Adobe InDesign CC Guide

How to use text

Because Adobe InDesign is a page layout tool, working with text is an important skill. With InDesign,
you add all text (and all content) into frames. Frames are shapes (called paths) that hold content on a
page. You can’t add text without adding a text frame, and that’s a good thing, because frames offer
you a wide range of possibilities for formatting and positioning text and for controlling text flow—
how text continues from frame to frame.
In this guide, you’ll learn to add text frames and to apply basic formatting—such as font family, font
size, and text color—and advanced text formatting—such as leading, kerning, tracking, and shifting
the baseline (Figure 1). Advanced text composition options give you greater control over how
paragraphs appear in the final document. You can download the sample card used in this tutorial
here.

Kerning

Baseline shift Cooper Black font

Tracking Avenir font

Leading

Figure 1 Sample business card with fonts applied to text with leading, kerning, tracking, and baseline shift.

Adding a text frame

In InDesign, you place all text within text frames. The easiest way to create a text frame is with the Type tool.
You can also create text frames with the frame tools. Using the Ellipse Frame tool and Polygon Frame tool, you can
create text frames that are non-rectangular, such as a circle, hexagon, or star.

How to use text InDesign Guide 1

To create a text frame with the Type tool:
1. Start InDesign and create a new document.

2. Select the Type tool in the Tools panel (Figure 2). Selection tool

The pointer changes to the Type tool pointer (a text

insertion icon bordered by a dotted line).

3. Drag the Type tool across the page to create a Text

frame (Figure 3).
Type tool
To help you position the frame, you may find it useful
to show the Document grid (View > Grids & Guides
> Show Document Grid). Figure 2 Tools panel
As you drag, a blue box appears with an indicator for
width and height.

4. Release the mouse button to create the text frame.

Observe that a blinking text-insertion point appears in

the text frame.

5. Type some text, such as your name.

The text appears in whatever font family, font size,

and other text settings were previously set in the Type
Control panel.
Figure 3 Dragging to create a text frame
6. Without moving the insertion point, click the Selec-
tion tool at the top of the Tools panel.

Frame handles appear at the edges of the text frame

(Figure 4). You can drag these handles to resize the
text frame.

You can recognize text frames by the text ports—

empty squares that are larger than frame handles—
Text port Frame handle
on their left and right sides. You use text ports to
make connections between text frames. Figure 4 Frame handles on text frame

How to use text InDesign Guide 2

 Formatting text

In layout, the appearance of text is an art in itself. Although much of your text’s impact will derive from its typography
(the font you choose for your text), you can fine-tune its appearance by adjusting a number of additional factors. Such
fine-tuning is especially important for titles and other large-set text, because you want this text to stand out to create
interest, and readers will notice subtle adjustments to large-set text more than to text set in smaller sizes.
You format text by using the Control panel (Figure 5).

Select character or Fonts size Underline

paragraph style
All caps Kerning Character style
Fonts widget Alignment

Font style Small Tracking Justify

caps
Leading Strikethrough

Figure 5 Type Control panel

Selecting text and applying basic formatting to text

To change the color of text, you first need to select it. (Text will not change if you change settings with only the text
frame selected.) You can use the Control panel and Tools panel to modify the font, color, and stroke of text. Fill refers
to the color inside the outline of a character. Stroke refers to the outline itself. By default, characters do not have a
stroke applied.

Finding and managing fonts

Finding the perfect font to suit your design project can be a daunting task. You can use the Fonts widget in the
Character panel and the Type Control panel to display, search, and select fonts (Figure 5). You can also identify Favorite
fonts for easy access, and apply fonts on selected text while browsing so that you can see how your fonts will look in
the layout.

Fonts widget
The Fonts widget has four elements (Figure 6): B C
A. Button control to toggle between the two available A D
search modes: by full Font Name, or by First Word
only

B. Text field to display selected font name or enter the Figure 6 Fonts widget
search keyword.

C. Clear search icon; appears only when some text is

entered in the search field.

D. Drop-down arrow button to display the font list – all fonts or search results.

How to use text InDesign Guide 3

Clicking the drop-down arrow button without entering
any search string displays a pop-up list of all installed
fonts (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Pop-up list of all installed fonts

Searching fonts
You can search for fonts by typing in the text field. As you
clear the font name and start typing, the search results
start appearing in the popup. An X icon appears in the
widget to help you clear off the results quickly and start
afresh. The search results are displayed as a flat list
(without grouping of font and associated family). For
example, Georgia is a family and has four styles – Bold,
Bold Italic, Italic, and Regular. If you search for Georgia, Figure 8 Font search pop-up
styles are displayed as separate entries and are not
grouped as one (Figure 8).

Browsing and applying fonts

You can also browse fonts using the Arrow keys to navigate up and down the font list. On choosing of a font, the style
is applied to the selected text in the layout and is available for preview. Clicking on a font name or pressing the Enter
key applies the font style and closes the Font List popup.

Managing your favorite fonts

You can add or remove a font from the Favorite list by Favorite icon
clicking the Favorite icon (star) in the font list. When you
click the drop-down arrow key, you see the Favorite icon
highlighted in Black for the fonts which are marked as
favorite (Figure 9).
Adding or removing a font belonging to a family adds or
removes the entire font family to the Favorite list
(Figure 10).

Figure 9 Favorite fonts pop-up

Figure 10 Font family in Favorite fonts pop-up

How to use text InDesign Guide 4

To select text:
1. Choose the Type tool.

2. Click in a text frame with text.

3. Drag the pointer over the text to select it (Figure 11).

The text is highlighted.

4. Use the Font widget to choose a different font family

in the pop-up menu. Try to choose a thick, blocky Figure 11 Selected text
style such as Copper Black or equivalent.

5. Choose a different font size in the Font Size pop-up Fill

menu, such as 18 pt.

6. Click the Small Caps button. Stroke

With Small Caps, all lowercase letters appear as small
uppercase letters.

7. Double-click the Fill box in the Tools panel (Figure 12). Apply color

When you have text selected, the Fill box appears Figure 12 Fill and Stroke tools in the Tools panel
with a colored “T.”

The Color Picker opens (Figure 13).

8. Select a color for the text fill in the Color Picker.

9. Click OK.

The text changes fill color.

10. Double-click the Stroke box in the Tools panel.

The Color Picker appears.

11. Select a color for the text stroke in the Color Picker.

12. Click OK. Figure 13 Color Picker

The text changes stroke color (Figure 14).

13. Click away from the text to deselect it and observe

the results.

Figure 14 Basic text formatting applied

How to use text InDesign Guide 5

 Adjusting text spacing and applying baseline shift

To improve readability and meet design goals, you can also adjust the spacing between lines and characters—leading,
tracking, and kerning—and change the vertical location of some characters—baseline shift.

Adjusting leading
Leading refers to the space between lines. You’re probably used to differentiating between single-spaced and double-
spaced text. By adjusting leading, you can fine-tune the space between lines.

To adjust leading:
1. With the Text tool, select some text.

2. Choose a value in the Leading pop-up menu

(Figure 15).

You can also enter a numeric value in the Leading Leading pop-up menu
menu’s text box.
Figure 15 Leading menu in the Control panel
For example, 29-point leading was applied to the
20-point address lines in Figure 16.

You can also set the pop-up menu to Auto. This

option lets InDesign set the optimal leading for the
selected text size, but this might not always be the
best design choice for your design projects. Auto-sized
selected leading displays brackets around the leading
measure.

Figure 16 Leading applied to text

Adjusting tracking
Tracking refers to the space between characters across a line of text. When you adjust tracking, you can space the
letters further apart. (You will usually not want to reduce tracking unless you’ve already increased it.)
Tracking is measured in 1/1000 em. Em is relative to the current type size. In a 12-point font, 1 em equals 12 points; in a
10-point font, 1 em equals 10 points. To give characters dramatic spacing, you need to enter fairly high numbers in the
Tracking box—at least 300.

How to use text InDesign Guide 6

To adjust tracking:
1. Select some text.

2. Choose a value in the Tracking pop-up menu

(Figure 17).

You can also enter a numeric value in the Tracking Tracking pop-up menu
pop-up menu’s text box.
Figure 17 Tracking menu in the Control panel
For example, tracking of 400 was applied to the
bottom line of 34-point text in Figure 18.

Figure 18 Tracking set to 0 (top) and tracking set to 400 (botom)

Adjusting kerning
Kerning refers to the space between any two characters. By default, InDesign applies metrics kerning to your text.
Metrics kerning automatically adjusts the space between letters so letter pairs that produce gaps—such as LA, Pa, Ta,
We, and Yo—have spacing consistent with letter pairs that do not produce gaps. These letter pairs are called kerning
pairs and are included with most fonts.
For fonts that do not include such pairs (which is rare), you can use another kind of automatic kerning called optical
kerning. Optical kerning adjusts the space between letters, based on their shapes. Optical kerning is also useful when
you use two different typefaces or sizes in one or more words on a line.
You may also want to adjust kerning manually. Usually, you only need to adjust it for large font sizes or when you want
the letters to look very close together. To adjust kerning between letters, click between them and change settings in
the Kerning pop-up menu in the Control panel (Figure 19).

Kerning pop-up menu

Figure 19 Kerning menu in the Control panel

Applying baseline shift

A font’s baseline is the lowest point of letters that do not extend below the baseline the way y and g do. You can use
baseline shift to adjust the baseline for one or more characters.
• If you enter a positive number in the Baseline Shift pop-up menu, the text moves up from the baseline.
• If you enter a negative number in the Baseline Shift pop-up menu, the text moves down from the baseline.

How to use text InDesign Guide 7

To apply baseline shift:
1. Select the character to which you wish to apply
baseline shift.

2. Click in the Baseline Shift pop-up menu, and then

press the Up or Down Arrow key to adjust the charac-
ter’s baseline (Figure 20). Baseline Shift pop-up menu
Figure 20 Baseline Shift menu in the Control panel
For example, in Figure 21, the baseline for the M, R
and N letters has been adjusted negatively in the
bottom line of text.

Figure 21 Baseline shift set to 0 (top) and set to -12 (botom)

Managing overset text

As you make formatting changes—especially changes that increase the total amount of space occupied by text—you
may create overset text. Overset text refers to text that does not fit in the text frame. When text is overset, a red plus
(+) will appear in the right text port (Figure 22).

Indicates text is overset

Figure 22 Frame with overset text

In these cases, you can take one of three actions:

• Reduce font size, leading, or tracking so that the text fits into the frame.
• Increase the size of the text frame.
• Flow excess text into another text frame. (For more information on this option, see “How to manage text flow
between frames” guide and InDesign Help.)

How to use text InDesign Guide 8

 Advanced text composition

The appearance of text on your page depends on a complex interaction of processes called composition. Using the
word spacing, letterspacing, glyph scaling, and hyphenation options you’ve selected, InDesign composes your type in a
way that best supports the specified parameters.
InDesign offers two composition methods: Adobe Paragraph Composer (the default) and Adobe Single-line Composer.
You can select which composer to use from the Paragraph panel menu, the Justification dialog box, or the Control
panel menu at the right end of the Control panel.
The Paragraph Composer considers where to place line breaks and can respace earlier lines in the paragraph (based
on such principles as evenness of letterspacing, word spacing, and hyphenation) in order to eliminate unattractive
breaks later in the paragraph. The result is paragraphs with even spacing and fewer hyphens.
The Single Line Composer offers a traditional approach to composing text one line at a time. This option is useful if you
want to deal with paragraph composition in the last stages of your document production.
Suppose you want to precisely control word spacing and letterspacing, as well as the width of characters in a set of
justified paragraphs. You can use the Paragraph Composer to do this.

To set a composition method for a paragraph:

1. Select some text that contains multiple paragraphs.

2. Choose Type > Paragraph.

Paragraph menu
The Paragraph panel opens (Figure 23).

3. Choose Justification from the Paragraph panel

menu.

The Justification dialog box opens (Figure 24)

Figure 23 Paragraph panel

Figure 24 Justification dialog box

How to use text InDesign Guide 9

4. Change the default values to the following values in
the Justification dialog box:
• Word Spacing Minimum 60%, Maximum 150%
• Letter Spacing Minimum -50%, Maximum 150%
• Glyph Scaling Minimum 80%, Maximum 120%
• Auto Leading 140%
The Minimum and Maximum values define a range of
acceptable spacing for justified paragraphs only. The
Desired value defines the desired spacing for both
justified and unjustified paragraphs:

• Word Spacing The space between words that

results from pressing the spacebar. Word Spacing
values can range from 0% to 1000%; at 100%, no
additional space is added between words.
• Letter Spacing The distance between letters,
including kerning or tracking values. Letter
Spacing values can range from -100% to 500%: at
0%, no space is added between letters; at 100%,
an entire space width is added between letters.
• Glyph Scaling The width of characters (a glyph is
any font character). Glyph Scaling values can
range from 50% to 200%. Figure 25 Paragraph text justified with last line aligned left

5. Set the Single Word Justification option to specify how

you want to justify single-word text lines.
In narrow columns, a single word can occasionally appear by itself on a line. If the paragraph is set to full justifica-
tion, a single word on a line may appear to be too stretched out. Instead of leaving such words fully justified, you
can center them or align them to the left or right margins.

6. Click OK.

The Adobe Paragraph Composer lays out the paragraph text (Figure 25). Observe how the text is justified
according to the settings you entered in step 4.

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