Part IV
Graphics
Fundamentals
IN THIS PART
Chapter 14
Importing Graphics
Chapter 15
Fitting Graphics and Frames
Together
Chapter 16
Drawing Free-form Shapes and
Curved Paths
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357
CHAPTER
Importing Graphics
IN THIS CHAPTER
Preparing files for import from
graphics programs
Understanding special
considerations for supported
graphics formats
Working with files across
platforms
Understanding color issues
Using the Place dialog box to
import graphics
Specifying import options for

within InDesign. You can select the images and choose Edit ➪ Edit Original,
or you can press and hold Option or Alt and then double-click the images.
InDesign launches the programs that created the graphics; if you don’t own
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals
358
those programs, InDesign launches compatible programs if you have them. For example, if you
Option+double-click or Alt+double-click an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file in your layout that
was created in Adobe Illustrator, but you use CorelDraw instead, InDesign launches CorelDraw on
your system.
New Feature
The ability to open multiple files with the Edit Original command is new to InDesign CS5.
n
InDesign lets you specify what program you want to edit a graphic in — not have InDesign choose
for you — by selecting the graphic and then choosing Edit ➪ Edit With. The submenu that appears
lists all the programs that InDesign thinks can edit the graphic. Pick one or choose Other to
browse your computer for a different application.
Cross-Reference
Transformations such as resizing, flipping, rotating, and skewing that you’re likely to apply to imported graph-
ics use the same tools as for any InDesign objects, so all these transformations are covered in one place:
Chapter 11. The effects that you can apply to any object, including graphics, are covered in Chapter 12.
n
Preparing Graphics Files
InDesign offers support for many major formats of graphics files. Some formats are more appropriate
than others for certain kinds of tasks. The basic rules for creating your graphics files are as follows:
l
Save line art in a format such as EPS, PDF, Adobe Illustrator, Windows Metafile
(WMF), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), or PICT. (These object-oriented formats are called
vector formats. Vector files are composed of instructions on how to draw various shapes.)

OLE in Windows do not import into InDesign. These technologies are rarely used today, so you’ll
encounter this issue only with old text files.
Inline graphics import as their preview images, not as the original files. This means that in most
cases, you get a much lower resolution version in your InDesign layout. Despite their limitations,
using inline graphics in your word processor can be helpful when you’re putting together an
InDesign document: Use the inline graphics whose previews are imported into InDesign as place-
holders so that the layout artist knows you have embedded graphics. The artist can then replace
the previews with the better quality originals.
Tip
If you find yourself using several graphics as characters (such as a company icon used as a bullet), use a font-
creation program such as FontLab Studio or FontLab Fontographer to create a symbol typeface with those
graphics. Then both your word processor and layout documents can use the same high-quality versions. Go to
www.InDesignCentral.com
for links to these programs.
n
InDesign imports many file formats. If your graphics program’s format is not one of the ones listed
here, chances are it can save as or export to one. In the following list, the text in monofont and
parentheses is the file name extension common for these files on PCs.
The graphics file formats InDesign imports include:
l
BMP: The native Windows bitmap format (
.bmp
,
.dib
).
l
EPS: The Encapsulated PostScript file format favored by professional publishers. A variant
is called DCS, a color-separated variant whose full name is Desktop Color Separation
(
.eps

.pcx
,
.rle
).
l
PDF: The Portable Document Format that is a variant of PostScript (as EPS is) and is used
for Web-, network-, and CD-based documents. InDesign CS5 supports PDF versions 1.3
through 1.8 (the formats used in Acrobat 4 through 9) (
.pdf
).
l
Photoshop: The native format in Adobe Photoshop 5.0 through CS5 (
.psd)
. Note that
InDesign cannot import Photoshop RAW format (
.raw
) files.
l
PICT: Short for Picture, the Mac’s native graphics format until Mac OS X (it can be bitmap
or vector) that is little used in professional documents and is becoming rare even for inex-
pensive clip art (
.pct
).
l
PNG: The Portable Network Graphics format introduced several years ago as a more capa-
ble alternative to GIF (
.png
).
l
Scitex CT: The continuous-tone bitmap format used on Scitex prepress systems (

Eastman Kodak’s Photo CD
l
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
DXF and CGM are vector formats used mainly in engineering and architecture, CorelDraw is the
native format of the leading consumer-oriented Windows illustration program, Photo CD is a bit-
map format meant for electronically distributed photographs, and SVG is a Web-oriented format
for rich vector graphics.
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Chapter 14: Importing Graphics
361
Cross-Reference
InDesign can export JPEG, EPS, and PDF files. (Chapter 32 covers EPS and PDF export; Chapter 4 covers JPEG
export.)
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Issues with vector files
Vector images are complex because they can combine multiple elements — curves, lines, colors,
fonts, bitmap images, and even other imported vector images. This means that you can unknow-
ingly create a file that can cause problems when you try to output an InDesign layout file using it.
Thus, when dealing with vector formats, you need to keep several issues in mind.
Embedded fonts
When you use fonts in text included in your graphics files, you usually have the option to convert
the text to curves (graphics). This option ensures that your text prints on any printer. (If you don’t
use this conversion, make sure that your printer or service bureau has the fonts used in the
graphic. Otherwise, the text does not print in the correct font; you likely get Courier or Helvetica
instead.)
If your graphic has a lot of text, don’t convert the text to curves — the image could get very com-
plex and slow down printing. In this case, make sure that the output device has the same fonts as
are in the graphic.
PostScript files: EPS, DCS, Illustrator, and PDF

) music, and Microsoft WAV (
.wav
) sound.
InDesign’s Audio and Video Import Support
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals
362
image for EPS files, but many programs have trouble reading them, especially if the EPS file was
generated on a different platform. In those cases, they display an X or a gray box in place of the
image. (The EPS file prints properly to a PostScript printer.) That’s why InDesign creates its own
preview image when you import EPS files, lessening the chances of your seeing just an X or a gray
box in place of the EPS preview.
When you import EPS files, InDesign lets you control some settings if you select Show Import
Options in the Place dialog box, as covered later in this chapter. You can apply Photoshop clipping
paths in the file (see Chapter 15), choose the preview format, convert the PostScript vector infor-
mation into a bitmap (a process called rasterization), or embed links to OPI high-resolution source
images (see Chapter 31 for details on OPI).
Tip
In CorelDraw 6.0 and later, and in Adobe Illustrator 6.0 and later, be sure to set the EPS creation options to
have no preview header. This keeps your files smaller. (In CorelDraw, export to EPS. In Illustrator 6.0 and
later, save as Illustrator EPS. Note that Illustrator 5.x’s native format is EPS, so don’t look for an export or
save-as option.)
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Caution
If you use transparency in your graphics, it’s best to leave the files in Adobe Illustrator format rather than save
them to EPS. Chapter 31 explains the issues in more depth.
n
DCS
The DCS variant of EPS is a set of five files: an EPS preview file that links together four separation

presented as one or more pages with the visual richness of a print document. When you import a
PDF file, InDesign treats it as a graphic and can place one or more of the PDF file’s pages (if it has
more than one page) into your document as an uneditable graphic. You can crop, resize, and do
other such manipulations common to any graphic, but you can’t work with the text or other of the
imported PDF file’s components.
Note
Special PDF features, such as sounds, movies, hyperlinks, control buttons, and annotations, are ignored in the
imported file.
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Other vector formats
If you’re outputting to negatives for professional printing, you should avoid non-PostScript vector
formats, but they’re fine for printing to inkjet and laser printers.
PICT
The standard Mac format for drawings, PICT also supports bitmaps and was the standard format
for Mac OS 8 and 9 screen-capture utilities. InDesign imports PICT files with no difficulty, but it
cannot color-separate them for output to negatives. Because fonts in vector PICT graphics are auto-
matically translated to curves, you need not worry about whether fonts used in your graphics
reside in your printer or are available at your service provider.
Windows Metafile
The standard Windows format for drawing, Windows Metafile is similar to PICT in that it can con-
tain bitmap images as well as vector drawings. However, InDesign ignores bitmap information in
Windows Metafiles, stripping it out during import. Microsoft Office 2000 introduced a new ver-
sion of this format, called Enhanced Metafile, which InDesign also supports.
Issues with bitmap formats
Bitmap (also called raster) formats are simpler than vector formats because they’re made up of rows
of dots (pixels), not instructions on how to draw various shapes; but that doesn’t mean that all bit-
maps are alike.
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals

TIFF
The most popular bitmap format for publishers is TIFF, developed by Aldus (later bought by
Adobe Systems) and Microsoft. TIFF supports color up to 24 bits (16.7 million colors) in both
RGB and CMYK models, and every major photo-editing program supports TIFF on both the Mac
and in Windows. TIFF also supports grayscale and black-and-white files.
The biggest advantage to using TIFF files rather than other formats that also support color, such as
PICT, is that InDesign is designed to take advantage of TIFF. For example, in an image editor, you
can set clipping paths in a TIFF file, which act as a mask for the image. InDesign sees a path and
uses it as the image boundary, making the area outside of it invisible. That in turn lets you have
nonrectangular bitmap images in your layout — the clipping path becomes the visible boundary
for your TIFF image. InDesign also supports embedded alpha channels and color profiles in TIFF
files.
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Chapter 14: Importing Graphics
365
Caution
TIFF files do not handle images with transparency well. Even though the files look okay on-screen, they may
not print well or may cause printer errors. Stick with the Adobe Photoshop format if you use transparency.
n
TIFF files have several variations that InDesign supports, but because other programs aren’t as for-
giving, follow these guidelines to ensure smooth interaction:
l
Use uncompressed and LZW-compressed TIFF files supported by most Mac and
Windows programs. InDesign even supports the less-used Zip compression method for
TIFF files. You should be safe using LZW-compressed TIFF files with any mainstream
program, but if you do have difficulty, I recommend that you use uncompressed TIFF
files. Also, always talk to your service bureau about LZW support before sending files for
output. Many older imagesetters do not handle LZW compression and fail to output
images that use it.

366
model of standard printing. Although creating CMYK JPEG files with Photoshop is possible, those
CMYK JPEGs won’t display in and may even crash other applications and Web browsers.
When importing JPEG files, InDesign automatically scales the image to fit in the page. This helps
deal with digital-camera graphics that tend to be very large and that, when imported, end up tak-
ing much more than the width of a page. Although you likely still need to scale the image to fit
your layout, you can at least see the whole image before doing so.
JPEG is more useful on the Web, where the limited resolution of a computer monitor makes most
of JPEG’s detail loss hard to spot and provides an acceptable trade-off of slightly blurry quality in
return for a much smaller file size. It’s particularly well suited for photographs because the lost
detail is usually not noticeable because of all the other detail surrounding it.
If you do use JPEG for print work, note that you can provide a clipping path for it in programs
such as Photoshop. The clipping path lets the image have an irregular boundary (rendering the rest
of its background transparent) so that you can use InDesign effects such as text wrap.
PNG
The PNG format is meant to provide GIF’s no-loss compression but support 24-bit color so that it
can be used for photography and subtly colored illustrations on the Web. The PNG format’s other
significant attribute is full transparency support with an embedded alpha channel. (That is why
InDesign lets you replace the transparency with white or keep the background color in the Image
Import Options dialog box, as I cover later in this chapter.) The transparency also works in most
recent Web browsers.
Other bitmap formats
The other supported formats are ones that you should avoid, unless you’re printing to inkjet or
laser printers. If you have images in one of these formats and want to use the format for profession-
ally output documents, convert the images to TIFF before using them in InDesign:
l
BMP: As does TIFF, the BMP Windows bitmap format supports color, grayscale, and
black-and-white images.
l
PCX: As does TIFF, PCX supports color, grayscale, and black-and-white images.

mixed inks (shown on swatchbooks, which have small samples of each color) or a range of colors
that can be created by combining a limited number of inks (such as RGB for red, green, and blue
and CMYK for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).
Chapter 8 describes the various color models, but for file import, it’s best to use just three —
CMYK (process), RGB, and the Pantone Matching System — because they’re universally used and
tend to be the most reliable when passing information from one system to another.
Note
The advice on color systems applies to just vector images because bitmap programs use CMYK or RGB as their
actual color models, even if they offer swatchbooks of other models’ colors.
n
Calibrated color
With InDesign’s color management system (CMS) feature enabled, the program calibrates the out-
put colors (whether they’re printed to a color printer or color-separated for traditional printing)
based on the source device and the target output device in an attempt to ensure that what you see
on-screen comes close to what you’ll see on the printed page. Although color calibration is a tricky
science that rarely results in exact color matches across all input and output devices, it can help
minimize differences as the image travels along the creation and production path.
Today, most image-editing programs let you apply color profiles that conform with the
International Color Committee (ICC) standards. If you use color calibration, applying these ICC
profiles in the images when you create them is best.
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals
368
If you can’t — or forget to — apply an ICC profile when creating your image, don’t worry. You can
add a profile (if you’re creating images in a program that doesn’t support ICC profiles) or apply a
different one from InDesign.
Cross-Reference
Chapter 29 covers color calibration in depth.
n

369
Here’s how to use the Place dialog box to import a graphic:
1.
Choose File ➪ Place or press Ô+D or Ctrl+D. If you want to import a graphic into an
existing frame, select the target frame using either of the selection tools (either before you
choose File ➪ Place or afterward). If you want InDesign to create a new frame when you
import the graphic, make sure no object is selected when you choose Place. Either way,
the Place dialog box appears.
2.
Use the controls in the Place dialog box to locate and select the graphics file you want
to import. You can select multiple files — graphics and/or text — in the Place dialog box
by Shift+clicking a range or by Ô+clicking or Ctrl+clicking multiple files one by one.
3.
Decide what import options you want to use and select them:
l
If you want to display import options that let you control how the selected graphics
file is imported, do one of the following: Select Show Import Options and then click
Open; press and hold Shift and double-click the file name; or Shift+click Open. If you
choose Show Import Options, the EPS Import Options, Place PDF, Place InDesign
Document, or Image Import Options dialog box — depending on what kind of
graphic you are importing — appears. Specify the desired import options, if any are
applicable, and then click OK. (I cover these options later in this chapter.)
l
To replace a currently selected graphic, select Replace Selected Item. (Even if you
haven’t selected a graphic frame, this option is available.)
l
To create a static caption (see Chapter 13), select the Create Static Caption option. If
you have not set up metadata captions, selecting this option creates a caption for the
image that contains its file name.
4.

l
InDesign lets you draw a frame when placing graphics. InDesign makes the frame pro-
portional to the graphic’s proportions — unless you press and hold Shift, in which
case the frame may have any dimensions you want. Either way, the current graphic is
then fitted proportionally within that rectangle. When importing multiple graphics,
you can draw a separate frame for each, as well as for some and not others.
New Feature
The option to create static captions when importing a graphic is new to InDesign CS5.
Also new to InDesign CS5 is the ability to set a graphics frame to automatically resize a placed image as the
frame is resized. The frame must have autofit enabled, as Chapter 15 explains; you can also set autofit as part
of its object style, as Chapter 13 explains.
n
To cancel the entire graphics import, just select a different tool. To cancel a specific file in a
multiple-file import, press Esc when that file’s mini-preview appears. (The other files are still avail-
able to be placed.) To move among the files in a multiple-file import so you can place them in your
preferred order, press → or ← to move back or forward, respectively, through the files; the pre-
view changes as you move from one file to the next.
When placing multiple graphics at one time, InDesign lets you place each file in a separate frame.
Just click once for each file imported, or Shift+Ô+click or Ctrl+Shift+click to have InDesign place
all files on the page in separate frames. If you place more than one file at the same time, the
loaded-text icon displays the number of files to be placed, as well as a mini-preview of each file
(refer to Figure 14.1).
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Chapter 14: Importing Graphics
371
If you press and hold Shift+Ô or Ctrl+Shift when placing multiple images, InDesign places as
many as will fit onto the page below the mouse pointer’s location, arranging them in a grid. If you
draw a frame when placing graphics and also use the Shift+Ô or Ctrl+Shift option, InDesign then
places the images in a grid that fits within the frame you drew. You can increase or reduce the

InDesign gives you two sets of import options for the following types of bitmap images: TIFF, GIF,
JPEG, Scitex CT, BMP, and PCX. You get three options for PNG files, and a different set of three
for Photoshop files. There are no import options for PICT or QuickTime movie files. Figure 14.2
shows the four possible panes for bitmap images.
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals
372
FIGURE 14.2
The Image Import dialog box’s panes for bitmap formats. Top left: the Image pane. Bottom left: the Color
panel. Top right: the Layers pane, which appears for Photoshop files. Bottom right: the PNG Settings pane,
which appears for PNG files.
Image pane
If you import a Photoshop, TIFF, or EPS file that contains an embedded clipping path, the Image
pane lets you apply any embedded clipping path and/or alpha channel to the image to mask, or cut
out, part of the image. (Otherwise, these options are grayed out.) Select the Apply Photoshop
Clipping Path option to import the clipping path along with the image; select an alpha channel
from the Alpha Channel popup menu to import the alpha channel along with the image.
Cross-Reference
Chapter 15 covers clipping paths in more detail.
n
Color pane
In the Color pane, you can turn on color management for the image and control how the image is
displayed.
Select the Enable Color Management option to enable color management. Using the Profile popup
menu, choose a color-source profile that matches the color gamut (range) of the device (scanner,
digital camera, and so on) or software used to create the file. InDesign tries to translate the colors
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Chapter 14: Importing Graphics

n
Use the Layer Comp pop-up menu to select from different layer comps, if any, in the source file. A
layer comp is essentially a snapshot of the Photoshop Layers panel that lets you group different
layer visibility settings and save them for later use. There’s also an option, in the When Updating
Link popup menu, to control how changes to the file are handled in terms of layer management: If
you choose Use Photoshop’s Layer Visibility, InDesign makes all layers visible in Photoshop when
you update the link to the graphic from InDesign. If you choose Keep Layer Visibility Overrides,
InDesign imports only the layers chosen in this dialog box if you later update the graphic in
Photoshop.
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Part IV: Graphics Fundamentals
374
After such layered images are placed in InDesign, you can change what layers display, though you
cannot change the order of layers. Note that the controls for modifying layers are pretty much the
same as for importing them.
To modify what layers display, select the object with the Selection or Direct Selection tool and then
choose Object ➪ Object Layer Options. You can also Control+click or right-click the graphic and
choose Graphics ➪ Object Layer Options from the contextual menu. Either way, the Object Layer
Options dialog box appears. It looks and works like the Layers pane in the Image Import Options
dialog box shown in Figure 14.2.
Import options for vector file formats
If you’re importing vector files, selecting the Import Options check box results in one of several
dialog boxes appearing, depending on what the vector file type is. If you import older version
Illustrator or EPS files, the EPS Import Options dialog box appears; if you import PDF and newer
version Illustrator files, the Place PDF dialog box, which has two panes, appears. (Both dialog
boxes are shown in Figure 14.3.) There are no import options for Windows Metafile graphics.
FIGURE 14.3
The Place PDF dialog box (left) and EPS Import Options dialog box (right). The Place PDF dialog box has
two panes: General and Layers. (The Layers pane for PDF files is almost identical to the Layers pane for