Introduction to Adobe InDesign

Considered the industry standard in book and magazine publishing worldwide, Adobe InDesign is a professional desktop publishing software used to create layouts and designs for print and digital media. InDesign skills are an asset for any publishing professional, enabling them to produce high-quality, visually engaging documents, from books and product catalogues to brochures and online graphics.

This highly practical online course, developed and led by Dr Alice Piotrowska, will teach you the skills necessary to get started with this complex and exciting software. You will learn how to create, edit and export your own basic InDesign documents, participating in follow-along activities to practise and consolidate your new knowledge.

This course is designed for beginners with no prior knowledge of InDesign. It is fully live and interactive, with opportunities to ask questions throughout. Delegates will also receive exercise files and additional resources, including PDF guides covering the key topics discussed during the sessions.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Create new InDesign documents for both print and digital formats
• Navigate the InDesign interface and customise your workspace
• Work with document layouts, including multi-column pages
• Insert text and apply paragraph and character styles for consistent formatting
• Place and resize images
• Create and apply parent pages
• Export print-ready documents and interactive PDFs

Technical Requirements

To fully participate in this course, attendees must have access to the latest edition of Adobe InDesign. For those without a Creative Cloud subscription, Adobe offers a free 7-day trial, which will be sufficient for completing this course. Please ensure that the software is installed and launched before the session.

While not essential, we highly recommend using a dual-screen setup – for example, watching the course on a tablet while following along on a laptop or desktop computer.

About the Tutor

Dr Alice Piotrowska is a Lecturer in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University, where her role involves developing and delivering hands-on, industry-focused teaching on Adobe InDesign. Before transitioning to full-time academia, she spent over six years working with publishing companies and organisations, including as a creative freelancer providing services in marketing design and digital production – designing and typesetting materials ranging from full-length e-books and magazines to book catalogues and online visuals. She holds a PhD in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling and is an Associate Fellow of Advance HE.

Date: Tuesday 17 and Thursday 19 June 2025. The course is run over two days, with a total of 5 hours of live online time.
Time: 10:00 to 12:30 on both days.
Via Zoom