Although there are many different types of study tools available on the web for Adobe InDesign’s user interface, I created my own. I have done so because I find that many of the study guides are some what bloated. By limiting the content provided to students, I chunk my material and this makes it easier for my students to process and discuss in class without feeling overwhelmed by the additional information.
I would recommend that this study guide be used with the actual Adobe InDesign application preferably the 2015 CC version. Have students use each tool as the names are reviewed and discuss what each tool does.
A. Menu bar – All the menu options available in InDesign.
B. Toolbar – the location of all the tools available in Indesign.
C. Top (Horizontal) Ruler – The horizontal ruler or top ruler displaying the unit of measurement chosen.
D. Left (Vertical) Ruler – The vertical ruler or left ruler displaying the unit of measurement chosen.
E. Panel Group – The default location of where all the panels are grouped and located.
F. Workspace – The workspace is a convenient way to access all the elements of the User Interface in Adobe InDesign. It allows you to create new workspaces and edit existing ones.
G. Preflight Panel – A panel that is tasked with notifying errors on a working document.
H. Quick Apply – A way to quickly apply certain styles and designs to many different types of elements.
I. _Customize Control Panel – A way to quickly customize many important features in InDesign.
J. _Working Document – The working document is the main document that is being worked on.
A. Selection tool – allows the moving of a frame or selecting elements on the working document.
B. Direct selection tool – allows the movement of elements inside of a frame.
C. Page tool – Is essentially a link to the page panel where one can add, remove, and relocate pages for a specific project.
D. Gap Tool – A tool which allows the user to create gaps between different elements on a page.
E. Content collector tool – A tool used to collect content for quicker use when designing.
F. Type tool – Also known as the text, or font tool it is the tool used to create a text box, which will contain text.
G. Line tool – A tool that is tasked with drawing lines of all types.
H. Pen tool – a tool used to create and remove anchor points.
I. Pencil tool – a tool used to create free hand lines just like using a pencil.
J. Rectangle frame tool – a tool used to create rectangle frames that can be used (historically) to place images.
K. Ellipse tool – a tool that can be used to draw circles and ellipses.
L. Scissors tool – a tool used to cut.
M. Free transform tool – a tool that can be used to distort elements of InDesign.
N. Gradient Tool – a tool used to add colorful gradients to a vector shape or typography.
O. Gradient feather tool – a tool used to adjust the direction of gradients.
P. Notes tool – a tool used to add notes to a document.
Q. Eyedropper tool – a tool used to select the pixel color from an element.
R. Hand tool – a tool used to move the entire document about the Adobe application.
S. Zoom tool – a tool used to zoom in and zoom out on a document.
T. Default fill and stroke tool – a tool used to set the fill and stroke tool back to its default settings.
U. Fill and stroke tool – Two tools in one. One tool is used to change the fill color of an element while the other applies a stroke color to an element.
