Want To Learn Indesign

[Virtual Imager]

Anyone out there using Adobe InDesign? I'm starting a new and exciting project... (self)publishing a book! It's going to be a cookbook/travelogue/artbook... my chef friend is doing most of the writing and I will be contributing images, graphics, and illustrations (and NO, they won't be boring or ugly pictures of food on a plate!). I'm told that InDesign is the best software available for what I need to do (I have to actually do all the page layouts and inside and outside covers and give them to the printer as camera ready pdf files). I downloaded a trial version, good for thirty days... but I haven't opened it yet! I don't want the thirty days to start running until I can actually begin work... maybe this weekend. I was wondering if anyone else has used this program. If so, can you tell me:

 

1. Is there a tutorial that comes with the trial version? How good is it?

 

2. Do you know of any good sites with tutorials (preferably free) on them? I've learned so much about Photoshop from various sites, but InDesign is so new and I haven't stumbled across any in my searches that were really helpful for a total novice. My goal is to only have to learn to use the parts that I need, but I'm not sure what those are. There's so much in that program that wouldn't apply to me and it's a bit intimidating. I'm really looking for a tutorial that would be limited to page layout... really striking page layout! We'll probably want some sidebars, graphic borders, text wrapping around images, hint boxes, and I'd really like to sometimes have images span across two pages. I've actually done some sample pages in Word that aren't too bad, but they don't come easy. I had to really struggle (one border of little garlic heads took me hours!) to get every effect and feature I could, and some things, like the image spanning across two pages seem impossible to achieve.

 

3. How big is the learning curve. I've never even used Quark... I've done brochures and stuff in Word and WordPerfect and that's the extent of my page making experience. And I've only done my webpages with wysiwyg programs... am I in deep doo-doo here?

 

I'm sure that, like with Photoshop, I'll do most of my learning by doing (and I'm not afraid of doing that), but if anyone has any suggestions or shortcuts that could help me get started, I'd really appreciate it. And please, keep them simple!

 

Thanks, all. You really are a great bunch of people!

 

VI

[boxturt]

From the Adobe site :

 

After installing the InDesign CS tryout, please see the ReadMe_First and ReadMe files in the Adobe InDesign CS tryout folder for more details and known issues. The InDesign CS tryout also includes online documentation. To access this information, start the InDesign CS tryout and then choose Help > InDesign Help.

 

Not sure if that helps or not.

[GroovyFish]

I use InDesign 2.0 on a daily basis, however I haven't upgraded to CS yet.

 

I don't know of any free tutorials, but I am sure there are some out there if you Google. I can suggest looking at totaltraining.com, you can purchase a CD training program. I have their PS 7 training CDs and they are really excellent.