Creating Animations in Adobe InDesign One Step at a Time is written by a longtime publishing expert, and thoroughly covers the theory and best practices for creating animations in InDesign CC. Design students not only learn how to add animation to their InDesign documents (via step-by-step exercises) but also helps them choose among the various digital format options for export– ePub (concentrating on the new Fixed-Layout variety), DPS , and PDF. Clear explanations and plenty of full-color graphics will guide students through the potentially confusing digital publishing landscape.

Adding animated effects in InDesign documents is a field set to grow. The practice was given a big push in the 2014 release of the Adobe Creative Cloud, when InDesign introduced the new Fixed-Layout EPUB export format. EPUBS exported in this format preserve the layout of the InDesign document, and can include animated effects as well as media, such as audio and video.

The book will cover over two hundred different effects students can create using the animation features of InDesign. These include animations that don’t appear in the regular animation controls. Each chapter will have four or more exercises that they can follow along. The chapter exercises will start very basic and then work up. So the last exercise in each chapter will take more time than the first. This means students can go through the book doing only the easy exercises in each chapter and come back later to get more involved.

Some of the exercises will use basic shapes. Other exercises will use more advanced artwork. All the artwork, including the basic shapes, will be available for download by the student so they can follow along with the exercises. In addition, the finished artwork for each exercise will also be provided to allow them to see how the animation is supposed to work.