This week’s free InDesign secret features Anne-Marie Concepcion showing you how to manipulate the animation paths that control your moving objects in InDesign CS5 (and later). If you’ve tried setting motion paths in InDesign before, you know there are some pre-fabricated paths provided for you. Anne-Marie starts by demonstrating how you can easily change those paths with the standard path manipulation tools, namely the Pen tool and Direct Selection tool (aka the “white arrow” tool). Drag out lines to cover more area, add curves and swoops, express yourself in path format, then watch as your designated object dances to life across the screen.
Anne-Marie also discusses how to import a vector-based Bézier curve from another program, like Illustrator, and how to draw your own path from scratch using InDesign’s Pen tool. For InDesigners who are used to creating designs across a static page, learning how to use the Animation panel can be very liberating.
Meanwhile, Anne-Marie’s partner in InDesign secrecy, David Blatner, has a member-exclusive video in the Online Training Library® this week that conveniently shows you how to share objects safely and sanely between Illustrator and InDesign.
See you back in two weeks with more InDesign Secrets from Anne-Marie and David.
Interested in more?
• All the InDesign Secrets on lynda.com
• Courses by David Blatner on lynda.com
• Courses by Anne-Marie Concepcion on lynda.com
• All lynda.com InDesign courses
Suggested courses to watch next:
• InDesign CS5 Essential Training
• InDesign CS5: Interactive Documents and Presentations
• InDesign CS5.5 New Features
• InDesign CS5 to EPUB, Kindle, and iPad
• InDesign FX
