Lessons

Lesson Info

Working with Text

So when we're creating text, let's go back to here. And I'm actually going to revert. We don't need that last page where I just messed up. I'm just hitting revert so it brings it back to exactly how it was when I was working with it before. And I've got a couple different text frames here. And I can tell it's a text frame, when I click on an item, Let's actually create first just a non-text frame. It's just a frame. And when I have that selected I've got these white handles. I've got the eight handles around the outside. I also have this blue and this yellow and we're not gonna' worry about that right now. That's just a frame that I have. If I select on a text frame though it looks a little different. I've got those handles but I've also got one in the upper left that's a little bigger and I've got one in the lower right. And that is the import and the outport. That is where text comes in and flows back out. So you can thread text frames if you want to. We're gonna' do that in a second...

as well. But I can bring text in from one and flow it out into the next one. So that's how you can tell it's a text frame or you can go up under the Object menu and come down to content and it will show you. It should show you, Object, Content, Graphic. Not sure why this one does not know it's text frame. Object, Content. It should show you Text. I have no idea why it's on strike and it's not showing you that. It should say Text. For whatever reason, but it is a text frame 'cause I've got those extra ports that are there. And also there's text sitting in the middle of it. So that's one way to know. But that sometimes it actually gets confusing. You're like clicking, "why can't I get text in here?" You realize it's not a text frame. The great thing is if I come in here and I select this frame and it's with a text frame I can go ahead and click and now suddenly that's a text frame. Because all I did was click with the type tool and it switches it to a text frame as well. Even if it doesn't wanna' show it in the menu. So when I put text in InDesign document. Let me jump over to this document here. When I put text in I can either create frames ahead of time and put text into it. Either by typing it in or bringing it in from somewhere else. Or I can just bring text in and when I click it creates the text frame. Just like we did with the images. So I have a couple different options for that. So let's actually just create a text frame. So to do that I select the type tool and I'm gonna' click and drag like I would any other frame or any object I've drawn in Illustrator or anything I've drawn in InDesign as well. And I bring that in and I get my flashing cursor. And so I have to choose a couple things. Like first of all I need to know what font I wanna' use right? So I've got one set up by default. And that again is something I set with no document open. So that every time I create a new text frame this font automatically gets loaded in. But where I look at that stuff is the Character Panel and then also the Paragraph Panel. So the Character Panel basically says things like anything that makes up the individual characters that you're creating. So things like, what font is it? What size is that font? What's leading? Which is the line spacing in between. It's just different terminology. And just all sorts of things. How wide is it? How much space is between there? Is it drawn out? There's a lot of different options in there. We're just gonna' work with a few to start with. So I basically had to come over here to my Character Panel. Now if you notice I got the same thing up here. I've got Gotham Book, and the size, and the same thing over here. This is the Control Panel and it's on by default but you can turn it on or off over here in the Window panel menu. But it basically reproduces what's in these individual panels. So if you don't wanna' have to open up all these side panels you can usually use the Control Panel. I just get lost because sometimes there's a lost of icons. And also when I'm on a lower resolution it doesn't display as many menu items and so they're not there necessarily in the Control Panel. But they're all gonna' be in these individual panels as well. So I just want to put some text in there. I can go up under the type menu and come down to Fill with Placeholder Text. So when I do that it's just gonna' throw in some text that's there. So that's a nice way to start up with some text. And when you're working with Character Styling or Character Objects. You need to actually have some text selected. Whereas when you're working with Paragraph Options you only have to have your cursor in that paragraph because it affects an entire paragraph. So let's start up here. I'm gonna' just zoom in a little bit and I'm gonna' select some text. First of all, I don't like how tight that is. That's just a lot of text crammed in there. So I'm gonna' go under this item here which is leading. And again, it's also over here in the Panel Menu. So I'm gonna' come on here and I'm gonna' choose, I'm just gonna' actually use my up arrow keys. Until it looks good. I might already know what I want setting wise. I've already, I might have corporate fonts that I need to use or I might have used the same ones every time. I'm creating the font, or the same book over and over again. And I know that I'm using 18 point over 30 point leading using Gotham Book. Now later we're gonna' talk about how to manage that so we don't have to do this every time. But for now we're gonna' manually do this every time. So I'm gonna' change that and I've changed the spacing in between, or the leading the line spacing in between. Over all the text that's selected. And in this case I have everything selected. But now let's actually just select some text. I'm gonna' zoom back in. And select that item, or select that text. And I'm gonna' do things like change the color of that text. So I'm gonna' come over here back to color. And in this case, now you'll notice that a little T is selected. If it's not we wanna' click on it. So I can say, okay I'm just working with the fill of that type and I can come in here and choose a whole new color. So let's do RGB. And I can just grab a color here. Now you'll notice it's in the exact opposite that's because I have it selected so it automatically shows it in it's opposite color. So you're gonna' have to click off to see the changes that you've made. Because, again, you have to select the characters that you wanna' effect for anything to happen. If I just have that selected. I'm only really affecting that space in between the two fonts which is not really a space at all. So I need to make sure I have something selected for that. Let's go back to the type character that's here. Other things I ignored is the size of the font itself. So I can change the individual font within that text. Because again, it's character styling so it only affects the characters that I have selected. And a couple other things that you might look at are things like baseline shift. Sometimes you can get some really nice different effects. If you want words floating up above. Again, if you're doing a photo book and you basically just wanted a list of words. Like we're gonna' do, you know, Iceland. We're gonna' do fire, ice and solitude and water, island, whatever it is we wanna' do and maybe we just want these words floating on the page. We could do it in different frames but then we have to maintain five different text frames for those words. Maybe we put them all in one frame and use the baseline shift to just sorta' move them up and down. Sometimes selecting them it's a little difficult because you actually need to select down below because it's actually here. We've just shifted it off but we don't actually wanna' select the text up here. We need to select the text down here. So just keep that in mind if you're playing with the baseline shift. So those are some of the options that are in the Character Panel. And in the Paragraph Panel we have things like "how is this aligned?" So in this case, let me make my frame smaller. So I'm gonna' grab this frame, right now it's 13 inches wide. Let's make it more like eight wide. So we just have this skinny little frame here. And if you notice I have this little plus here. I've made my frame smaller so all that text that was in there is no longer there. It's overset, so it's there but I can't see it unless I make my frame bigger to accommodate that text. But in this case let's just take this particular paragraph. So just the second one. Now I can click it four times to get an entire paragraph. Or I can just click inside and then anything I do in the Paragraph Panel will affect this entire paragraph because my cursor is in it. So one of the things I might wanna' work with are some of the alignment. Right now it's left justified. I can center justify that. We can see that our paragraph is now centered. Or right justify it. And then I've got full justification and it, what happens to that last line. The one you use a lot is this one it justifies it on the right and the left. Makes it nice and square on the right and the left and the left line is left justified, or the last line is left justified. I also can center that last line, right justify it or fully justify it. Which usually looks pretty bad. There's a lot of white space in between there. And then also align left and right, or towards and away from the spine. Those are used when you have facing pages. With facing pages it knows what the spine of your book is. Where those two pages come up against each other. If you aren't using facing pages and have those two pages against each other. It doesn't know that the middle is a spine. So if you are using facing pages you can say align away from the spine and then if that text frame moves to another page that's on the opposite page it will move the alignment of the text. So that it automatically is being dictated by the side of the page that it's on. Some of the other things that we can do, again, I'm just working with the center item that's here. I'm gonna' left justify that. I can come in here and change the margin size a little bit. So sometimes maybe you just want a pull quote. You just want it moved in a little bit. Instead of doing two separate text frames because you want it to flow nicely you can just change the margin sizes that are there and just move it in manually within that particular paragraph. And again we're only affecting the paragraph. And one of the other things you might want to do a lot it's have extra space in between. And a lot of people just hit return. We don't actually wanna' do that. Because that return is sitting there, it's floating there and even if it starts at the top of a page or the top of a column that space is still there and it's going to be a pain because now you're gonna' have a space that you don't need. What we wanna' do those. We wanna' give a little breathing room between our paragraphs. And I'm gonna' actually select at least a little bit of each paragraph. Right? So that every paragraph will be affected. And I'm gonna' come in here to space before or space after. And what space before and after do, and you can choose whichever one you want, whichever one makes sense. Is, I'm just gonna' add a little bit of space in between but it's not the same as a hard return. Because there is no actual return there and so if there are two paragraphs next to each other it puts that space. If there aren't two sitting next to each other that space goes away. So that kinda' gives us that extra return that we're looking for. Without actually having that hard return there. So again, that's a paragraph styling, that's that. So that's how we get some text in there. We might actually place text. So this was me using place holder text. I might delete all this. And then just actually type, right? So maybe I am writing the book as I'm putting it together. Here is my text. That's about all I could come up with right? So, I'm gonna' have that. I can actually just enter the text as needed. Or you might have your text somewhere else. Some do the File, Place command. Command or Control + D to place and again, placing images, placing text, doesn't matter. So I'm gonna' come in here and I've got some text to place. And I've just got this .rtf file it could be a word file, it could be a rich text file. In this case it's rich text. And I'm gonna' say okay, I could do Show Import Options. Because if I don't it automatically uses whatever I did last time. And in this case I'm just gonna' leave everything as is. I'm just gonna' leave everything that's there. I'm gonna' say Okay and I get this loaded place cursor. And so what I'm gonna' do is I'm just gonna' go ahead and click, or click and drag. If I know what size I want my frame I click and drag. If I just click it fills it up to the margin. So click and drag let's me control that. And so there's my text ready to style. So in this case I might say, okay, select everything and lets make it Gotham. All right so I've got Gotham. Sure, let's do Gotham Book. But instead I want this text to be bold maybe. So, again, if I've got other faces available to me they're gonna' be here in this type pull up menu here or here. All right, so I choose that. We'll say bold and I wanna' make that bigger. And because I have auto selected it automatically it's changing it as needed. As I make this bigger the leading is also changing as well. And then maybe this one needs to be italic instead. I don't have italic so I'll go with medium I guess. And then I will maybe make that slightly bigger. But not quite as big as the Iceland one that's there. So I can go ahead and take text that I brought in from somewhere else and actually start styling it as well. Or I can type it in by hand and make changes as needed. And again, we're gonna' look at how to automate that later so I don't have to select each character or each paragraph and make all these options every time I bring in some text from somewhere else. The last thing I wanna' show is how to bring text from one page to the next. So in this case we have here, we have our pages here. Let's close these guys up. And I have text but this text might start on this page. And then it continues after the collage and then we've got some text here. We want this text to jump over to this text and it's a continuation of that text. So what we need to do is thread our text frames. And as we can see the text that I placed has overset text, there's still more of that story that we need to read. So if I've placed it and I've placed it to the size. This is the size I need it to fit on my page and I want another frame over here. I can come down with my selection tool and I wanna' click inside this little red plus and I get the rest of the story. So I've got a couple different options. I can click and place. And I'll get a plus again 'cause I still have more. I'm gonna' click and place that and I can just keep drawing frames. What I'm doing is these are actually threaded together and I can view that by turning on the View, Extras and Show Text Frames, Text Threads, excuse me. And I can see how those stories are related to each other. Now I don't see them when I click off which is great. As soon as I click on it it says "oh okay those things are connected together". But I still haven't placed the rest of that story. So I can click this and I'm gonna' create a whole new page using my keyboard shortcut shift + command or shift + control + P and I have a new page. And I'm gonna' hold on the shift key. And when I do that it's going to place it to the size of the margin. And if it needed more pages it would have created more pages on the fly for the rest of that text. I'm gonna' undo and back up really quickly. I'm gonna' show you one more thing with that is that instead of placing each one. Like I was doing, I was placing it, clicking the plus. I actually have a quicker way to do that. I'm gonna' click the plus and I'm gonna' hold on the option or the alt key and draw out. And what it's doing is it's placing as much as it can and it's clicking that plus for me and picking it up. So I can hold on that option and continue to draw out frames on new pages or on the same page until I get everything completely placed. I'm gonna' go to that next page. Create a new page and then I'm gonna' option drag it out. And drag it out until I have everything placed on that page. And again those frames are threaded. If I didn't have that text I could do blank frames and thread those as well and then let's say those are still threaded but I didn't have the text yet. I just knew how I wanted it to look. I'm gonna' go ahead and grab that text. And then I'm going to roll over that frame and click, and as soon as I do it fills it in. So if I've got it set up for re-use and I've got the frames exactly as I need it but it's new text every time. I can bring in that text. Place it in those frames and it automatically threads and flows just as we've had it set up before.