Course Objectives: The Art of Writing and Editing
The aim of the course is to introduce students to professional methods of text formatting — from a single paragraph to a complex, multi-page publication combining text and images.
Students learn to build consistent style systems that format text automatically, consistently and without manual corrections. This keeps a publication attractive, readable and easy to edit further.
Course Content
The course covers the following topics:
- Paragraph styles
- Character styles
- Nested styles
- Lists
- GREP styles
- Object styles
- Table formatting — table styles
- Combining text and images
- Page numbering
- Parent (master) pages
- Footnotes
- Endnotes
Requirements
Taking part in the course requires two applications:
- Adobe InDesign
- Microsoft Word (desktop application). Download the desktop Microsoft Word
Working Method
During the course, students work in Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Word side by side. They carry out the same tasks in both applications, so they can compare how a given operation is done in InDesign and how it is done in Word.
This comparison shows the possibilities and limitations of both programs and helps students choose the right tool for the job: Word for preparing and editing text, InDesign for professional typesetting and page layout.
Comparing the Topics in Both Applications
|
Most topics can be handled in both programs, but nested styles, GREP, object styles and parent pages are fully supported only in InDesign.Topic |
Adobe InDesign |
Microsoft Word |
|
Paragraph styles |
Paragraph Styles panel |
Styles gallery and Styles pane |
|
Character styles |
Character Styles panel |
Character styles in the Styles pane |
|
Nested styles |
Defined within the paragraph style |
No equivalent — character styles are applied manually |
|
Lists |
Bullets and numbering in the paragraph style |
Multilevel lists and list styles |
|
GREP styles |
GREP styles in the paragraph style, GREP Find/Change |
No GREP styles — Find and Replace with wildcards |
|
Object styles |
Object Styles panel, anchored objects |
None — images formatted manually or with picture styles |
|
Table styles |
Table styles and cell styles |
Table styles |
|
Combining text and images |
Frames, threaded text frames, text wrap |
Text wrapping, anchored images, text boxes |
|
Page numbering |
Current page number marker on the parent page, numbering sections |
Page number field in the header or footer, sections with their own numbering |
|
Parent (master) pages |
Pages panel, parent pages applied to many pages |
No equivalent — repeating elements in headers, footers and templates |
|
Footnotes |
Insert footnote, document footnote options with paragraph and character styles |
Insert footnote, Footnote Text and Footnote Reference styles |
|
Endnotes |
Endnotes in a separate frame at the end of the document or story |
Endnotes at the end of the document or section |