Quick Tip: How To Make A Dot Grid In InDesign

In this article, I am going to show you how you can quickly make a dot grid exactly how you want using just InDesign.

Side note: I don’t recommend this method as is for people with slower machines, so if you do decide to do this, I would actually recommend exporting this page as PDF and inserting that in your document. The small increase in file size won’t matter in the grand scheme of things, especially if the alternative is a lot of waiting as your computer catches up.

If you have access to Adobe Illustrator, my ultimate recommendation is to create the dot grid in there and either copy and paste it over (large files get embedded as a flattened EPS in InDesign) or export it as an SVG and import that.

First, we are going to create a single dot, and insert it into the top left corner. If you select the ellipse tool, you can single-click anywhere on the screen and choose the dimensions of your dot. I chose 0.1cm by 0.1cm. Make sure the dot is filled, and not an outline.

Then, we will move it to the top left corner.

Next, we will select the dot and we are going to click “edit” in the menu bar, and “step and repeat”.

From here, you can choose how many columns and rows you want, what distance you want them to be (I prefer 0.5cm), and whether to make it as a grid. Just make sure you tick the preview button on the right to see what you’re doing, and before you’ve started make sure you zoom out so you can see what you’re doing.

I hope this quick tutorial was helpful, and I’ll be sure to share more quick tips in InDesign for designing a digital planner.