Indesign copy text - Graphic Design Courses

There are many ways of copying text in Indesign. In our Adobe Indesign courses we show you several methods.
We can, of course, create text from scratch by simply selecting the Type tool and clicking and dragging across the page to create a text box. The size of this can later be adjusted with the Selection tool (the black arrow). Once created you see a flashing cursor inside the box; if you don’t, or if it’s too big at the start simply change the size of the text in the top Control panel before you start typing.
Once you have typed out your copy you can then select all and change the formatting at the top Control panel. Note the drop-down menu for fonts. Many fonts come with the program, but you can download a font to your system fonts folder, and next time you open Indesign it’ll be there in the list. Many fonts in the list have been created by Adobe, indicated by a red letter A. These are special fonts created to be cross-platform, meaning that they work well with either a Mac or PC. Other fonts are True Type fonts – these are an older font type but are also versatile, meaning that they have many variations within their font family, and allow for advanced features like ligatures.
Since the introduction of Type Kit to the Adobe Creative Cloud, subscribers can now download up to 500 free fonts, worth tens of thousands of dollars. This means that there should be no font mismatches or missing fonts in future.
Once formatted we can then save our options as a Character or Paragraph Style, which can in turn be saved into a template for future use.
We may also wish to copy text from another document. This could be an Indesign document, or it could be one created in Microsoft Word, or even from a PDF. To do this simply open the document, select the text and go to Edit > Copy (Ctrl+C). Then create a text box in your Indesign document, and go to Edit > Paste (Ctrl+V). This works for the above three file formats. You may also go to File > Place and navigate to a Word document. And format as above.
More tips can be found at the Sydney Indesign User Group which meets regularly in the city, and is a free forum for designers to discuss topics and the latest Indesign features. See many examples of our own clients’ work on our Facebook page.
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