Adobe InDesign Made Easy. A Beginners Guide To InDesign (Udemy.com)
Learn how to use Adobe InDesign to build comprehensive page layouts. A beginners course by Infinite Skills
Created by: Infinite Skills
Last updated January 2017
Our take
Based on the ratings of 3,719 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in January 2017. No course pays to be reviewed.
A free, 11 hour beginner's walkthrough of InDesign from Infinite Skills, recorded on CS5.5 and last touched in 2017. That age is the whole story here. The syllabus covers the right things in the right order: workspace, layout, frames, text, styles, tables, graphics, color, transparency, printing and export, in 105 short lectures. It suits someone who has never opened InDesign and wants the fundamentals for nothing. Just know the screen in the videos will not match the current app, and a few sections, EPUB especially, describe features that no longer work the way shown.
Reviewers like the narrator's clear delivery, the sensible pace (some run it at faster playback without losing the thread), and the way the course is split into short subject sections that are easy to go back to. The 3,700 plus reviews average 4.5 stars, and more than four in five are four or five stars. The low scores are consistent: the interface is old, tools sit in different places now, the EPUB chapter no longer applies, and the captions are poor enough that one Spanish speaker said they got in the way. One reviewer wished styles were taught earlier since the instructor keeps referring to them before they come up.
Next to the CC courses on this page, this is the budget pick, and it is genuinely free. Money being the deciding factor, plus a willingness to map an older interface onto the current one, are the two conditions that make it worth the 11 hours. Anyone who wants a course that matches today's InDesign should pick one of the CC courses beside it instead. There is no certificate either, which matters if the goal is a line on a resume.
Pros
- Free, with 105 lectures split into 21 short subject sections that are easy to revisit.
- Reviewers praise the narrator's clear delivery and a pace that holds up at faster playback.
- Covers the full print workflow: layout, frames, text, styles, tables, color, transparency, and printing.
- 4.5 stars from over 3,700 reviews, with about 127,000 students enrolled.
Cons
- Recorded on InDesign CS5.5 and last updated in 2017; menus and tools sit in different places now.
- The EPUB chapter is badly out of date; one reviewer said most of it no longer applied.
- Captions are poor, styles are referenced before they are taught, and there is no certificate.
Very helpful in learning basics. A little slow at points, but easily fixed with the increased speed of the video.
Listed as all levels, but it really suits absolute beginners; anyone past the basics will find little new here.
What you will learn
- Learn Adobe InDesign
Course content
21 sections · 105 lectures · 11 hours of video 1 article
- 1Introduction4 lectures · 8 min
- 2Workspace Basics3 lectures · 21 min
- 3Layout11 lectures · 1.3 hours
- 4Frames And Objects6 lectures · 43 min
- 5Drawing6 lectures · 36 min
- 6The Basics Of Working With Text4 lectures · 26 min
- 7Character Formatting4 lectures · 32 min
- 8Paragraph Formatting5 lectures · 35 min
- 9A Look At Other Type Options9 lectures · 1.1 hours
- 10Styles7 lectures · 42 min
- 11Combining Text With Objects3 lectures · 15 min
- 12Using Long Document Features4 lectures · 20 min
- 13Setting Up Tables3 lectures · 20 min
- 14Adding Graphics6 lectures · 30 min
- 15Color6 lectures · 32 min
- 16Transparency5 lectures · 34 min
- 17EPUB For InDesign CS5.58 lectures · 54 min
- 18Printing3 lectures · 19 min
- 19Making Layouts Interactive4 lectures · 26 min
- 20Exporting3 lectures · 20 min
- 21Conclusion1 lecture · 3 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- Users of all levels
What you need before you start
- PC or Mac
Course Description
This Adobe InDesign CS5.5 training video by Infinite Skills is an indispensable resource for anyone wanting to learn this powerful, often intimidating page layout and design program. Including a complete chapter on the latest edition to InDesign - EPUB, this computer software training program is designed to teach the absolute beginner how to use the industry standard Adobe InDesign CS5.5 software.
Starting with the basics in this video training tutorial, this course teaches you how to use Adobe InDesign CS5, covering topics ranging from setting up your workspace, to using grids, the new layers panel in CS5, working with text, paragraph formatting, creating and using styles, and combining text and objects. New to CS5.5 is the EPUB export capabilities, and the course goes in-depth with this new feature, as well as exporting your finished work in a variety of formats, from print, to interactive documents.
By the conclusion of this computer based training program, you will be fully versed in creating print and digital ready documents in Adobe InDesign . The author has included more than 2GB of work-files, so that you can work alongside him as he teaches you the ins and outs of this powerful desktop publishing software!
Instructor Details
- 4.5 Rating
3,719 Reviews
Infinite Skills
Infinite Skills is a Canadian based company who offer a huge and ever growing range of high quality eLearning solutions that teach using studio quality narrated videos backed-up with practical hands-on examples and comprehensive working files. All courses are created by trained educators and experts in video based education.
The emphasis is on teaching real life skills that are essential for progressing in today's commercial environment.
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Reviews
By India Gray on 3/12/2026
It just started. It talked about a welcome screen which I don't have. Then showed how to set up a workspace. I have no idea what kind of workspace I will need yet. The real problem it doesn't use the latest version of InDesign. So I don't have the same tools and/or they are not in the same space.
By Maarja Janson on 8/19/2024
It's suitable to all beginners. Fun to listen to and very good pronunciation! I like the pace! I adjusted 1.75 as whenever I felt I had that knowledge and slowed down to normal so I can actually work along and properly make notes at the same time. As I was comfortable in Word and Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, this course was still necessary to make using InDesign faster and confident and gain more knowledge as a beginner in InDesign.
By Efe Saydam on 6/23/2019
Great introduction to InDesign with easy to follow steps and a friendly instructor. The course should probably cover how to create and save formatting styles earlier on in the lesson because the instructor alludes to it frequently without the user having learned it yet. Better to include formatting earlier on in the lesson so that the user has a foundation to know what the instructor is talking about and can apply the concept to the current video(s).
By Gordon L Linden on 9/5/2018
Have used InDesign from time to time as a follow on to Pagemaker, some years ago. Needed to take the time to see the "new" features and understand the current state-of=the art. Have purchased some manuals, but this format is more user-friendly and the organization of the material by subject makes it easy to go back and review any topic.
By Ergi on 1/12/2018
This is a wonderful course for those interested in learning InDesign from the ground up. He teaches you everything you should need to know. For those like me, who have used other Adobe products (namely Photoshop and Illustrator), a lot of the things he teaches will be somewhat familiar. However, even if you have never used anything like this program before, this course will make it all make sense. All for free, too!
By Paul M Pierce on 7/25/2017
The instructor is very knowledgeable. The only thing I found, that I personally found slightly confusing is a lot of the time I would hear "But were gonna do more of this in a later lesson".. Certainly there's a lot of interlacing activity to do, but it seemed like it happened a lot. VERY informative, and I appreciate the instructor giving his time for the videos.
By Marina Flournoy on 5/20/2017
This is a very good course with lots of information on the many InDesign features. I found it very beneficial even though I am using InDesign CC 2017 and the course is based on InDesign CS5. There were a few instances when I had stop the video to locate a particular menu item on my version, but once found the instructions and demo files worked perfectly. This is especially true with the "interactive" features (which the new version has placed at Window>Interactive>[feature].
By Tanya Kryder on 4/7/2017
I feel this course gives not just an overview of how to use InDesingn but lots of tips and tricks to really excel in using the program. If you have no knowledge of design software this might be a touch advanced, but not so much that you are unable to grasp the usage of the program. I highly recommend this class to anyone looking to learn how to use InDesign.
By Mary Price on 7/30/2015
"Kinda cool!!" I learned so much taking this class. The content was presented with clear instructions, "what ifs" were answered, and I loved having the ability to "follow along" with the instructor using all of the sample exercises. I'm taking Illustrator now, and plan to follow that up with Photoshop. I would highly recommend this course and this instructor! Many thanks!
By Catherine Neary on 3/14/2015
I knew virtually nothing about InDesign when I started, and now am confident that I can use it professionally. The instructor went through each lesson in an organized manner, and was thorough in his presentation; he made sure to let the student know if there was something obvious that he was skipping, but was going to come back to later.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 90 / 100












