It is very useful to create guides as an alignment tool, and we use them all the time in desktop publishing to ‘guide’ us as to the placement of objects.
In InDesign, we can choose to create page guides and spread guides. Here’s how.
1To start drawing page guides, use the Selection Tool (black arrow) – Click on the horizontal ruler and drag a guide to the desired position on the page. Use the vertical rulers to give you an accurate position if you need it.
2When you let go, the guide will be automatically ‘dropped’ – you can change its position by clicking on it with the Selection Tool and moving it. You can also drag it back into the ruler to delete it.
3To create guides that span across a spread of pages, the important difference is that when you drag the guides down or across, you ‘drop’ the guide on the pasterboard, not the page.
4As you can see in this screenshot, I am dragging the guide into the pasterboard, not any individual pages. It helps if you zoom in and out here!
5We’re done! here is the spread showing one horizontal spread guide and 2 individual page guides.
This is an excellent tutorial. Thank you so much.
Wish you’d make more Indesign tutes, because there are hardly any good ones on the web.
I have a little question, if I may – when making a colored brochure for instance – do I color the background OR leave it white and then when printing it I use green paper for example? Also whats the best size for brochures?
I apologize if this is too much. I’m just purely new to Indesign.
And excellent work. I really enjoy coming here. Thanks a lot!