InDesign CS6 Fundamentals

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
818 Students

Learn how to use Adobe InDesign CS6, the industry-standard desktop publishing software program, to design professional-quality letterheads, brochures, eBooks, and more.

In this Adobe InDesign CS6 class, you'll get hands-on desktop publishing training and come away knowing how to use this popular page layout software program to design and create professional-quality letterhead, business cards, brochures, PDF files that play movies, and more. You'll discover that you don't have to be a designer or an artist to produce professional-quality documents!

In each lesson, we'll cover an important aspect of InDesign CS6 as you prepare a range of print and online products for Natalie, the fictional owner of Natalie's Nautical Emporium. You'll get dozens of files to use in the lessons—partially completed InDesign files, as well as the graphics, images, fonts, and other content required for the project. And to check your work or troubleshoot any problems you encounter, you'll always get a copy of the finished InDesign project file.

Lesson by lesson, you'll explore the best ways to use the features in this program to create different types of material, how to organize and name your files, and how to reuse items such as colors and artwork. By the time you finish the course, you'll not only be comfortable with the tools and features that InDesign CS6 offers, you'll also know the most efficient ways to use the program to produce the materials you need for your own work, recreation, or hobbies.

Courses are delivered to you through expertly executed lessons, online instruction and interaction with like-minded students. Our courses are designed to deliver all of the benefits of studying in a classroom whilst giving you the flexibility to study at a time and place to suit your needs. You can access your classroom 24/7 from any device with an internet connection.

This course has a 3 month duration. You'll complete comprehensive lessons, quizzes and assignments before submitting your final exam at the end of the course to achieve your certificate. Courses must be completed within the 3 month access period.

Wouldn't it be terrific if you could use one program to create all the different types of print materials you need for your small business, organization, or family—such as letterhead, forms, and even brochures and business cards? Well, you can! We'll spend this first lesson going over all the different types of content you can produce with InDesign. We'll explore the InDesign workspace and tools, and then we'll get right to work on our first project—a logo for the fictional business we'll create materials for throughout this course!

Today, you'll learn all about starting and saving a new document. What's one of the most common types of print documents? If you said, "letterhead," you'd be right, and well on your way into this lesson's project. By the end of the session, you'll know how to choose settings for a new file, add background images, and organize your content to create a custom letterhead. You'll also add a second page to create a matching envelope. And as in all of our lessons, we'll go over how to use the specific colors, styles, and logo for our fictional business, but you'll be able to use the same techniques for your personal business or projects.

Organization is a key ingredient in successful work of any kind, and it's critical to successfully using InDesign. In this lesson, you'll learn about organizing in two ways. First, you'll see how to use a workflow, or an order of operations for creating an InDesign publication. Then we'll go over how to organize materials on a page and how to use many of InDesign's tools for aligning, organizing, and laying out your content. In the process, we'll complete three projects: a sheet of address stickers, a sheet of business cards, and a reusable business card template.

Many of your projects will use multiple pages with different layouts. Designing a catalog layout is the perfect way to learn these skills, and that's what we'll focus on today. We'll work with two different column layouts while exploring other InDesign features (like grids and document coordinates) that can help you lay out a page evenly. We'll also go over using graphic and text frame placeholders, so you don't have to add content to the page to see its layout. For a final touch of realism, we'll use placeholder text during the design process to give you a good idea of how a page will look when you're finished. You'll see how to add a graphic into an existing frame and make it fit, as well as how to add content instantly using a file called a snippet.

Managing text in precise and interesting ways is one of the big advantages of working with InDesign rather than a word-processing program. In this lesson, we'll begin a two-page brochure project that will take us two lessons to complete. In this first part, you'll learn different methods for adding text to your publication. Once the text is in place, you'll see how to check your text for typos and errors. We'll go over how to work with text in simple text frames and how to design threaded text (where the text slides through linked text frames on the page yet stays within the defined structure). We'll also use the Story Editor as an alternative to adding content in a layout view. You'll finish the lesson working with two columns in a single frame, and you'll see how to balance the content and auto-size the frame.

The two key elements in any print project are, of course, text and images. We went over text in our last lesson, so today, we'll finish up our two-page brochure project by going over just about everything you need to know about working with images—adding them to the page in different ways, adjusting their positions, and using various commands for coordinating their sizes, proportions, and frames. We'll begin by adding images to the brochure project pages we worked on in Lesson 5, and then we'll check out some special ways to add batches of images at once to make an image collage and to place images in interesting frames. Speaking of interesting—you'll also see how you can use InDesign transparency effects to add pizzazz to any project. You'll wind up the lesson making a printable photo cube from a template.

You might be surprised to learn that InDesign provides you with some of the same sophisticated drawing tools that you'll find in Adobe Illustrator. For example, InDesign offers the Pathfinder tool, which is the perfect tool to use if you need to combine simply drawn shapes and convert them into more complex and interesting objects. In this lesson, you'll learn how to work with some of the drawing tools to design a poster for a fashion show. You'll see how to draw several simple shapes and stack them using blend modes for interesting effects. One of the topics we'll go over is a text wrap, which is a special way to work with a drawing to tell InDesign where you want your text to display on your page. If you've ever wondered how to make text follow the shape of an object, curving around it on the page, our practice today will solve the mystery!

Did you know that your eyes can see over 16 million different colors? It's true! Fortunately, you don't have to work with that many colors in InDesign. But if you ever find yourself trying to choose between thousands and thousands of color possibilities, you'll understand why InDesign offers you so many different ways to work with your choices. In this lesson, you'll learn the best methods for choosing, naming, and organizing colors. You'll practice working with solid colors as well as gradients (which let you display a range of color within an object), and we'll round out the lesson by using some more special effects in today's fun project—a greeting card.

When you need to display bits of information in your publication and want to ensure it's easy to read, it's time to use a table. InDesign offers you lots of tools for designing and formatting tables while helping you make sure your content will coordinate with other documents. You'll see how this works today as we practice building tables for an invoice. You'll also find out how to use color tints in your table, as well as how to create and use styles to quickly and consistently reuse any of your layout features. Finally, we'll experiment with an interactive PDF form. You'll add some fields to a blank form, see how to configure a text field or button, and produce the PDF form.

Recycling doesn't just apply to items in your home or business. In this lesson, you'll see how to use the 3Rs of recycling in InDesign to complete a newsletter project. As you recycle and modify colors and styles from previous lessons to create new styles in your newsletter, you'll also reuse a lot of the tools and skills you've used in previous lessons. Learning to effectively use all of InDesign's tools and features in a variety of different ways on many different projects is what it's all about!

Whether you're designing publications for business, hobbies, social, or community activities, odds are you'll need to share them at some point. InDesign provides many options for exporting and reusing a document, as well as printing. We'll review a few of them today as we design a postcard using special fonts, colors, and image layout features. Have you ever seen text that shows an image of some sort through the letters and wondered how it's done? You'll know after today's lesson! By the time you finish this lesson, you'll know how to export a publication as an image and then place it into a new Web page, print directly from your desktop, or create a compact version of your finished publication ready to email.

In this final lesson, we'll really test InDesign's versatility. First, we'll use a two-color version of the business cards you worked with early in the course and dig into color separations—a common method of preparing a file for a professional print shop. We'll try out special layout tools for producing alternate page layouts of different sizes in the same document. Finally, we'll wind up the course by creating an e-book.

Donna Baker

Donna Baker is a freelance graphic designer and author of many books on design software and Web design. She produces custom tutorials, videos, and infographics for Adobe TV. She's also an Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Community Expert. As you m... Read more

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Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Online learning is a flexible way to study that fits around your schedule, giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace from anywhere in the world. You'll have 3 months to complete the course and can take the multiple-choice questions and final exam whenever it suits you.

If you need help, you can contact us anytime. You can also join the discussion area where you can interact with other students. The discussion area for each lesson is open for the entire duration of the course.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

We do not offer extensions or transfers for this self-paced course. However, you will have 3 months to complete the course, and if you need to cancel within the first 10 days of enrolment, we offer a money back guarantee.

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the InDesign CS6 Fundamentals you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

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Learn At Your Own Pace

We believe in personalised learning. That's why we provide all the tools and support you need to succeed at your own pace. With flexible learning, you'll stay motivated and retain more information. Plus, you can balance your studies with work and family commitments to make your dreams a reality.

We Won't Break The Bank

Education should be accessible to anyone who wants to learn. That's why we offer some of the most competitive prices in the industry with payments plans for just $25 per week. Investing in your future is a smart choice and doesn’t have to break the bank.

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There's no better way to learn than from experts with years of experience in your field. That's why each of our 200+ industry-led courses are designed to give you a real-life perspective on your industry. With our expert mentors, you'll learn from people who have a wealth of knowledge and experience, and who are passionate about sharing it with you.

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Microsoft Access 2010 Fundamentals

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
5566 Students

Learn to build, edit, and maintain a database in Access 2010, using tables, reports, forms, and queries to give you fast access to all your important information.

Take control over your data! Whether you're a novice or an experienced database user, this course will show you how to harness the full power of Microsoft Access 2010.

In these practical and project-oriented lessons, you'll learn how to use this award-winning MS Office software to create and customise tables. You'll build relationships between your tables to eliminate redundancies and slash data entry time. And you'll discover how to achieve huge reductions in data entry errors by setting default values, creating validation rules, and building input masks.

In addition, you'll find out how to make your database more user-friendly with custom data entry forms, smart lists, and other sophisticated controls. You'll learn how to retrieve exactly what you need from your database with powerful queries and reports, and you'll even start automating routine tasks with labor-saving macros.

By the time you've finished this course, you'll know how to create an effective database for any information you need to store, document, and manage—at home or on the job.

In this lesson, you’ll find out what Access is and how individuals, businesses, and organizations use it to store information. You’ll begin to build an Access database . . . including all the components that turn a list of records into reports, forms, and queries. We’ll start by opening the application and creating a new database.

It’s time to lay down the law! Today you’ll impose rules that automatically fill an Access table field with a preset value or that automatically insert the symbols commonly included in phone numbers. Also, you’ll set up rules that require allow only certain kinds of data in certain fields. With just a few minutes of work, you can make data entry simpler, clearer, and practically error-free.

Today you’ll create additional tables for our class database, customizing them along the way, and then build relationships between them. This all paves the way for later database features, such as reports, queries, and forms that draw from multiple tables in the database.

In this lesson, you’ll use forms for data entry and for viewing records in your tables. You’ll meet the Form Wizard, which makes form building fast and easy and which allows you to select one or more tables’ fields to include. You’ll also determine form layout.

In this lesson, you’ll add buttons and controls to forms. You’ll also adjust table relationships to support the creation of multi-table forms . . . which paves the way to creating queries and reports that draw data from more than one table.

Using queries to sort, filter, and search your database is one of the most important skills you’ll master in this course. In this lesson, you’ll create queries that search for specific data. You’ll also customize how Access displays that data. You’ll follow instructions step by step, so you gain confidence with the process; then I’ll turn you loose to create a query on your own.

A query that puts specific records in order or finds all the records that have a general piece of information in common is, well, pretty common. Being able to create that kind of query is a great foundation skill, but it won’t help you find a very specific record. Nor will it let you search for records within a span of dates or other numeric values. It also won’t help you exclude certain records, reducing a large pool of data to just those records you need to see. In this lesson, you’ll create queries that give you true power to search your database.

In this lesson, you’ll learn to plan, build, and use queries that pull data from more than one table at a time. This gives you more power over your data and allows you to build a great foundation for truly customized reports.

Reports are easy to create and to customize. In this lesson, you’ll build a simple report using the Report Wizard. Then you’ll change the report’s appearance, using layout view and design view. These skills provide the foundation to create and design any report you may need, on any data in your database.

In this lesson, you’ll create reports that are based on the results of queries you create to sort and filter your database. Because queries can combine data from multiple tables, filter for specific data, and sort the results, your report reflects just the data that meet the query’s criteria. This makes truly customized reporting possible—and quite simple.

In this lesson, you’ll plan and create a completely customized report, using a specialized query that controls which data the report includes. You’ll add fields that perform calculations on your data. You’ll customize your report’s layout, too, using design view’s many tools for controlling the structure and appearance of your data.

Building macros (short programs that perform a series of steps) helps you speed up and create consistency in your more repetitive Access tasks. From opening a form to running a report to building a new record in a table, macros eliminate redundant procedures by turning them into something you can do with one click.

Laurie Fuller

Laurie Fuller has been teaching people to use computers, software, and the Internet for more than 15 years—including personally training thousands of students, writing hundreds of training manuals, and authoring and co-authoring more than 30... Read more

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Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

What people are saying about our courses

This was the most organized and helpful computer class I have ever taken. I appreciate your patience, humor and clear directions, Laurie. I am sure it will help me with an Access-based work database that I have to tend and feed when school starts again. I also will be recommending this to others at work.

Verified Student

Thank You very much for a very well put together introductory class. What I liked best is that you always included tips on how to take things one step further, or how to change items to match other requirements. I learned not only how to use a function, but how to apply it in different environments.
I will now be able to confidently use Access for many applications. Being able to do these lessons on my own schedule was a tremendous plus! Keep up the great work!

Verified Student

The use of the videos is extremely helpful when we get into more technical areas. I have been self-taught in Access and know only the information I need to - to get the job done. However, I learned a great deal and look forward to the intermediate course available. Thank you. This is the first experience our company has had in online training (6 of us are in training right now) and it is very convenient, affordable and well worth the time. You seemed to be very experienced and also do a very good job explaining the topic in your videos.

Verified Student

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The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Microsoft Access 2010 Fundamentals you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.