DRAWING

There’s not much I can tell you about drawing in InDesign. It’s almost identical to drawing in Illustrator, and you’re already pros at that. And what you can’t draw here, you can draw in Illustrator, and copy and paste it into InDesign.

Depending on the prefs you set in the general pane, you’ll paste actual paths that can be manipulated in InDesign! Very cool.

The pen tool is the same as it is in Illustrator. Click and drag to create a curve point, and click to create a corner point. Toggle to the direct selection tool using the command key, and convert points using the option key.

You can create compound paths by selecting the objects and using Object > compound paths.

The scissors and gradient tools are linked together in the tools palette (an odd combination, so worth remembering!).

Add stroke and fill characteristics using the colors palette. Make sure you choose the CMYK system from the colors palette submenu for creating colors. (Don’t forget to play with stroke “type:” there are some interesting options!)

Use the rotate, skew, scale and free transform tools to distort your drawings. To reflect an object, you need to use the transform palette’s submenu.

Unfortunately, one of my favorite tricks (command shift option J, to join two end points) doesn’t work here. So sad.

One of the more interesting (and perhaps dangerous) drawing things is the ability to add “corner effects” to shapes you’ve drawn. There are five different effects, found under the Object menu. Experiment, but use caution before electing to use them.

Use the stroke palette to create interesting rule lines and arrows.

line syles, and colored gaps in dashed lines

arrow end styles: you can add these to the beginning and/or end of any stroke