Layout for Dummies?

[Willow]

If you've read Awesome Adventures, you may have noticed that it's not the most beautifully laid out book.  That's because I laid it out myself, using Open Office.

So, I'm looking forward to my next game, Escape from Tentacle City, and I think it would be good for me to practice with layout a bit.  I have a copy of InDesign, but I can't make heads or tails of it.

Can anyone recommend a good tutorial for InDesign, or a free, easier to use alternative?

[iago]

Look for the book Real World InDesign (for your version, though many concepts translate from version to version), authors Kvern and Blatner. It's a brick, but the version of the book I have it for (CS2) was astonishingly well-written.

[lev_lafayette]

Try Scribus. Free, open source, good tutorials available.

c.f,. http://www.scribus.net/

[jerry]

Answering your subject line, I've found two books very useful for getting up to speed on layout basics.

The Non-Designers Design Book (Robin Williams)
Looking Good in Print (Roger C. Parker)

In that order.

[Ben Lehman]

I learned InDesign "orally," mostly over chat with Joshua Newman and (sometimes) John Harper.

I'm happy to do the same with you.

[Gregor Hutton]

About.Com has excellent tutorials in my experience for all the Adobe software: <a href="http://desktoppub.about.com/od/indesigntutorials/Adobe_InDesign_Tutorials.htm" target="_blank">About.Com's InDesign Tutorials[/url], and they are graded at varying levels. And most of all: Free.