Three Great Ways to Create Grids in InDesign

Why Should You Use a Grid?

Grids are the underlying structure to a layout. They are the skeleton upon which you place the text and images. You don’t actually see the grid, but you do see its effects: the elements are organized and aligned, providing consistency and cohesiveness to the layout.

Grids are used in the design world, for sure. They can also be found in all sorts of other arenas: maps, city planning, architecture, crossword puzzles, keyboards, stereo equipment, machinery, etc. Gids are, in fact, so commonplace that it’s easy to not even recognize their existence. Once you start seeing grids in the everyday vernacular, you begin to realize that there is something about them that is very appealing to humans. My guess is that grids provide us with a connection to our inner need to make sense of the world.

I always start my designs with a grid, and encourage my students to do the same. Don’t let your grid constrain your creativity though! It’s OK to stray from it—what is referred to as “breaking the grid”—in order to position something more organically. Some designers don’t use grids, moving intuitively with their own sense of balance and structure. That’s OK, too, but I still encourage students to at least get a handle on grids, practice using them, and then decide if the technique works for their design style.

See this great read by VanSEO Design on 4 Reasons Why You Should Design With A Grid.

Grid Methods

There are lots of ways to create grids in InDesign! Grids can be simple or complex. You can build them manually or use InDesign tools. In this article, I show you my 3 favorite methods, starting with the most simple and ending with the most complex.

METHOD #1 – Preset Details Command

1. When you launch InDesign, you’ll be prompted to create a new document or open an existing one. Click on the “CREATE NEW…” button.
2. In the Preset Details on the right side of the screen, type in the number of columns you’d like for your document. In the example, I’ve put 4 in that field.
3. Click on the “CREATE” button.
4. The document will automatically have 4 vertical grids. The shortcoming with this method is that you don’t have any horizontal guides. So, you’ll have to add them manually. Check out how to do this in METHOD #3.
5. Layout > Margins and Columns will give you the same options as what is outlined in Method #1.

METHOD #2 – Create Guides Command

1. When you launch InDesign, you’ll be prompted to create a new document or open an existing one. Click on the “CREATE NEW…” button.
2. In the Preset Details on the right side of the screen, leave the default “1” in the number of columns you’d like for your document.
3. Click on the “CREATE” button.
4. When the document opens, you’ll see it doesn’t have a grid yet. Go to the Master Page area and select A-Master.
5. Go to the menu bar at the top of the document. Click on Layout > Create Guides…
6. Fill in the fields for Rows and Columns. Change the gutters as needed (gutters are the spaces between the rows and columns).
7. In the Options section, I like to Fit Guides to Margins, which divides the page evenly from the margins inward.
8. Click OK.
9. To make changes, return to the Layout > Create Guides… menu item. Select the box next to “Remove Existing Ruler Guides” and click OK.

METHOD #3 – Create Grids Manually

1. When you launch InDesign, you’ll be prompted to create a new document or open an existing one. Click on the “CREATE NEW…” button.
2. In the Preset Details on the right side of the screen, do two things:
   (a) select the box next to “facing pages”; even if your document doesn’t need facing pages, the grid we will build takes advantage of the facing page layout.
   (b) leave the default “1” in the number of columns you’d like for your document.
3. Click on the “CREATE” button.
4. When the document opens, it won’t have a grid yet. Go to the Master Page area and select A-Master.
5. Select the Rectangle Frame Tool. We’re going to take advantage of the “X” that appears in this tool, and use it as a guide to build our grid.
6. Drag the tool across the left page (in a facing page document), so that it fills the entire page. It should also be positioned exactly at the top and left edges of the page (x/y transform reference points should be 0/0).
   NOTE: the frame measurements should be the same as the document size (in our example, it is 8.5”x11”).
7. Duplicate the rectangle frame box on the left page and paste it onto the right page, making sure it aligns perfectly with the top and left edges of the page ( Edit > Copy | Edit > Paste).
   
   

   

8. Duplicate the left rectangle frame box once again and position it exactly on top of the original left box: Edit > Copy | Edit > Paste in Place. This time, change the width to equal the length of the entire spread (in the example, it is 17”).
   
   

   

9. Manually drag guides from the top and left rulers to wherever the “X” lines intersect. These intersecting points are what I call “magic points” because they are very similar to the proportions of the “Golden Section”.
   
   

   

10. When finished, you’ll have a terrific grid to work with! If you are adventurous, you can add other guide lines, perhaps even incorporating the Create Guides method described in Method #2.

Video Tutorial

Check out the video tutorial I made that shows you how to use these 3 great ways to create grids in InDesign!
VIEW VIDEO

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