February, 2007
In this tutorial you will learn how to set up and use a "library" to hold commonly used items such as logos, special text or even a repeating page. Tutorial Includes project files.
1. Open a new document in InDesign at your own preferred size.
2. To start a new library you go to File -> New -> Library
3. It will prompt you to save a file (.indl) that will be your library. You can save this file anywhere you like but I recommend you do so in the same folder as the InDesign program. That way it is easy to locate when you need to use it. In this example I have named the library "CommonLogos" and saved it in the InDesign CS2 program folder.
4. Once you hit save you will see a small palette appear on your screen with the library name on the top. This is your new library where you will be storing items you use often.
5. Now we will learn how to store a logo that is used a lot. In your new document you want to create a picture box so that you can place an image.
6. Place (Cmd/Ctrl-D) an image. You can place the EPS from the "source_file" folder (00052.eps) or you can place another image.
7. Once you have the image placed there are two different ways you can moved the item into your library.
8. You can click on the image and drag it into the palette where it will then appear.
9. Another way...You can select the image and then click on the "new library item" button found on the bottom right of the palette.
10. Once you do step 8 or 9 you will find that the item is now in the library palette.
11. Sometimes you will want to rename the item in the library so it is easier for you to locate or remember what it is there for. You can do this by double clicking on the item so a new window opens called "Item Information." A. In the "Item Name" field you can type over the existing file name to rename it . In this case I have renamed the numbered file (00052) so it now named FishLogo. B. In the "Object Type" field you can tell what type of file the item is. In this case it is an EPS file. Some other file types found there are text, page, geometry, image and pdf.
A.
B.
12. So now that you have the library with an item in it you can try to place that item from the library into your document. First delete the existing Fish logo that is in your document. Now you can place the logo back into your document by clicking on the item and dragging it onto the document.
13. When you release the mouse over the document the item will be placed in the document as a linked item. It is important to remember this is a linked item because if you move the original file for any reason it will break the link in the InDesign document and you will need to relink it.
14. The following is just another example of an item, in this case text, being placed into a document.
15. If you want to remove an item from the library you can either drag the item onto the little trash can in the bottom right corner of the palette or you can select the item by clicking once on it and then click on the trash can. Removing an item from the library does not effect an item that is already placed in a document.
16. If you find that the library does not open when you open InDesign or you close it while you have InDesign open, all you have to do to pull this library back up is to find the .indl file (library file) that you saved. You do this by going to File -> Open -> your .indl file. In our example we saved it as "CommonLogos" in the InDesign CS2 program folder.
NEW FEATURE: Download the original source files from this tutorial in Zip format Here
Copyright (c) 2007, Jacob Van Ness, All Rights Reserved
