The Workspace

The Stroke, Color, Gradient, and Transparency Palettes

• The Stroke palette provides control over the appearance of the edge, or stroke, of selected paths or text characters.
• The Color palette is where colors may be made and applied to objects. To create or edit a new color, use the upper right-hand Color menu to select New Color or select a color and use Color Options... to edit it. In the upper left-hand corner, the Line, Box, and Lined Box buttons allow you to apply a selected color as a line around a shape, as a fill color for a shape, or as both the line and fill of a shape. You may also colorize text by selecting the text with the Text tool and clicking on the desired color in the Color palette.
• Although the Swatches palette is the recommended palette for creating and storing gradients, you can also work with gradients by using the Gradient palette, with which you may be familiar if you also use Adobe Illustrator. You can add the current gradient to the Swatches palette at any time, but the Gradient palette is useful for creating an unnamed gradient that won't be used again.
• In InDesign, you can add transparency to your document in a variety of ways using the controls in the Transparency palette. You can vary the degree of transparency of an object, or a group of objects, from 100% opacity (completely solid) to 0% opacity (completely transparent). When you decrease an object's opacity, the underlying objects become visible through the surface of the object.

The Paragraph Styles, Character, Styles, and Swatches Palettes

• A character style is a collection of character formatting attributes that can be applied to a selected range of text. A paragraph style includes both character and paragraph formatting attributes, and can be applied to a selected paragraph or range of paragraphs.

  In general, change Styles feature settings in the Styles dialog box, and then save the settings. Styles are stored in the document in which they are created.

• Styles can save time when you apply and revise text formatting, and they give your documents a consistent look. When you change the formatting of a style, all text to which the style has been applied will be updated with the new format.

  The Styles palette is one of the most important parts of InDesign. They're particularly handy when dealing with a multiple page document, because if you decide to change one element of your body text, headings, or captions, you can apply the change to the entire document without having to manually redo each one.

  To change the preset styles, click the upper right-hand arrow menu to reveal the Style Options... menu. You will notice the style attributes listed below the drop-down menus, and four buttons named Char, Para, Tabs and Hyph for Character, Paragraph, Tab, and Hyphenation settings. Character settings include font family, font style (bold, italic, etc.), color, leading, kerning, and tracking, as well as other special type settings. Paragraph settings change indents, spacing, and alignment. Tab settings set tab markers similar to Microsoft Word's, and Hyphenation settings control hyphenation manually (or turn it off completely).

  It is important to name your styles appropriately, as you'll be using them often throughout a large document. It helps to have a hierarchy plan written out beforehand, especially if your project is book-sized. Determine your heading steps (i.e., H1 = 24 point font, H2 = 18 point font, etc.) and paragraph preferences before creating your document, if possible.

• You can control all document colors and gradients in the Swatches palette alone. Use it to create, name, and store colors and gradients for instant access. When the fill or stroke of selected text or an object contains a color or gradient applied from the Swatches palette, the applied "swatch" is highlighted in the palette. Six CMYK-defined colors appear in the default Swatches palette: cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, and blue.

The Pages, Layers, and Navigator Palettes

• The Pages palette provides information about, and control over, pages, spreads (sets of pages seen together), and masters (pages or spreads that automatically format other pages or spreads).

  Master pages are templates for the main document. Anything in the master pages will automatically show up in the body pages of the document. Sometimes it is helpful to have more than one master page. For example, one section of your document may lend well to three columns, while another section looks better with two. Creating master pages to apply to specific body pages later saves a lot of time. To create a new master page, go to the click the upper right-hand arrow menu on the Pages palette and choose New Master Page. One of the best reasons to use master pages is for page numbering. Create a text box on the master page to insert page numbers. Then choose Type > Insert Special Character > Auto Page Number. Alternately, you can right-click on the text box and access the special characters that way. They will appear as the letter of the master page (A or B, for example), but will show the page number in the body of the document.

• Layers in InDesign are similar to those in Photoshop. You may use the Layers palette to hide elements that may not need to be seen at certain times, such as type in a different language, but which need to be called up quickly when needed.

• The Navigator palette contains a thumbnail of the selected spread that you can use to quickly change the view of a document.

The Transform, Character, and Paragraph Palettes

In InDesign CS2, options for both Character and Paragraph are displaed in the toolbar directly underneat the file menus.
The transform, character and paragraph Palettes can be accessed by going to the Type file menu and choosing either Character or Paragraph.

• Use the Transform palette to view or specify geometric information for any selected object, including values for position, size, rotation, and shearing. Controls in the Transform palette menu provide additional options and quick ways to rotate or reflect.

• Use the Character palette to control basic options for formatting individual characters in your documents. Values you enter are precise to 0.001 of a point.

• Use the Paragraph palette for attributes that apply to an entire paragraph.

  To apply any kind of paragraph formatting, you don't need to select an entire paragraph—selecting any word or character, or placing the insertion point within a paragraph will do.