Use Pencil Tool in Adobe InDesign CS6

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Video: Use Pencil Tool in Adobe InDesign CS6

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You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to use "Pencil Tool" in Adobe InDesign CS6 in Windows 7.

1. 1
   To begin, you should open Adobe InDesign either from your desktop or by coming down to the bottom-left corner and clicking the Windows icon

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   Clicking this will bring up a list of your recently used programs. You might see "Adobe InDesign" here. It has a pink-and-purple icon with the letters "ID" on it.

   

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2. 2
   Otherwise, click the search bar at the bottom of the screen and type "Adobe InDesign"

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3. 3
   Then, click "Adobe InDesign CS6"

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4. 4
   Click "File" on the bar at the top-left of the window

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5. 5
   Move the cursor to "New" and click "Document..."

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   Alternatively, you could click "Open...". This will create a new document. You can also do this with the shortcut "Ctrl" + "N". For more information, refer to our tutorials on how to create a new document and on how to open an existing document.

   

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6. 6
   Let's just click "OK"

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7. 7
   Click "Pencil Tool"

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   It is in the vertical toolbar at the left side of the window. It is about halfway down the menu. In the bottom-right corner of the icon, you may notice a small black triangle. It indicates that when you click and drag the icon, a menu of similar tools will appear. The cursor will change to a pencil when the icon is clicked.

   

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8. 8
   Before drawing, you can adjust the "Fill" and "Stroke" colors in the horizontal toolbar at the top of the screen

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   You can also adjust the size of the stroke. Use the drop-down menus at the top to change these settings.

   

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9. 9
   Click and drag the cursor using the "Pencil Tool" to create a line across the canvas

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   The line will appear as a series of blue dots.

   

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10. 10
    When you release the mouse button, the line will be applied to the canvas

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    "Pencil Tool" is much more organic than "Pen Tool" and allows for much more freedom.

    

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11. 11
    You can click the "Selection Tool" black arrow to click away from the line

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    You can also press the "Esc" key on your keyboard to go back to the "Selection Tool".

    

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12. 12
    Then, you can click "Pencil Tool" again to create a new line

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13. 13
    Click the line style drop-down menu in the horizontal toolbar to select various line styles

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    InDesign has a lot of various line styles, which are a bit different from the ones in Illustrator. InDesign is for working mostly with publications. Maybe you will need one of the line styles to work between text and images in a magazine article. You can, for example, create cartoon characters and use a dotted line. This "Pencil Tool" adds extra effect or quality to your work. Both Illustrator and InDesign polishes the corners when creating curved shapes. This is especially the case with "Pen Tool", whereas "Pencil Tool" is much more organic. "Pencil Tool" can look very professional.

    

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This concludes our tutorial showing you how to use "Pencil Tool" in Adobe InDesign CS6 in Windows 7. If you have any questions or comments regarding this video or the program used, then just add them to the comment section below. Thank you for choosing VisiHow!

If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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