Adobe InDesign Work Area, Tools, Palettes

Just under the two bigger icons with the swatches, you will see two smaller icons. One shows a square and the other one shows a T. If you have selected the icon with the square, then the colours will be applied to boxes and objects. If you have selected the T then the colours will be applied to the type itself. As type is within boxes, you can choose to apply colour to both type and the boxes that contain them or just to one or the other.

Under those two icons there are three more. The first icon allows you to apply single colours to objects, the second one allows you to apply gradients and the third one applies "no colour", i.e., if you had already applied colours to an object and then you click the on this icon, you will be taking the colour away.

The very bottom icons of the Tools palette allows you to view your document in several ways. We will take those up later, right now stick to the Normal View Mode.