Deborah Woehr

I’ve spent the last several months researching different online schools to upgrade my Computer Graphics degree, only to find that the costs are too prohibitive ($80,000 for a really good program) for my budget. So, I started looking for alternatives. I have a small library that contains how-to books on InDesign, Photoshop, design, etc. But the thing about how-to books is that they can easily overwhelm and frustrate.

For instance, I bought books for InDesign CS2 when I was preparing to design the 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology. Having used Quark and PageMaker in the past, I was somewhat familiar with the basic interface for InDesign. However, I needed help in setting up a table of contents. I set these books down, more confused than I was when I opened their covers. Is it just me, I wondered. When I went to Amazon to read the reviews of these books and others, I found that I wasn’t alone. Some of us are better visual learners than book learners.

While browsing through the how-to manual online, I found this training video called InDesign CS3 Essential Training. At the time, I balked at the $150 pricetag because the books were so much cheaper. Then I saw it again on the shelf in my local Barnes&Noble. I wasn’t sold on it until I went to the Lynda.com site and learned that I could receive video instruction for 431 courses for $25 per month.

I’ve been taking copious notes while watching this video series since Monday. David Blatner, who blogs on InDesignSecrets.com, is the host. His style is very straightforward as he teaches you both the basics of this program and tricks on how to maximize your time by using keyboard shortcuts, customizing your menus, adding special characters, importing text, etc.

The video on importing text is especially valuable to me because I have relied on the Place feature as well as the “Copy and Paste” method when importing text for my books. David explains why you should get out the copy and paste habit. He also explains how to import Word files so InDesign will format them correctly. This is a huge timesaver.

If you have 9 hours of straight time to sit in front of your monitor or TV, you can easily get through these video series in one sitting. But I recommend that you take your time because this program is complex. I’ve listed the truncated version of the table of contents to give you an idea of what you’ll be learning. To see the full TOC, visit Lynda.com.

Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Workspace
3. Getting to the Tools
4. Creating a Document
5. Managing Pages
6. Text
7. Graphics
8. Formatting Objects
9. Managing Objects
10. Transforming Objects
11. Character Formatting
12. Paragraph Formatting
13. Styles
14. Working with Tables
15. Color
16. Exporting
17. Printing
18. Conclusion
InDesign and InCopy overview
Where to go next
Goodbye

Is the DVD worth the price? It depends on how and where you’re going to use it. If you’re training primarily from home and have a good Internet connection, then I suggest you consider signing up for the basic subscription at Lynda.com because you’ll not only get access to this basic course, but you’ll have access to the other six at a fraction of the cost ($300 for a full year versus $1050+shipping for the DVDs). If you are a visual learner like I am, this course is an excellent way of mastering the basics of Adobe InDesign.