CREATING A NEW DOCUMENT

Once you launch InDesign, you’re presented with the new document dialog box.

Select your page size, margins and orientation. If you want guides on your pages to reflect more than one column, you can specify that here as well. (Note, this doesn’t create text frames with columns.)

If you’re creating a double page spread, select “facing pages.”

Checking “master text frame” creates a text box on the  master page(s) so there’s one on every page in your document (the same as “automatic text box” in XPress).

Select a page size from the pop-up menu, or type in your own width and height. Make sure to select the correct orientation. If you are designing a double page spread, choose tabloid size paper and the landscape (sideways) orientation; if you create two letter size pages, even if they're facing each other, you could end up with a separate print for each one.

Margin guides help you position objects away from the edge of the page size. Make sure yours are at least .75" (9 points).

Column guides can help you position elements within the page. This is a great way to create a grid. It doesn't create a single text box with three or 5 columns, either, the way XPress does. Nice.

By the way, InDesign can open some XPress files: make sure that “show all documents” is selected at the top of the “open” dialog box. There are a lot of exceptions to which XPress files will open, so don’t get your hopes up.