[Book Review] Mastering InDesign Layout (Now Published as InDesign Visual Layout Secrets)

Origins and Introduction

Why did I want to learn InDesign?

A long time ago, I was at a large dinner gathering with someone I barely knew then but who has since become my business partner.

I vaguely remember people at the table talking about starting a business, and it sounded as if the idea had already begun to take shape.

The more I listened, the more interesting it sounded. But I had not yet finished graduate school in law and probably could not get deeply involved, so I thought, “Well, whatever business we start, marketing is always going to matter, right?”

That was when I began studying “marketing,” hoping I might be able to help someday.

At its narrowest, marketing can mean the idea of selling a product. At its broadest, it includes not only sales concepts and strategies but also the production of many kinds of materials—images, videos, brochures, and more.

The personal-media strategy I value and continue to pursue also depends on organizing a substantial portfolio before independent freelance work becomes possible.

That is why “producing materials” and “understanding the fundamentals of marketing” became my two starting routes into the field.

If I really wanted to make presentable materials, I obviously could not rely only on Paint, PowerPoint, or even Canva. I therefore chose the Adobe family of applications as my entry point into production work.

Naturally, InDesign—an important application for portfolios and all kinds of printed materials—was part of that learning plan.

Strictly speaking, however, InDesign was not the first Adobe application I learned. Illustrator was.

So why am I writing the InDesign book review and learning notes first? Because I lent my Illustrator book to someone and then had no idea where it went. XDDDD

I have to say that InDesign is genuinely, incredibly good at laying out text-heavy promotional materials.

Why did I choose this book?

Walk into a bookstore and you will find a tremendous number of books about InDesign.

As I mentioned earlier, Illustrator—not InDesign—was my first Adobe application, and the reference book I used for Illustrator was not organized primarily around completed projects.

Although that book included plenty of practice material, when learning a layout application like InDesign I really wanted a large number of finished-project exercises.

After browsing back and forth, I found this book.

To be honest, I am not especially picky about learning books. If the writing is accessible, the operating steps are included, and practice materials are provided, that is usually good enough for me.

It is not as though I seriously inspect every book before choosing one. More often, I may simply buy the one with the nicest cover. (Hey.)

About the Book

The last time I visited the bookstore district near Taipei Main Station, I could still find a physical copy, so readers may be able to browse it before buying.

The book was reissued in 2021. It is no longer titled Mastering InDesign Layout; its current title is InDesign Visual Layout Secrets.

If you are interested in buying it, pay attention to the different titles used for different publication dates.

One additional point: Adobe applications generally require payment, and current releases use subscription plans. If you want to practice with the software, you can first download the seven-day free trial.

For more information about Adobe subscriptions or other plans, see Adobe’s official website.

I will now briefly explain the features of this book and how I felt it helped me learn InDesign.

It begins with a basic introduction to the interface

Calling this a special feature may sound odd, because software instruction books on the market today should normally include an introduction to the interface.

Why, then, do I consider an interface introduction at the very beginning so important?

It strongly affects how readers understand the lessons that follow and what the author means throughout the book.

If a book does not introduce the interface at the start and later fails to provide detailed screenshots of the relevant panels, readers may reach subsequent lessons without knowing which part of the application the text is discussing.

They may even be unable to find the button or panel required to complete a step, which can make the learning process deeply frustrating.

This book clearly identifies the toolbar, the Properties panel, and other interface areas at the beginning. At minimum, that keeps readers from becoming confused about what these technical terms refer to later.

Every procedure is illustrated

This is probably the most important feature to me. Anyone who has used Adobe applications knows that they are extremely powerful, but many features are difficult to find if you have never seen them before.

If an Adobe instruction book gives you nothing but a text sequence such as “A → B → C,” following it can be exhausting.

The book separates every operation into individual steps and explains them in detail, allowing readers to follow each step until they reproduce the result shown in the illustration.

For each step, it shows where to click on the toolbar, which Properties panel to look at, and which window will open afterward. Screenshots of all these details are included in the book.

As a result, when practicing alongside the book, I almost never encountered a situation where I could not find the required tool.

Sometimes I even found myself thinking, “Wow, this is so detailed—did this really need its own picture?” It occasionally felt like there might be too many images...

It teaches through projects rather than isolated functions

What does that mean?

A typical software guide may organize its content by function: one chapter covers text-related features, the next covers image-related features, and so on.

After finishing such a book, you may still feel, “I do not actually know where I would use any of these features.”

This book instead organizes every chapter around a different case. Each chapter produces one promotional piece, so by completing its instructions you also gain a corresponding work that can go into your portfolio.

You might ask, “Wouldn’t that repeat many steps—explaining paragraph handling or layers over and over again?”

That is where I think the book’s design is particularly clever: its cases appear deliberately arranged to avoid relying on the same functions.

In other words, the selected projects intentionally use different InDesign features, with very little heavy repetition. When overlap is unavoidable, the book points readers to the relevant earlier chapter instead of padding its pages with the same material.

For learners who need to build up many portfolio pieces within a short period, I think this book is an excellent choice.

It provides abundant practice assets

Can anyone really learn software operation without practicing? XDDDDD

That is why the most important thing I look for in a book is a large supply of assets. InDesign is built for text-heavy layout; surely I should not have to search my own files—or create entirely new materials—while I am still trying to follow the lesson. (Faints.)

As mentioned earlier, the book introduces InDesign’s functions and applications through projects, and it provides all the materials required for those exercises.

There is no need to worry about creating assets from scratch; you can simply use what the book supplies.

Another advantage is that its method of distributing those assets is environmentally friendlier and less troublesome for readers.

What do I mean by that?

Traditionally, books that teach software operation have supplied their exercise files on a disc.

Discs are rarely used now, and many computers no longer include optical drives. Bundling all the files on a disc can therefore be inconvenient.

This book instead puts all its practice materials online. It tells readers which website to visit, where to register an account, and how to download them.

Here is the publisher’s website: Acore International.

It once looked like a conventional publishing site and now appears more like an online store, but the site is still there.

After registering, search for the corresponding book. On its sales page, scroll down to find the downloadable practice files.

I would still like to make a small appeal to publishers: if you provide practice files, please stop using discs. Even traditional English-language magazines have moved to online files and systems now!

The exercises span many visual styles

The projects in this book range from the most traditional “older-relative greeting card” aesthetic to geometric line work mixed with cute cartoon styles. The selection is not limited to a single visual approach.

If you want to present these exercises in a portfolio, they can also demonstrate the range of styles you are capable of designing and the kinds of freelance work you can handle.

While practicing, you can further develop your sense of layout and color. I feel I gained quite a lot in that respect—although I am still not exactly passing with flying colors, 555.

There is a qualification, though. If you want your portfolio to express your own distinctive style, the exercises supplied by this book are not enough; you will also need separate side projects.

You definitely cannot rely on the book’s exercises alone to demonstrate a personal style.

How I Learned InDesign from the Beginning

In this section, I would like to share how I went from being an InDesign beginner to using it in real situations. I hope the process offers a useful reference for readers who want to learn the application.

This book was not actually my first attempt to learn InDesign. Earlier, when I wanted to begin producing marketing materials, I enrolled in an in-person course.

Overall, I did not find that course especially helpful. It felt like a traditional computer class: I could not concentrate very well, the pace had to account for everyone else’s skill level, and it could not move quickly. Much of the time I ended up quietly doing my own work instead. (That was simply my own experience.)

The main reason is that I have always learned mostly through self-study. I take relatively few lecture-based classes and naturally feel less comfortable with them. This has little to do with whether the instructor taught well, and I want to make that clear.

Still, after completing the in-person class, I had a better idea of which software versions the industry was using and which skills I needed to strengthen. That became the basis for deciding where to invest my later self-study effort.

Like most skills I learn, my InDesign study has its own Word document. That way, when I need information later, I do not have to keep reopening the book.

While working through the InDesign book, I perform every step used in its projects and then record each feature and its location using my own note-taking method.

I take detailed screenshots of every step and write down the concept behind each feature I encounter. I also adjust settings freely inside each feature’s dialog so I can understand the relationship between different parameters and the resulting appearance.

You may ask, “Do I need to read many books?”

I do not think so. If you work carefully through one complete book, you can move on to real practice afterward.

Even if you finish it very seriously, you will easily forget how to use the application unless you apply it to actual projects. You have to revisit the skills again and again.

After finishing this book, whenever I encounter a problem while using InDesign for projects both serious and ridiculous, I usually either return to my own notes or simply search Google with the relevant keywords.

“Then why not just Google everything from the very beginning?” you might ask.

Because without any foundation, it is difficult to know which keywords will lead to the answer you need.

Finishing this book merely gets you out of the beginner village. There is still a great deal left to learn. XD

Conclusion

InDesign was the second Adobe application I learned after Illustrator.

Because Illustrator had already given me a foundation, much of the interface knowledge and many settings carried over. Learning InDesign therefore did not create too much difficulty or burden for me.

But if I had already learned Illustrator, why did I need InDesign? Aren’t they more or less the same?

You may be wondering the same thing.

For a single page, or work involving more illustration and visual design, I personally tend to complete the project in Illustrator.

For multi-page promotional materials or documents with a large amount of text, I need to manage page layouts, arrange substantial text, and control paragraphs. In those situations, I use InDesign because it handles those tasks more systematically.

Illustrator can also consume a great deal of memory and slow down when too many images are involved, so the burden gradually increases.

That is why I believe that anyone learning to produce promotional materials should become a dual wielder of Illustrator and InDesign.

This is only my personal view. It is certainly possible to solve every problem with a single application; the choice ultimately depends on individual preferences and habits.

I hope this article gives readers who want to learn InDesign a direction for continuing, a book to consider, and some criteria for choosing learning resources.

See you in the next article!