Multi-page brochure
Deliverable: A twelve-page brochure built on master pages with a baseline grid, using paragraph styles throughout, exported as a print-ready PDF with bleed and crop marks.
Course
Adobe InDesign
The layout tool for anything longer than one page — master pages, styles and grids, so a hundred-page document stays consistent and a late change takes minutes.
- Duration: 6 weeks
- Classroom · Online live
- Level: intermediate
What you will be able to do
- Set up a multi-page document with correct margins, columns and bleed
- Build master pages that carry page numbers and running headers automatically
- Define paragraph and character styles and restyle a whole book from one panel
- Flow long text across pages and control widows, orphans and hyphenation
- Place, link and update images without embedding or duplication
- Preflight, package and export a file a printer will run without querying
Who this course is for
- Comfortable with a computer and basic design tools
- DTP operators producing books, magazines or catalogues
- Designers who currently lay out long documents in Photoshop or Word
- Basic Photoshop or Illustrator familiarity is helpful
Syllabus
6 modules · 6 weeks
Module 1. Document setup
- Pages, spreads, margins and columns
- Bleed, slug and trim
- Baseline grids and why body text should sit on one
- Facing pages and thinking in spreads rather than pages
Module 2. Master pages and automation
- Creating and applying masters
- Automatic page numbering and section markers
- Running headers driven by content
- Overriding a master item without breaking the link
Module 3. Type and styles
- Paragraph styles, character styles and nested styles
- Based-on styles and changing a whole document from one place
- Threading text across frames and pages
- Widows, orphans, hyphenation and justification settings
Module 4. Images and objects
- Placing versus embedding, and the links panel
- Fitting, cropping and text wrap
- Object styles and consistent framing
- Updating a linked file after editing it elsewhere
Module 5. Long documents
- Table of contents generated from styles
- Tables, and formatting them without fighting
- Books, chapters and synchronising styles
- Indexes and cross-references
Module 6. Output
- Preflight profiles and fixing what they report
- Packaging with fonts and links
- Export presets for print and for screen
- Interactive PDF and export for digital reading
Tools and technologies you will use
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- PDF preflight and packaging
Projects you will build
Book chapter with generated contents
Deliverable: A thirty-page document with running headers, automatic page numbers and a table of contents generated from styles, demonstrated by restyling the whole thing from the styles panel in under a minute.
Packaged handoff
Deliverable: One finished layout packaged with all fonts and linked images, plus a preflight report showing zero errors, in a folder another operator could open and print from directly.
Where this course can take you
- DTP Operator
- Layout Designer
- Editorial Designer
- Production Artist
- Publishing Assistant
Duration, modes and fees
- Duration
- 6 weeks
- Delivery modes
- Classroom · Online live
- Fees
- Share your details for the current fee
- Fees vary by batch and delivery mode. Ask about the combined fee if you take this with Photoshop and Illustrator.
Placement assistance
Every student gets placement assistance — that is what 100% placement assistance means. It is support for all, not a job for all. We do not promise a specific salary, a specific number of interviews, or placement at any named company, and you should be wary of anyone who does.
What is included
- A place in the monthly placement drive, held every third Saturday
- The readiness programme every second Saturday — mock interviews and preparation
- CV review against the specific roles you are targeting
- Portfolio review, so your project work is presented the way a reviewer will read it
- Access to the vacancy pool employers send directly to the Samyak network
- Guidance on which roles realistically fit your background and which do not
- A place in the next drive, with coaching, if you are not selected in this one
What is not included
- Any guarantee of a job, an interview, or a particular salary
- Placement at a named or partner company
- Applying to jobs on your behalf
- Support before you have completed the course and its project work
- Visa, relocation or overseas placement assistance
Built for documents that keep changing
A one-page flyer can be laid out in almost anything. A hundred-page catalogue cannot, and the reason is revision.
Insert a page into a book at chapter three and everything after it has to renumber. Change the body typeface and eight hundred paragraphs have to follow. Move an image and the text has to reflow. InDesign does all three automatically and the alternatives do none of them, which is the entire argument for learning it.
Styles are the whole skill
Everything else in this course is mechanics. Styles are the part that separates a layout artist from someone pushing text frames around.
The third project is deliberately specified to make the point: you restyle a thirty-page document from the styles panel, in front of everyone, in under a minute. Somebody who built it without styles cannot, and the demonstration is more convincing than any amount of explanation.
Links, not embedded images
Placing an image links to it rather than burying a copy in your file.
That means editing the photograph in Photoshop updates the layout, the file stays small, and the printer receives the original resolution rather than a re-compressed copy. It also means a missing link breaks the job, which is exactly why packaging exists and why the last module makes you do it properly.
Where it fits locally
Publishing houses, magazines and larger studios run InDesign. A lot of neighbourhood presses still run CorelDraw or PageMaker.
Both are real markets and we teach for both. If you are aiming at editorial or book work, this is the tool. If you are aiming at a local press, take CorelDraw first and add this when the work needs it.
Questions
Adobe InDesign — frequently asked questions
Why not just use Photoshop or CorelDraw for a booklet?
Because neither handles long text well. InDesign threads text across pages automatically, applies a style to a hundred headings at once, generates a contents page from those styles and renumbers everything when a page is inserted. Doing a fifty-page catalogue in Photoshop is possible in the way that digging a foundation with a spoon is possible.
Do I need Photoshop and Illustrator before InDesign?
Not strictly, but it helps a great deal. InDesign assembles and lays out; it is not where you edit photographs or draw logos. Most professional workflows use all three, and the course assumes you will bring images and vector artwork in from elsewhere.
What is the actual point of paragraph styles?
They mean a change happens once. On a hundred-page document a client asking for slightly larger body text is either a one-second edit or an afternoon of manual work, and which one depends entirely on whether styles were used from the start. The third project is specified to prove that difference to you directly.
Is InDesign used much in Indian print shops?
In publishing, editorial and larger design studios, yes. Smaller print shops still run CorelDraw or PageMaker for a lot of work. If your target is a book or magazine publisher, InDesign is the one to know; if it is a neighbourhood press, take CorelDraw first and add this afterwards.
Enquire about Adobe InDesign
Three details is all we need. A course advisor will call you back.
Related courses
- DTP (Desktop Publishing)
The job a print shop hires for, taught as the job — typing, layout, design and the preflight checks that decide whether a file prints correctly or comes back.
- Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop taught around non-destructive editing, so every file you build can be revised later — the habit that separates someone who can use the tool from someone who can work with it.
- Adobe Illustrator
The industry-standard vector tool, taught around building marks and illustrations properly — clean paths, real typography and files an agency or printer can open and edit.
- Graphic Design
Design principles first and software second, because employers hire for typography and layout judgement — the tools are learnable in weeks and the judgement is not.
Next step
Talk to a course advisor
Tell us what you want to learn and we will help you pick the right course, batch and mode.