For all its complexity and sophistication, Adobe Indesign CS2 is a remarkably simple and intuitive program to use. That said, unless you’re working with it on a regular basis, some of its features may go unnoticed or misunderstood. Some of InDesign’s most important typographic tools are buried away in submenus; some have arcane or intimidating-sounding names; others require little user interaction and are easy to overlook. Nigel French discusses his favorite type features in InDesign that you never knew you needed, but soon will not be able to live without.
For all its complexity and sophistication, Adobe InDesign CS2 is a remarkably simply and intuitive program to use. That said, unless you’re working with it on a regular basis, some of its features may go unnoticed or misunderstood. Some of InDesign’s most important typographic tools are buried away in submenus; some have arcane or intimidating-sounding names; others require little user interaction and are easy to overlook. Here are my favorite type features (in no particular order). Some are not exclusive to InDesign, but most were available there before being adopted by competitors.
Of course, everything in InDesign is in some way related to type, so it’s hard to know where to draw the line. I’ve concentrated on some of the more humble (dare I say more obscure) type features. Most of these features aren’t flashy, but instead do their work quietly, without calling too much attention to themselves—much like good typography itself.