Use the Pen Tool in Adobe InDesign CS6

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Video: Use the Pen 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 "Pen Tool" in Adobe InDesign CS6 in Windows 7.

1. 1
   To begin, you should open Adobe InDesign

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   You can do it either from your desktop or by coming down to the bottom-left corner and clicking the Windows icon once. Clicking it will bring up a list of the recently used programs.

   

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2. 2
   Click "Adobe InDesign CS6" if you see it on the list

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   InDesign has a pink-and-purple icon with the letters "ID" on it.

   

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3. 3
   Alternatively, click the search bar at the bottom of the screen and type "Adobe InDesign"

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4. 4
   Then, click "Adobe InDesign CS6"

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5. 5
   Click "File"

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   It is in the top-left corner of the window.

   

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6. 6
   Move the cursor to "New" and click "Document..."

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   This will create a new document. You can also do this with the shortcut "Ctrl" + "N". Alternatively, click "Open..." to open an existing document from the "File" menu as well. 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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7. 7
   Let's click "OK"

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8. 8
   First, click "Pen Tool"

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   Alternatively, press "P". "Pen Tool" looks like a fountain pen. It is about halfway down the vertical toolbar. In the bottom-left corner of the icon, you may notice a small black triangle, which indicates that when you click and drag the icon, a menu of similar tools will appear. The cursor has now changed to a fountain pen, which you can now use to create a line.

   

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9. 9
   Click your canvas to create your first anchor point

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10. 10
    Then, move your cursor to where you want your line to end, and click the canvas to create the end anchor point

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    You don't need to drag the line. You will be using "Pen Tool" quite often in InDesign and Illustrator to create geometric shapes with open or closed paths.

    

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11. 11
    You can also create curves

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    When you click the second anchor point, do not release the mouse button and drag the mouse instead. You will create handles from your anchor point. This allows you to curve the line you just created, depending on how steep the handles are.

    

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12. 12
    Let go of your mouse to create the curve

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    When you create next anchor points, InDesign, unlike Illustrator, will assume that you are going to create a curve instead of a straight line. InDesign focuses on both text and images, which is good for publications with layouts, proportions and grids. Illustrator and Photoshop work with images mostly. "Pen Tool" might be used to avoid copy-pasting curves and lines from Illustrator or Photoshop. There might be some incompatibility problems when copy-pasting too. You might have to update certain features of a pasted image in InDesign.

    

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This concludes our tutorial showing you how to use "Pen 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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