What we're going to build - InDesign Tutorial

- [Instructor] Let's start by taking a sneak peak at what we're going to build. In the Exercise Files, you'll find a PDF called Globe Bank Brochure, and this is what we're going to end up with when we're done adding interactivity to our brochure file, and we're going to start from this InDesign document. If I look under File, Document Setup, I can see that this is a 10 page document, and it was created with Web Intent, which means I have things like color swatches in RGB mode, and a document size that's measured in pixels. In this case, that's 1024 x 768, and landscape orientation. That's the basic document that we're going to start with. If you want to create an interactive PDF version of a print brochure, you may have to do some work upfront to adapt the print file. Print brochure files often use CMYK colors, and may have page sizes like 8.5 x 11 in various kinds of folded configurations. Depending on what you're starting with, it might be easier to simply start from scratch with a new InDesign document, and bring in the specific elements that you want in your interactive brochure, rather than trying to resize pages and adapt the print layout. If you want a detailed look at how to take a document that was designed for print and optimize it for distributing on the web, then check out my course, Adapting a Print Layout for Digital Publishing. But again, in this course, we're just going to focus on adding the interactivity. So we'll start with a document that was made for viewing on screen. If I go back to the PDF file, in terms of interactivity, we're going to build navigation tools, like these buttons at the bottom of the page that can be clicked to jump one page at a time forward and back, and to the last page of the brochure, and the first page of the brochure. We'll also add PDF bookmarks, so our readers can always jump right to the topic that interests them, and I can open the Bookmarks pane, and see those bookmarks, and I can click on one like World Map. We'll add buttons with rollover states to make this map more interesting. If I move my cursor over here, I can see the text change. We'll add audio. (gentle instrumental music) And video. (groovy rock music) We'll add hyperlinks so that the viewer can jump to the website of a business, like this one down here at the bottom, and to other pages in the brochure. Finally, we'll add a simple form that someone can use to submit their contact information and subscribe to a newsletter. Now before we get started working in InDesign, I want to mention some of the strengths and weaknesses of PDF as a file format for digital publishing, so you can be sure that it's the right choice for your brochure project. On the plus side, every computer and mobile device has some means of displaying a PDF, so everyone will be able to open and view your brochure. You'll reach the most potential customers with a PDF. PDFs also fully preserve the look of a richly designed layout, with all the images, fonts, and so on, so they can be beautiful, and there are no surprises. PDFs are also very portable and self-contained, so they're easy to share and to distribute. The downside of PDFs mainly has to do with how they look and act on mobile devices. PDFs aren't responsive like HTML is. The layout is fixed in place, so on a small screen, they can be hard to read, and require a lot of zooming in and out, and scrolling around. They will also lose almost all of their interactive features when viewed in most mobile apps, so things like video and audio, buttons, rollover effects, and forms just won't work when your PDF is viewed on a phone or a tablet. But if you're primarily interested in reaching the most people using computers, and you're okay with a fairly static presentation on a mobile device, then PDF can be a great choice for a digital brochure. We'll get started building our brochure in the next movie with adding navigation elements.