Create a one-page newsletter

Adobe InDesign CC is the perfect tool for creating all kinds of publications. I’ll show you how to create your own newsletter, by starting with this template file, which is an InDesign document that you can customize to produce your own well-designed newsletter.

Our template file includes the headline type in a designed frame, a placeholder frame for an image, and 3 columns of text that are already set to the correct width.

If we switch from Preview mode to Normal mode, by pressing the letter “W,” we can see all the frame edges, and guides, and non-printing characters such as paragraph returns are displayed.

One of the most important things our template includes are paragraph styles.

Paragraph styles let you collect all the formatting you want to apply to your text and then apply that formatting with a single click.

Our template file contains placeholder elements that we’ll replace with our own content, including text and graphics.

Let’s start by choosing an image. One of the best sources for images is Adobe Stock, which we can access right through our CC Libraries panel.

At the top of the panel is a search field that lets you search among the thousands of images in the Adobe Stock catalog.

This newsletter is about an art festival at our local school, so I’m going to search for “painting art class.” All the relevant images appear in the library panel, and I can scroll down and choose the one I want.

I can purchase the image, or download a preview to my library, which is what I’ll do now, by clicking on this cloud icon.

The preview image appears in my CC Library panel and I can now place it into my layout. All I do is drag the image out; when my cursor is over the placeholder image frame, I simply click to drop in the image.

If I click on the image, you can see the image is a lot larger than the frame. To fit it into the frame, I just click on the first Frame Fitting option in the Control Panel, and the image fits perfectly.

If I decide this is the image I want to use, I can purchase it by right-mouse clicking on the image and choosing “Buy Image.”

I could also use an image I already have on my hard drive, by simply using the File > Place command.

Replace placeholder text with newsletter text Next, we’ll replace the headline placeholder text on the page with our own text. I’ll just select this text notice the new text is already formatted correctly.

Next, I’ll bring in our new article text, which was written in Microsoft Word. I’ll delete my placeholder text, then use the File > Place command to bring in my new text.

All the text comes in formatted in the style Body Text.

There are two subheads in the text that need to be formatted, so I’ll do that using my Paragraph style called Subhead.

You can see how easy it is to format text with Paragraph styles. And perhaps the best part is that if you decide to change the format of your text, all you need to do is to change the definition of the Paragraph style and it updates throughout your document. Let’s say I want to change the format of the subhead text. I’ll zoom in using the keyboard shortcut Command or Ctrl and the plus key.

Next, I’ll select the text and go to the font menu. I want to use a Typekit font, so I’ll filter all my fonts by clicking on the Typekit icon at the top of the menu.

I like the font, so I’ll choose that from the menu. My selected subhead changes, and that looks good, but the other subhead didn’t change. If we look at the Paragraph styles menu, there is a plus sign. That means the selected text doesn’t match the current style definition, but I can easily update the definition to match the new subhead, by right-mouse clicking and choosing “Redefine Style.”

Styles makes it really easy to change the formatting and design of your document quickly.

We can also change any of the elements in our template file, including customizing color. Let’s change the headline frame color. Select the frame, then, from the Control panel, choose a new fill color from the Swatches list and click to apply it.

Once your newsletter is complete, InDesign makes it easy to distribute and share your document in a variety of ways.

You can create a PDF file by choosing the Export command.

You can then save the PDF to your hard drive.

Another way you can share your document is by using Publish Online. With a single click, Publish Online lets you publish any InDesign document online and easily share it.

To use Publish Online, simply click the button in the upper right corner of your screen.

With a click, the document is uploaded to a unique URL.

Once the document is published, you can view it from right within InDesign, or share the unique URL via email, social media, or even embed the document in your website.

InDesign makes it easy to create publications like this newsletter and to easily distribute and share it with anyone, anywhere.