Learn how InDesign's Paragraph Composer works and its implications for editors
- [Voiceover] A behind the scenes InDesign feature…that can cause editors confusion is the Paragraph Composer.…That is, until you understand its purpose.…I'll press W to turn on my guides,…and then zoom in and double-click…to make an insertion point into the text.…So the Paragraph Composer is especially useful…when working with justified text.…To achieve a smooth right edge to the text frame,…InDesign has to vary the spaces between the words.…
In doing so, the Paragraph Composer is looking…within the whole paragraph to determine…how to distribute the word spacing…as evenly as possible.…In practice, what this means is that if you edit…in the middle of a paragraph.…You can see there by adding in that text,…my word endings before the cursor…as well as those after the cursor are changing.…So this might be a problem if you're working…in a publishing environment where,…maybe a legal publishing environment,…where the word endings have been signed off.…
And then you wanna make sure that they don't change…with late stage edits.…
Author
Nigel French
Released
3/16/2016Author and designer Nigel French explains how to set up an "editorial workspace" that puts the tools you need most at close reach. He then moves on to selecting and editing text in InDesign: changing case, adding special characters, formatting lists, and inserting breaks. He also shows how to use the Story Editor, Notes, and the Track Changes feature, and explains how InDesign documents are constructed, so that you can edit them with more confidence.
- Opening and saving InDesign documents
- Creating an editorial workspace
- Using guides and nonprinting visual aids
- Selecting and editing text
- Changing case
- Accessing special characters
- Working with bulleted and numbered lists
- Checking spelling
- Working with Notes and Track Changes
- Understanding the underlying structure of an InDesign file
- Controlling text breaks
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 5s
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1. The InDesign Environment
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The InDesign interface3m 23s
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Recovering from mistakes1m 57s
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2. Editing Text
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Text selection methods2m 35s
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Basic text editing4m 20s
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Changing case1m 29s
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Accessing special characters3m 10s
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Editing tables4m 36s
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Bulleted and numbered lists4m 25s
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Using Find/Change4m 35s
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3. Editorial Panels and Features
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The Story Editor3m 7s
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The Info panel1m 12s
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The Notes panel3m 39s
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The Track Changes panel3m 2s
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4. How InDesign Documents Are Constructed
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Text frames3m 22s
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Master pages2m 35s
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Layers2m 57s
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The Paragraph Composer1m 58s
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5. Controlling Text Breaks
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Hyphenation2m 33s
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Page and column breaks3m 17s
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Breaking lines for sense1m 37s
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Fixing widows and orphans3m 39s
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Conclusion
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Video: The Paragraph Composer