InDesign Masterclass (BUR-IND500)

This course is built for InDesign users who've outgrown typical "Advanced InDesign" coursework — self-taught users with years of real production experience, or graduates of Intro and Advanced classes who still sense there's more under the hood. Led by a world-renowned InDesign expert and published author with decades of hands-on production experience, the masterclass goes past commonly-taught advanced features into the tool's real depth: GREP, scripting, automation, long-document mastery, and the prepress workflows that separate fast, confident production from constant workarounds.

Because "advanced" means something different for every InDesign user, the course opens with a skills-and-goals assessment, and the instructor customizes the remaining time around what each student or group actually needs — whether that's automating a repetitive production task, finally understanding GREP styles, taming a 400-page catalog, or fixing a workflow that's never quite worked right. No two deliveries of this course look exactly the same.

This course assumes solid working knowledge of InDesign fundamentals — styles, parent/master pages, basic typography, and file management — and is not an introduction to the software. It's best suited to working professionals: production artists, designers, long-document specialists, and anyone responsible for getting InDesign files out the door correctly, efficiently, and at scale.

The outline below reflects a full 2-day delivery. As a 1-day intensive, the instructor uses the opening assessment to select a tighter set of modules matched to the group's priorities; as a 2-day course, all modules are covered with extended lab time built in.

1. Skills and Goals Assessment
   1. Pre-course skill assessment and goal-setting
   2. Identifying personal or team workflow pain points to address during the session
   3. Customizing the agenda based on assessment results
2. Beyond Advanced: Style Systems and Automation
   1. GREP styles and GREP find/replace for pattern-based formatting
   2. Nested styles, style mapping, and maintaining style systems across templates and teams
   3. Data merge for variable data and personalized documents
   4. An introduction to scripting: automating repetitive tasks without becoming a programmer
3. Mastering Long and Complex Documents
   1. Book files, cross-references, and multi-document workflows
   2. Indexing, numbered lists, and conditional text at scale
   3. Advanced tables: table and cell styles, complex formatting, anchored objects
   4. Managing large documents without performance problems
4. Advanced Typography and Layout Control
   1. OpenType features, optical adjustments, and fine typographic control
   2. Advanced master/parent pages and liquid layout for multi-format output
   3. Object styles and anchored object strategies for consistent, repeatable layouts
5. Output, Accessibility, and Prepress Mastery
   1. Tagged PDF and accessibility: structure, reading order, and alt text at scale
   2. Interactive and digital publishing: forms, buttons, fixed-layout EPUB, Publish Online
   3. Advanced color, transparency, and preflight for professional print handoff
   4. Diagnosing and fixing the file problems most courses don't cover
6. Personalized Lab and Wrap-Up
   1. Applying techniques to your own files and real production challenges
   2. Open Q&A: bring your hardest InDesign problem
   3. A personalized roadmap: what to practice next and where to go deeper

Each student receives a comprehensive set of materials, including course notes and all class examples.