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Adobe InDesign CC - Advanced Training Course (Udemy.com)

This Adobe InDesign tutorial is people wanting to up-skill their typography, color theory & graphic design abilities.

Created by: Daniel Walter Scott

Last updated January 2025

Our take

Based on the ratings of 4,473 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in January 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.

A follow-on to Daniel Walter Scott's InDesign Essentials course, this one is about the features working designers tend to skip: nested and GREP styles, long-document tools like cross references and indexes, interactive PDFs, forms, scripts and a stack of workflow shortcuts. The syllabus shows 75 lectures across about 8.7 hours, and the instructor is blunt that it is not for beginners. Reviewers agree. Several who have used InDesign professionally for years say they still picked up tricks they had never seen, while one calls it "a lot more technical" than the Essentials course.

Praise centers on Scott's teaching. Students describe him as calm, clear and structured, and they like that every feature comes with a reason to use it. The rating breakdown backs that up, with about 3,150 five-star reviews out of 4,470 and fewer than 40 at one or two stars. The complaints are real, though. There are no projects or assignments, which one five-star reviewer initially found disappointing. One student says he speaks a bit fast, and one two-star review calls it outdated, faults the styles advice for long documents and notes there is nothing on accessibility.

Some sections are thin: charts, forms, scripts and printing each get a single lecture, so treat those as introductions rather than full treatments. The last update was January 2025, so it is reasonably current for a course first published in 2018. If you have finished the Essentials course or already handle text and images comfortably, this is the natural next step. If you want tables, footnotes or Word imports covered in depth, look elsewhere.

Best forWorking designers who already build InDesign layouts and want the styles, long-document and speed tricks they never learned.
Skip it ifYou're new to InDesign, or you want projects to build, tables and footnotes in depth, or accessibility features.

Pros

  • Nested styles, GREP styles and next styles get a full seven-lecture section, not a passing mention.
  • Experienced designers, including one with 25 years in, report picking up new workflow tricks.
  • Short lessons with a practical reason attached to every feature, according to reviewers.
  • Updated January 2025, with exercise files, a cheat sheet and eight caption tracks included.

Cons

  • No projects or assignments, unlike the instructor's other courses; it is a tips-and-features format.
  • Charts, forms, scripts and printing each get a single lecture, so coverage there is shallow.
  • One low-star review calls it outdated and notes there is nothing on accessibility.
I’ve been a graphic designer for 25+ years and honestly thought I already knew InDesign inside and out, but Daniel proved me wrong in the best way.
Toni, a student

Listed as intermediate and that is accurate: comfortable adding text and images is the floor, Essentials graduates are the target.

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What you will learn

  • You will be able to earn more using these new InDesign skills.
  • You will create multiple designs for you to use in your Portfolio.
  • You will be able to add 'Advanced InDesign User' to your CV.
  • Create PDF Forms
  • Master Long Documents
  • Advanced Fonts
  • 70 lectures 5+ hours of well structured content
  • Create Charts & Infographics
  • Create Interactive Documents
  • Workflow Tactics
  • Shortcuts & Speed Tips
  • Advanced Creative Cloud Features
  • Tips for working with Photoshop & Illustrator
  • Exporting, Prepress & Printing tricks
  • How to use InDesign scripts
  • Downloadable exercise files & cheat sheet
  • Forum support from me and the rest of the BYOL crew
  • Techniques used by professional graphic designers
  • A wealth of other resources and websites to help your accelerate your career
  • You will practise font grouping & font pairing.
  • Create Nested Styles
  • Create Grep Styles
  • Create Next Styles
  • You'll create new colors for you layers using color themes & color modes.
  • Professional color proofing for print & web.
  • You'll update default fonts, colors & hyphenation.
  • Create image grids.
  • Create illustrations using the drawing tools in InDesign.
  • Build stylized first paragraphs.
  • Build headings that span columns.
  • Split bulleted lists within a paragraph.
  • Create large table based designs.
  • Add video to your documents.
  • Add buttons & interactivity to your PDF documents.

Course content

23 sections · 75 lectures · 8.7 hours of video 1 articles

  1. 1Overview 3 free previews3 lectures · 12 min
  2. 2Fonts 2 free previews6 lectures · 25 min
  3. 3Creative Cloud APP1 lecture · 6 min
  4. 4Color6 lectures · 35 min
  5. 5Drawing2 lectures · 12 min
  6. 6Paragraph Goodness11 lectures · 56 min
  7. 7Charts & Infographics1 lecture · 10 min
  8. 8Interactive Documents12 lectures · 1.1 hours
  9. 9Keyboard Shortcuts1 lecture · 11 min
  10. 10Long Documents5 lectures · 32 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • This course is for people who already know InDesign and want to take their skills and speed to the maximum level.
  • This is an advanced InDesign course, so you’ll need basic InDesign skills to find this course useful.
  • This course is perfect for anyone that already knows how to insert images & add text.
  • This course is perfect for anyone that has completed my InDesign Essentials course.

What you need before you start

  • You will need a copy of Adobe InDesign CC.
  • Basic knowledge of InDesign is required. I recommend watching my InDesign Essentials course before this course.
  • If you already know how to add text, images and do basic design in InDesign then you are perfect for this course.

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Course Description

Do you wish you could know every features inside Adobe InDesign? Then this course is for you. This course will take you from OK in InDesign to an advanced professional.

  • Gyna: "I truly enjoyed learning with Daniel. I have taken other courses to help me with InDesign, however, none that gave me the edge Daniel has. Many extras that other instructors have neglected to share, or didn't think important to teach. His good humor and in-depth knowledge make this course above and beyond the rest of the Advanced courses I have taken. Kudos and thank you, Daniel! I look forward to watching more of your instructional videos."

Hi there, my name is Dan. I am an Adobe Certified Instructor and an Adobe Certified Expert for InDesign and I work as a professional graphic designer. This course is about advanced features, productivity & workflow speed tricks using Adobe InDesign. 

This course is not for people brand new to InDesign. It’s for people who already know and understand the fundamentals. 

If you are already happy adding text & images to InDesign documents then this course is for you. Even if you consider yourself a heavy user, I promise there will be things in here that will blow your InDesign mind. 

  • Mazen: "This is my third Udemy class that I've completed of Dan's and I've learned so much. Everything that I've taken has been world-class and he truly puts a lot of effort into making his classes seamless and easy to understand. I highly recommend taking the plunge and taking one of his classes."

You’ll learn advanced typography tricks using Typekit & Opentype fonts, font grouping & font pairing. Mastering color theory features like the color theme tool and color modes as well as professional proofing for colors for print. We’ll set permanent defaults for fonts, colors & will learn how to turn hyphenation off for good, once and for all.  

What would an advanced InDesign course be without all the tactics to fully control paragraphs, auto expanding boxes, spanning & splitting columns. You’ll become a Styles master, using nested styles, grep styles, next styles & advanced object styles.  

We’ll make beautiful charts & graphs for your InDesign documents. You’ll learn the pros & cons of various digital distribution methods including Interactive PDF’s, EPUBs & the amazing Publish Online. 

  • Ari: "Daniel is a super talented and knowledgeable teacher. He is friendly and charismatic and teaches the course in a simple, engaging and easy to follow structure while teaching all the capabilities of the software from beginner to advanced techniques, tips and tricks. I seriously recommend Daniel to anyone wanting to learn any of the adobe courses. I have several and they are all brilliant! Thanks Daniel."

You’ll become a master of long, text heavy documents, autoflowing, primary text frames & smart text reflow, cross referencing, indexes, text variables & the InDesign book feature. There is entire section dedicated to how to speed up your personal workflow & how to speed up InDesign and get it running super fast. 

We look at interactive forms & scripts. There is just so much we cover and I want to share everything here in the intro but I can’t. Have a look through the video list, there is an amazing amount we cover here in the course. 

If you’re one of those people using InDesign and you know there is probably a better way, a faster way to work then this is your graphic design course. 

- Daniel Walter Scott

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Instructor Details

Daniel Walter Scott

Sharing is who I am, and teaching is where I am at my best, because I've been on both sides of that equation, and getting to deliver useful training is my meaningful way to be a part of the creative community.

I've spent a long time watching others learn, and teach, to refine how I work with you to be efficient, useful and, most importantly, memorable. I want you to carry what I've shown you into a bright future.

I have a wife (a lovely Irish girl) and kids. I have lived and worked in many places (as Kiwis tend to do) – but most of my 14+ years of creating and teaching has had one overriding theme: bringing others along for the ride as we all try to change the world with our stories, our labours of love and our art.

I'm a certified Adobe instructor (ACI) in Ireland. I'm also an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) and have completed the Adobe Certified Associate training (ACA). And I don't just do Adobe. Remember, media is a very broad term – digital blew out the borders, so we are all constantly learning.

I've been teaching for 14+ years. I come from being a media designer and content creator – so I understand exactly where you're at now. I've been there. I love this stuff. Print, digital publishing, web and video. I can see how it all connects. And I can see how we can share those connections.

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Reviews

4.6

4,473 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Rick B on 4/27/2026

I just finished Dan Scott’s Advanced InDesign course, and while I was initially a little disappointed, I quickly realized my first impression was off. Unlike his other courses, this one doesn’t include projects or assignments—something I usually enjoy. But once I got deeper into the material, it became obvious why. This course is far more technical and workflow‑focused than the more creative, design‑driven courses Dan teaches. If it had been project‑based, it probably would have distracted from the core learning. Instead, Dan packs the lessons with incredibly useful information, tips, and real‑world processes. As long as you follow along and use the provided files to practice, you’ll learn a ton. In the end, I stand corrected—this course is excellent. At this point, I should probably just trust that anything Dan puts out will be worth my time. Thanks again, Dan.

By Konstantinos KOUNADIS on 12/16/2025

Extremely outdated. Bad practices regarding Paragraph and Character Styles in long documents. Not really advanced. No mention of Accessibility features.

By Julie Bickel on 12/11/2025

I've been using InDesign for years, but knew there was a lot more to learn, and this was the perfect course. I've done a few courses by Daniel Scott and he never disappoints! Easy to follow, explains things clearly, and is engaging. I also love how he always strives to give a practical application for each and every nugget of knowledge: why X feature is useful (even if you didn't immediately think it would be), when to use Y, and how Z changes your workflow.

By Toni on 12/9/2025

Fantastic Advanced InDesign Course! I’ve been a graphic designer for 25+ years and honestly thought I already knew InDesign inside and out, but Daniel proved me wrong in the best way. I picked up so many clever tips and workflow tricks that immediately made me faster. I was genuinely surprised by how much “hidden” functionality I had never used before. Daniel’s teaching style is excellent: thorough, clear, and perfectly tailored for advanced users. He doesn’t waste time recapping basics, the pace is spot-on, and the short lessons make it easy to learn something new every day. The included sample files are extremely helpful and let you jump right into the point of each lesson. He’s friendly, funny, and makes the learning experience genuinely enjoyable. This was my first Udemy course, and I’m so glad it was with Daniel. I’ve already bought several more of his classes, and he’s now the first instructor I look for. Highly recommend!

By Nikola Nikolov on 10/30/2025

Great course! The course is packed with practical techniques and smart workflows. It’s not just for learning, it’s also a fantastic reference to return to whenever you need a refresher or don’t want to memorize every feature like a robot, or waste time googling and searching YouTube tutorials. This course is a must-have for anyone who wants to truly understand InDesign and master the program.

By Edyta Pyrkosz on 10/15/2025

Another fantastic course! I’ve just completed the Advanced InDesign course after taking the Beginner one, and it was just as great as before. Dan’s teaching style and sense of humor make learning so enjoyable, he explains everything clearly and keeps things engaging throughout. I’ve learned so much and feel much more confident using InDesign now. I’ll definitely be back for more courses with Dan!

By Drew Gilvary on 7/5/2021

This is the second course I've taken from Dan. About Half way through I registered for a bunch more of his courses. Like the Indesign Essentials course, there is a bit of material that is out of date or it's all stuffed in the "Updates" sections at the end of the course but these courses are still very current and extremely helpful. I probably would have enjoyed some practice assignments like in Dan's Indesign Essentials course but it's also not as necessary since most of this course focuses just on improving workflow or improving techniques already covered in the previous course.

By Chantal Fabres on 1/25/2021

It was a natural progression from Dan's ID introduction course. This my third course with Dan. I have systematically given him a five star rating. Dan is an exceptional teacher. He has opened up a whole new world for me in being able to dabble in Design quite early on and produce some good brochures for my job. Through his hands on teachings we are able to get to work quite quickly and produce great ID documents. Then as the course progresses we introduce more concepts but the bases are there to understand how we build up gradually. The course is incredibly well structured, organised, taught, and the examples are clever at illustrating concepts introduced. Dan is a teacher that makes difficult concepts seem easy. He is so good at what he does and has such a strong command of his skills he can seamlessly teach them and add fun and humour. I strongly recommend Dan Scott's courses to anyone.

By Andreea Emilia Ciucas on 1/3/2021

Great course! Daniel is awsome at explaning everything and at teaching. So glad I took both of his InDesign ( Essentials and Advanced) courses. I recommend him for everyone that wants to learn InDesing. I didn't knew InDesign at all and I thought is going to be impossible for me to learn it, but I am so glad I found his courses. They are really great for people who don't know InDesign at all. Thank you Dan for teaching InDesign so great!

By Brandon Moore-Sibblies on 10/9/2019

Loved the course! I've been following these courses and they have taken me from a novice to advanced graphic designer. I've been able to start getting more clients and handle larger and more in depth projects with the skill sets from your essentials and advanced courses. I've been able to design for business startups and am looking into starting my own design business officially soon. This has been the greatest investment in my development and I can't thank you enough for creating this content in an affordable way. Thank you thank you thank you!!!! Till the next course :) Design Big Dream BIGGER!!!!

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Overall Score : 92 / 100