Help needed with book creation

Question

I am helping a friend to get her book published, after the people she worked with ripped her off. Long story, won't bother you with details. I used to work in an advertising company that used Quark Xpress. So I am not totally new to setting up pages with text and images. But I am a mere beginner in InDesign. I managed to set up the content pages of the book. Now I am working in a separate document to create the book cover back and front. And the program is driving me insane!

Today's hot topic is: how to get the (text) objects on the book cover to NOT align to baselines?

When I move the frames with the title and subtitles, they seem to stick to the baselines. How do I stop that?

FYI: This is a very simple book layout. Practically no illustrations, just a bunch of stories with headlines. I figured out how to do that. But the cover is causing me headaches.

Can anyone point me to a thorough InDesign tutorial for MacIntosh? One that clearly shows where everything is. I know this program has a steep learning curve but I am willing to learn.

I have been looking for a personal teacher, but have been unsuccessful. So if any of you are up for a Zoom session where I can then show what I am doing and where I am getting stuck, that would be awesome. Even giving me some design pointers would be golden!

Any suggestions and tips are very much appreciated!

Eugene Tyson · Answer

Ahhh yep this one is classic InDesign behaviour, and it catches a lot of people coming from Quark or page-layout thinking. You’re not losing your mind 😄

Why this is happening

Your text frames are snapping to the Baseline Grid.
Baseline grids are great for body text in long documents… and absolutely maddening on covers.

Fix 1 (most likely the culprit)

Turn off “Align to Baseline Grid” for the text

Select the text frame

Open Paragraph panel

Look for the icon that looks like text with horizontal lines
> Align to Baseline Grid

Turn it OFF

This alone fixes it 80% of the time.

Fix 2: Turn off snapping to the baseline grid (global)

If frames physically jump when you move them:

View > Grids & Guides > Snap to Baseline Grid
>Make sure this is unchecked

This setting affects moving objects, not just text flow.

Fix 3: Hide or disable the baseline grid

Sometimes just seeing it causes confusion.

View > Grids & Guides > Hide Baseline Grid

Or go deeper:

InDesign > Preferences > Grids

Baseline Grid: change Start, Increment, or disable for the doc

Fix 4 (cover-specific best practice)

On covers, many designers:

Use separate text frames for each element (title, subtitle, author)
Do not apply paragraph styles tied to the baseline grid
Use Optical Margin Alignment OFF unless needed

Pro tip for covers (this will save you headaches)

For cover files:

Do not use the same paragraph styles as the interior
Create a simple “Cover Title” style with:
Align to Baseline Grid: OFF
Leading set manually
No grid dependency

These are solid and beginner-friendly (no guessing where things are):

Adobe InDesign Classroom in a Book

LinkedIn Learning – InDesign Essential Training (Deke McClelland / David Blatner)

InDesignSecrets.com (especially anything by David Blatner)

Search specifically for:

“InDesign baseline grid explained”
“InDesign cover layout tutorial”

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