Adobe InDesign: Importing Images and Using Links

Name: Adobe InDesign: Importing Images and Using Links
Author: Patti Scully-Lane

Gone are the days when you needed a dedicated team of professional typesetters and pressmen to prepare a poster, brochure, magazine, or newspaper for print. We…

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Course: On-Demand

In this lesson, you are going to learn about working with images in Adobe InDesign. We're gonna go to the File menu to open and navigate out to the Chapter Five lesson files and we're gonna open up About_images. When talking about images in InDesign, there are two main image types that we can place and those are vector images and raster or pixel-based images. The image at the top, the logo, is a vector-based image. Vector images are based on points and segments. If we click on this box here, we can go to the View menu and zoom in a little bit. This shows us the vector shape that is created, usually in Adobe illustrator. The shape is created using points and segments that are in between the points. The image is made up of either straight points or curved points and the curved points have these little control handles on them. The best part about vector images is that they are resolution independent. What does that mean? Well, it means that you can make them as large or as small as you need them and these shapes will never lose quality, which is why very often when creating things such as logos, we use vector shapes because logos need to be small on business cards but also large on billboards. So vector graphics, traditionally created in Adobe Illustrator, are based on points and segments. Now that's one type of graphic that we can use in InDesign. The other type of graphic, I'm gonna scroll down here, the other types of graphics are known as pixel or raster-based graphics. Now, these graphics are created using tiny little squares of color information. So here you can see a blowup of those tiny little squares of color. With pixel-based graphics, you need to make sure that you have enough pixels per inch in order to output your images properly. When you are creating images for print, you need approximately 300 pixels per inch in order for your images to work and print properly. If you are creating images for the web, then all you need is to have about a hundred pixels per inch, anywhere from 96 to a hundred pixels per inch because with images for the web, we are viewing them on a screen and most screens see just about 96 pixels per inch. Some see a few more than that so it really pays to know who your target audience is when you are designing graphics for the web and what kind of devices they are using to view your images. Now, the other thing that you need to keep in mind when you work with images in InDesign is the color mode. Both the resolution and the color mode are two things that you change not in InDesign but usually in Adobe Photoshop. The color mode for printed images is CMYK, the color mode for images for the web is RGB. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Those are the colors of ink that we use to make up thousands of colors for print. And RGB stands for red, green and blue and those are the colors that put together create the colors that we see on our screens. So depending upon what type of document you are creating in InDesign, you want to be aware of the color mode of your images as well as the resolution of your images if they are pixel based. So in this lesson, you learned about working with images in Adobe InDesign.

Beginner Provider : Patti Scully-Lane 6 Lessons · 35m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

Gone are the days when you needed a dedicated team of professional typesetters and pressmen to prepare a poster, brochure, magazine, or newspaper for print. We have dedicated apps for all that now, but none quite so prominent as Adobe InDesign, which has come to dominate the desktop publishing industry, making it an essential tool for modern-day communication. In this Beginner Adobe InDesign course, you will learn the basics of working with InDesign and how it fits in with the Creative Cloud desktop app. From there, you will learn how to open existing documents and create new documents from scratch using Adobe’s templates. Then you will progress to adding text and graphics to the page, as well as exploring and applying basic character and paragraph formatting, including a primer on working with Adobe fonts. You will understand how to analyze graphics to determine if they are vector or raster, RGB or CMYK, and if they have the correct resolution for your output. Finally, you will both link and embed graphics to figure out which is best for your situation; then you will see how to crop and modify those graphics to better fit your available page space.

In these lessons, you will learn how to add media in the form of images and links into your documents. Importing images is made easy in InDesign with the use of external graphics programs, and you will learn how to use these for their own documents. You will also learn how to use the links panel, and modify and embed your links into your documents.

What You'll Learn

Import images from external graphics programs into InDesign documents
Embed links to online content into text documents
Format hyperlinks into clickable standard text
Use the Links panel to manage imported graphics
Modify and embed links within your documents
Crop and fit graphics to better suit your available page space

Key Takeaways

InDesign makes importing images easy through the use of external graphics programs.
The Links panel is used to view, modify, and embed links within a document.
Graphics can be either linked or embedded, and the course shows how to add media in the form of images and links into documents.
Cropping and fitting graphics lets you adjust images to better fit the available page space.
This is a beginner-level course covering the basics of working with images and links in Adobe InDesign.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this course for?

This is a beginner Adobe InDesign course for learners who want to learn how to add media in the form of images and links into their documents.

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn to import images from external graphics programs, embed links to online content into text documents, and format hyperlinks into clickable standard text, as well as use the Links panel and crop and fit graphics.

What topics do the lessons cover?

Lessons cover Working with Images, Using the Links Panel, Modify and Embed Links, External Graphic Programs, Cropping and Fitting Graphics, and Display Performance.

What skills does this course build?

The course builds skills in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator, working with graphical tools, and works toward Adobe InDesign Certification.