creating a newsletter in indesign

7/23/2019 Creating a Newsletter in Indesign

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Creating a One-PageNewsletter in Indesign

TutorialNewsletters are a key component of the communications of businesses and organiza-

tions. They are used to keep followers of an organization up to date. This tutorial willteach you how to create a one-page newsletter in InDesign. It will show you how to getsetup in InDesign, create a mockup, add content, and add formatting and colour. You wilbe left with a complete one-page newsletter ready to be sent out to your subscribers.

PART ONE: GETTING STARTED

This section will help you set up your docu-ment and familiarize you with the InDesignworkspace, specically the Menu Bar (File,

Edit, Layout, etc.).

1. Open InDesign and create a newprint document. A Document Setup pop-up menu will appear.2. Set up your document with the follow-ing properties:

Intent: PrintPages: 1Page Size: Letter

Orientation: PortraitMargins: 0

Click OK. If you want to change these set-tings later, go to File > Document Setup.

Many people prefer to work with inches instead of picas (the default unit of measure-ment).

3. To change to inches, go to Edit > Preferences (at the very bottom of the list) >Units and Increments. Change both the horizontal and vertical ruler units to inches in

the pop-up window.

If your newsletter is being printed then you need to think about margins. If your news-letter will only be accessed digitally then margins are optional.

4. To change your margins, go to Layout > Margins and Columns. Keep the mar-gins at zero if you have no intention to print. Keep them around 0.5 to 1.0 inches forprint.

5. If you prefer to work with a background grid then go to View > Grids &Guides > Show Document Grid.

You can always use CTRL + + or - to zoom in or out respectively.



PART TWO: CREATING A MOCK-UP

It is helpful to come up with a basic layoutor mockup before you actually start arrang-ing text, images, and graphics. Select fromthe Tools Panel (on the left of the page)and create some frames and text boxesusing the Rectangle Frame Tool and Type

Tool.

a. You can create dif-ferently shaped framesby right-clicking theRectangle Frame Tool in the Tools Panel. Select yourdesired shape and click and dragon the page to create the frame.

1. Use the Rectangle Frame Tool to create a frame at thetop of the page, where the logo banner and page title can be placed.Select the tool from the Tools Panel and then click and drag on thepage to create the frame.

Tools Panel

Example of a mockup

for a one-page news-letter.

2. To resize and reposition the frame, select the Selection Toolfrom the Tools Panel. Click on the frame to select it; drag from the corners toresize. Click and drag the frame around on the page to reposition it. You can alsouse your keyboard’s arrow keys to reposition objects, once they have been se-lected.

3. Use the Type Tool to create a text box. Select the tool from theTools Panel; click and drag on the page to create a text box. Use the SelectionTool to rezise and reposition the text box. Just as with frame boxes, you canclick and drag the corner to resize. To reposition a text box, click and drag itacross the page.

The Frame Tool

The Selection Tool

The Type Tool



A one-page newsletter needs to usemultiple small chunks of content todeliver information eciently withstyle. InDesign will automaticallydisplay Smart Guides (dierent-ly-coloured lines) as you repositionand resize objects. These guides will

help you lock your objects into rel-ative alignment, distribute spacingequally, and position content relativeto the page’s horizontal and verticalaxes. Play around; reposition the objects and let the Smart guides helpyou.

4. Arrange various frames and text box-es of dierent shapes and sizes around thepage.

Here are some objects you could include:

• a rectangle frame and/or text box at thetop for the logo banner and page title• a vertical text box along the side that canbe used for a list or calendar• a text box under your banner for the topstory• an image to accompany the top story• a mix of dierent types of content: para-graphs, lists, images, and graphics• a mix of shapes, rectangles, and circles

Note: The mock-up is not set in stone. Itspurpose is to provide a rough guideline forwhere dierent chunks of content will bepositioned. The next section is about addingeach block and arranging it appropriately.

PART THREE: ADDING CONTENT

This section will teach you how to add images and text. By the end of this section, yourmockup will be lled with content, and ready to be polished in the nal section.



1. To add your logo to the banner, use the Selection Tool to select the frameplaced at the top of the page. Click File > Place (or use the keyboard shortcut, CTRL +D). Choose an image le from your computer to use as your logo.

Note: Both of the tting options above preserve the original dimensions of the image.As long as your original image is large enough, it shouldn’t be strecthed out. Fill FrameProportionally might crop some of the original image if it is larger than the frame. FitContent Proportionally might leave extra space between the image and the frame ifthe frame is larger than the original image. Select the appropriate tting option and re-size the frame if necessary. You can re-t the image after resizing the frame.

2. Right-click on the image in the frame and click either Fitting > Fill Frame Pro-portionally or Fitting > Fit Content Proportionally. Any time you place an image in

a frame or resize a frame containing an image, it is best to select these tting options tore-t your image.

Do not worry if the image appears blurry. By default, InDesign keeps the display per-formance low to keep the program running quickly. To view your document in high res-olution, go to View > Display Performance > High Quality Display, though this willmake the program run more slowly.

3. Place images in the remaining frames using the same process: File > Place (orCTRL + D), then choose a le from your computer. Select the appropriate tting op-tions, and resize your frames if necessary. Always re-t the image if you resize theframe.



Once you have placed images in all of yourframes, you can start to add text to your textboxes. The example on the left is the samemockup as earlier, just with a few images add-ed.

4. Add text to a text box by selecting theType Tool and clicking the text box. You

can also add text to a text box by double-click-ing a text box with the Selection Tool .You can copy text from another documentusing CTRL + C and paste it into your text boxusing CTRL + V. You can also type directly intothe text box using your keyboard.

5. Fill all of your text boxes with text. If thetext does not t then you need to change thefont size, resize the text box, or both. Resizethe text box using the Selection Tool ;

drag the corners of the box to resize it.

6. Change the font size and font appearance by modifying the Character Format-ting Controls in the Control Panel.

If you see the red plus sign (likethe one highlighted in the image tothe right), it means that you have textoverowing from your text box. If so,you need to resize your text box, takeout some text, or make the font sizesmaller.



PART FOUR: ADDING THE FINISHING TOUCH

Each organization will have its own style anddesign, which will impact how you constructthe layout of your newsletter. That said, hereare the changes that were made between thnewsletter mockup and the version on the le

• Headings were added as separate text box• The text box with the top story section waformatted into two columns to resemble anewspaper• A bulleted list was added to format the texon the lower-right side of the page• The text box accompanying the three circular graphics was replaced with three separatetext boxes, each to accompany its own circulgraphic• Frames and text boxes were resized and re

positioned to maximize alignment

By this point, you should have all of your imes and text included in frames and text boxeDon’t fret if it doesn’t look like the newsletteabove; this section is about applying the naelements of design—like colour, alignment, astructural consistency—to make your newsleter look professional.

1. To make your top story into two

columns, use either the Selection Tool or the Type Tool to select and thenright-click the text box.2. Select Text Frame Options; a popupmenu will appear.3. In the Text Frame Options menu,change the column number to 2, and selectPreview in the lower left side of the menu.This will allow you to see the changes youmake to the text in real time.4. If necessary, adjust the column width.It is important to nd a balance betweenwhat looks good and what format ts yourtext.5. Click OK to nalize your text format-ting.

Note: Consider resizing your top storyimage to make it the same size as the textcolumns. If you do, make sure to re-t theimage.

Adding Columns to a Text Box:



1. Select all of the text that you would like to make into a bulleted list. Use the TypeTool to select the text box, and the click and drag to select all of the text that will beturned into a bulleted list. If all of the text in the box will be a part of the list, then youcan simple click CTRL + A.2. With the text selected, click Type > Paragraph (located at the top of the screenin the Control Panel). This will make the Paragraph popup box appear.

Adding a Bulleted List

3. Click the dropdown paragraph icon in the top right of the Paragraph popupbox. Select Bullets and Numbering.

4. From the Bullets andNumbering popup menu,change the List Type to bul-lets, check the Preview box,and adjust the Tab Position options. Checking the Pre-view box allows you to seethe changes as you adjust TabPosition in real time.

5. Click OK to nalize yourbulleted list.

Extra Hints for Arranging and Aligning Objects

It is important to have the edges of objects (frames and text boxes) align, whereverpossible. Smart Guides will generally coax you into achieving this whenever you repo-sition objects. Using margins and grids will also help you achieve this.

It helpful to move multiple objects in groups when arranging them. Grouping objectscan be achieved in two ways:

1. use the Selection Tool to click and drag over an area containing multiple ob-

jects. Once the group of objects are selected you can move them as a group.

2. You can also hold the Shift key while selecting objects individually with the Selec-tion Tool . Once the objects have been selected, they can be moved as a group inthe same way.

Moving groups of objects is best achieved by using the arrow keys on your keyboard.This allows for more ne-tuned and subtle repositioning.

As with any change you make to your document, if there is a repositioning or changethat you do not like, click CTRL + Z to undo.



Adding Colour to your Newsletter

Colour can be added to text, text boxes, frames, and more. The following stepswill explain how to use the Colour Theme Tool to draw colours from animage in your newsletter and apply them to elements of the document.

Select the Colour Theme Tool from the Tools Panel. You might needto right-click the Eyedropper Tool and then select the Colour Theme

Tool , if it does not display in the Tools Panel by default.

Using the Colour Theme Tool , click and drag over an area in animage. Once you have selected an area using the tool, a panel with a series ofcolour will appear.

You can select a colour directly from this panel with your cursor; you will thenhave that colour contained in the Eyedropper Tool , which can be used toapply colour to text, text boxes, and frames.

To apply colour to text, use the Eyedropper Tool to highlight a block of

text. Click and drag to highlight the text.

Use frames to add colourful shapes, or a co-lour background, to your newsletter.

To add a colour background, draw a framethe size of the whole page. Select a colour,drag and place it in the box.

This will likely cover your entire documentin a blanket of colour. If you want the colour

to be in the background, use the SelectionTool to right-click the frame. ClickArrange > Send to Back.

Conclusion

There are many ways to create a one-pagenewsletter in InDesign. Hopefully this tu-torial has provided you with some essentialinformation that you can apply to newslet-ters and other kinds of documents as well.

InDesign does not need to be complicated.If you take anything away from this tutorial,let it be that it only takes a handful of toolsto create a professional-quality document.And, when something goes wrong, just re-member CTRL + Z.

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