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Making Patterns in InDesign

David Blatner
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Patterns are in the air these days! Illustrator has new features for making patterns, but here at InDesignSecrets we’re more into how to make patterns in InDesign. You can use patterns for all kinds of things? backgrounds, fills, special effects, or even to simulate some real-world thing? spice up your document with a pattern today!

So how do you make seamless patterns in InDesign? First, let’s see how Mike Rankin does it

(If you’re curious, here’s the original blog post at lynda.com that Mike wrote up.)

PatternMaker

The PatternMaker plug-in, from Teacup Software, has been around for quite a while now. You can read about it here. The free version of PatternMaker comes with a few patterns to try out. When you buy the Pattern Pack, you get many more! (Note that I do have a small personal interest in PatternMaker sales, as I wrote some of the code Teacup uses.)

Kelly Vaughn has over a dozen great articles about how to use PatternMaker to create awesome patterns on her Document Geek site:

Kellypatterns2

Here are some more “patterny” articles:

Enjoy!

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David Blatner
David Blatner is the co-founder of the Creative Publishing Network, InDesign Magazine, CreativePro Magazine, and the author or co-author of 15 books, including Real World InDesign. His InDesign videos at LinkedIn Learning (Lynda.com) are among the most watched InDesign training in the world.
You can find more about David at 63p.com

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  • David Blatner says:
    September 20, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Here’s another fun way to make patterns in InDesign: use a pattern font! https://creativepro.com/article/fun-pattern-fonts

    Reply
  • Risa A. says:
    November 7, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    Thanks for sharing Mike’s tutorial. I’ll be implementing it everywhere now!

    Reply
  • Peter says:
    November 4, 2013 at 9:16 am

    Hi, It says “This video is private”

    Reply
  • Ari says:
    October 17, 2014 at 5:04 am

    I have tried applying this tutorial (with CS6) but after the Pathfinder->Add (Add: Combines selected objects…) I have object which misses most of the contents.

    E.g. I have blue rectangular (30mm x 30mm) and I have white items in corners and one in the middle. I group objects, and paste them into the rectangular. Then I do step and repeat and everything looks good (all items are selected and visible). However, once I go to Pathfinder and click the Add, the area has only one rectangular visible in top left, and one rectangular in bottom right.

    Any idea what is going on?

    Reply
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