroke styles, in any of three types: dashed, dotted, and striped. To create custom dashes or stripes, choose the Stroke Styles option in the Stroke panel’s flyout menu. In the resulting Stroke Styles dialog box, you can create new strokes, edit or delete existing ones, and import strokes from a stroke styles file, which you create by saving a document’s strokes as a separate file for import into other documents. Stroke style files have the filename extension .inst. Note that you can’t edit or delete the seven default stripe patterns shown in the Stroke Styles dialog box, nor can you edit or delete the default dash patterns — they’re not even available in the dialog box. When you edit or create a stroke pattern, you get the New Stroke Style dialog box, shown in Figure 7-10. In the Name field, enter a name for your stroke. In the Type pop-up menu, you can choose to create (or convert a stripe you’re editing to) a dashed, dotted, or striped stroke.
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For dashes, you can resize the dash component by dragging the downpointing triangle at the end of the dash in the ruler section. You can add dash segments by simply clicking the ruler and dragging a segment to the desired width. Or you can use the Start and Length fields to manually specify them. The Pattern Length field is where you indicate the length of the segment that will be repeated to create a dashed line.
In the Corners pop-up menu, you tell InDesign whether to adjust how the dashes and gaps are handled at corners; the default is Adjust Dashes and Gaps, a setting you should keep — it will make sure that your corners have dash segments that extend along both sides of the corner, which looks neater. (Your other options are Adjust Dashes, Adjust Gaps, and None.) You can also choose a cap style and the stroke weight. The preview section of the pane lets you see your dash as you create or edit it.
For dots, you get a similar dialog box as for dashes. The Start and Length fields disappear, replaced with the Center field that determines where any added dots are placed on the ruler. (The initial dot, shown as a half-circle, starts at 0 and can’t be moved or deleted.) The Caps field is also gone. To delete a dash or dot segment, just drag it to the left, off the ruler.
For stripes, you also get a similar dialog box. The principle is the same as for dashes: You create segments (in this case vertical, not horizontal) for the stripes by dragging on the ruler. However, the stripes version of the dialog box expresses its values in percentages because the actual thickness of each stripe is determined by the stroke weight — the thicker the stroke, the thicker each stripe is in the overall stroke.
Figure 7-10:
The dashes
version of
the New
Stroke Style
dialog box.
134 Part III: Object Essentials
In all three versions of the New Stroke Style dialog box, you click Add to add the stroke to your document, and then you can create a new stroke. When you’re done creating strokes, click OK. (When editing a stroke, the Add button won’t be available.)
Be sure to use the Preview Weight slider shown in Figure 7-10. This slider is available in all three versions of the New Stroke Style dialog box. It lets you increase or decrease the preview size so that you can better see thin or small elements in your stroke.