Quick Tip: How to Create Lined Paper in Adobe InDesign Using Tables

I’ve previously discussed how to create a dot grid in InDesign using step and repeat, and you can absolutely create a lined template that way, but this way is an alternative you can use.

I’m starting with an A4 template with centimetres as my measurement, but you can use whatever settings are comfortable for you.

Then, I’m going to go “Table” and “Create Table”. We’re going to choose one column, and however many rows you like. Don’t worry about the number, because we can always add or delete rows. Then, we’re going to click and drag to create our table.

We’ll be left with something like this:

You can hit ‘W’ on your keyboard to enter the Preview view, and that hides things like our magenta margins. It looks like this in Preview mode:

To the right of our screen, you should have the properties panel. If you don’t have that, then go “Window”, and then “Properties”.

From here, we can change the appearance of our table. First, I’m going to select the type tool and then select my table. When you hover around the edges of the table you’ll notice a big arrow appear, and if you click that will select the entire column.

Then, in the properties panel, we’re going to change the height of the lines. I prefer writing on 0.5cm or 0.7cm lines, but the height will depend on what you want to create. I’m going to do 0.5cm lines for this tutorial.

Next, I’m going to add rows to my table. You can either do this in the properties panel, or you can select a row (the same way we selected the table, but just hover on the side), right-click and insert rows.

Now, I’m going to remove the sides from my table to make this look like lines. To do this, I’m going to select my entire table, click the word “Stroke” and then click to deselect all of the lines except for the sides. Then, tick the stroke down to 0.

Once you’ve done that, your table should look like this:

From here, we can adjust the stroke on the lines the same way we did to turn off the sides of the table. I’m going to make my lines have a thickness of 0.5pt.

And this is what my final table looks like:

And we’re done! You can make any changes you want from here, such as increasing the line spacing, changing your stroke thickness or any colours.