What you see on the Panels bar can vary based on the workspace. To the right of the workspace is the Panels bar which has some additional fucntions. Some tools like the Type tool for example have a small arrow underneath them which can reveal a similar tool with a different function. Clicking on these tools will open up further functions relevant to that tool in the Control Panel described above. It has the selection tools, the text tools, eyedropper tools, etc. The Toolbar which is usually to the left of the main workspace contains all the tools required to work with the document. Neither the pink nor the purple guides print out or will be seen in the exported PDF. If you have multiple columns, you will find that the purple guides define each column. The purple guides on the left and right are column guides. The pink guides on the top and bottom define the margins.

If you observe closely, the blank document is surrounded by black borders. We will be learning more about the New dialog box in the next chapter. This blank document was created using the default options in the New dialog box.

Next, we will take a look at the blank document. Make sure you dock it in a place, which is convenient as you’ll be using this very often. It is freely movable and you can float or dock it. The Control Panel basically allows you to change properties such as text formatting, color fill, and a host of contextually dependent functions. Control Panelīelow the application bar is the long strip called the Control Panel which is a quintessential component of the UI. The Br and St icons stand for Adobe Bridge and Adobe Stock respectively and you may or may not see them depending on your installation. It also allows us to tile multiple windows vertically or horizontally. Application Barįirst up, is the Application Bar on the top of the window beside the Help menu which allows us to set the document zoom level or allow turning the rulers and guides on and off. The interface is grouped into many panels as follows. Remember that the interface is fully customizable.

What we see above is the default interface for most installations. Let us take a quick tour of the user interface. It is important to properly understand the user interface to get the most out of InDesign.

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