November 6, 2013
Barcode! It’s a clock! It’s a barcode clock!
October 30, 2013
Peer into the mind of Jim Carrey…if you dare.
October 23, 2013
Holy bouncing cats, Batman!
October 16, 2013
Draw with text
October 9, 2013
Finally get the answer to that all-important question: “How much is my cat worth?”
October 2, 2013
Placeholder text will never be the same.
September 25, 2013
No need to explain. You’ll quickly get the point.
September 18, 2013
There’s always room for Jellotime (Flash required).
***
March 14, 2012
What do sheep need? Sweaters, of course.
https://www.bestweekever.tv/2012-03-09/19-photos-of-sheeps-wearing-sweaters/
March 7, 2012
Displays the findings of a laboratory conducting tests on Marshmallow Peeps, the odd little chick-shaped candy that’s hatched around the Easter season. The operation to separate conjoined quintuplets was especially powerful.
February 29, 2012
Bid on doodles drawn by celebrities such as last year’s participants Frank Marino (Las Vegas’ longest running headliner), Michael Dukakis (Democratic presidential nominee in 1988; ex-governor of MA), and Russell Johnson (The Professor on Gilligan’s Island; WW2 Purple Heart Veteran). Like rorschach tests, the doodles are very revealing.
February 22, 2012
See the Minibooks of Jozsef Tari, a collector of books that are no more than 3 inches long (the smallest being 2.9 x 3.2 millimeters (0.11 x 0.125 inches).
February 14, 2012
This site relives the 1970s one catalog page at a time, with a special emphasis on fashions and toys.
https://www.plaidstallions.com/
February 7, 2012
At some point, everyone needs to know how to paint a mammoth on a cave wall.
https://www.primitiveways.com/paint_a_mammoth.html
January 31, 2012
The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a random Family Circus cartoon with a random Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
https://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/
January 24, 2012
Oh, Tumblr. The Web would be so much less wacky without your many bizarre blogs — like this one, which has language that is NSFW and pictures that may offend those who consider Renaissance Art 101 too randy for college freshmen.
https://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com
January 17, 2012
Early photography meets extreme hotness on the “My Daguerreotype Boyfriend” website.
https://mydaguerreotype
boyfriend.tumblr.com
January 10, 2012
Does anyone else think that going on a Titanic memorial cruise is just asking for it?
https://titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/
January 3, 2012
If you’re not quite ready to be productive after the December holidays, waste time with The Amazing Fact Generator.
https://mentalfloss.com/amazingfactgenerator/
December 28, 2011
See skateboarders become human paintbrushes.
https://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/15616/d-face-spraypaint-skateboarding-at-ridiculous.html
December 19, 2011
This blog juxtaposes images—photos, illustrations, book endpapers, and more—and writing that is sometimes a quotation, sometimes a seemingly random phrase. The results are… interesting.
December 13, 2011
Do you know what a florilegium is? Do you know who performed Tchaikovsky on wine glasses? Visit the site that answers all these questions and more.
December 6, 2011
Yes, there is a blog devoted to haunted film decor.
https://obscurehollow.blogspot.com
November 29, 2011
The Urban Resources site explores forgotten spaces in gritty cities around the world.
https://www.urban-resources.net/gallery/gallery_index.html
November 22, 2011
If your humor is a little offbeat, you’ll enjoy these imagined conversations between photographed animals.
https://animalstalkinginallcaps.tumblr.com
November 15, 2011
See photobooth shots from decades past.
https://vintagephoto.tumblr.com
November 8, 2011
See famous record album covers recreated using kittens instead of people.
https://thekittencovers.tumblr.com
November 1, 2011
This site collects signs from all over the world that are odd in some way (or in many ways). Not all signs are safe for work, so choose your viewing time accordingly.
October 24, 2011
You can help the University of Oxford translate an ancient Egyptian papyrus. While that may not be “wacky,” exactly, it’s definitely cool.
October 17, 2011
It’s the Internet. Of COURSE there’s a collection of vintage snapshots of people acting strangely.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/peopleofplatt/sets/609/
October 10, 2011
This wacky yet wonderful site is full of vintage illustrations and photos, all of which relate to… donkeys. Yep. Donkeys.
https://equusasinus.blogspot.com
October 3, 2011
There’s a theater. There are silhouettes. The results might be masterpieces. Tip o’ the hat to Mike Rankin for the discovery.
https://silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com/
September 27, 2011
The complete archive of Rock Scene magazine (1973-1982) is stuffed with unintentionally hilarious material, such as a full-page ad for a book entitled “HOW TO PICK UP GIRLS!”
September 20, 2011
The Museum of Bad Art
delivers on the promise of its name. And how!
September 13, 2011
This would be WAY better than a Transformers lunch box. (Tip o’ the hat to John Nack for the link.)
https://lunchbagart.tumblr.com
September 6, 2011
Are these crazy photos real or fake? Take the quiz and find out.
https://students-adobe.com/NA/Interactive/RealOrFake/
August 30, 2011
Our favorite section of a website dedicated to doodles focuses on altered Netflix envelopes.
https://www.doodlersanonymous.com/entry.php?entryID=1678
August 23, 2011
Take classic paintings. Replace select figures with ginormous orange cats. Laugh your a** off at the results.
https://thefrogman.me/post/8091911994/art-is-better-with-cats
August 16, 2011
This site relies on awesome dust. We could all use more awesome dust.
August 9, 2011
Now you can indulge your love of puppies without the pain of inappropriate chewing and middle-of-the-night walks.
August 2, 2011
This site delivers a new hand-drawn “swear word” every day. Some days are decidedly not safe for work viewing; in fact, the more sheltered of you may learn some new vocabulary. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
https://beautifulswearwords.com
July 26, 2011
This tumblr blog is a collection of oddities that exist in Google’s digitized books. You’ll find electronic artifacts, accidental scans of the operators’ fingers, quirky margin notes, and more.
https://theartofgooglebooks.tumblr.com/
July 19, 2011
Ten animals you may not have considered as pets. Spoiler: Anteaters look good in denim jackets.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/anteater/ten-awesome-and-unique-pets-1g8a
July 13, 2011
Amusement park physics, or how to design a roller coaster.
https://www.learner.org/interactives/parkphysics/coaster
July 6, 2011
This site “explores the intersection of art, design, and physical craft,” except when it doesn’t.
June 28, 2011
If you don’t follow “This Week in Ridiculous Stock Photos,” you should.
June 21, 2011
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre with Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Bob Marley and Mick Jagger with Peter Tosh. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Rashida Jones with Kelly Ripa. It must be…
https://awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com/
June 14, 2011
Visit the future that never was.
June 7, 2011
How big is the universe? Really, really big.
May 31, 2011
Mac versus PC? That’s a schoolyard tussle next to the “pop” versus “soda” wars.
May 24, 2011
If you have a Facebook account and a talented yet evil friend, beware! This could happen to you.
https://www.oliandalex.com/james-face/
May 17, 2011
“Black and WTF” is a Tumblr site devoted to black-and-white photos that make you say, “What the…”
https://blackandwtf.tumblr.com/
May 10, 2011
The 2011 Guide to Making People Feel Old Using Movie Release Dates.
May 3, 2011
If you’re old enough to remember flipping through record bins, you know the thrill you felt when you came across a new find or an old favorite. This website lets you relive that experience.
April 26, 2011
The creator of this site believes that “there exists nothing in this world that is too pure, too beautiful, too perfect that it won’t be ruined the moment nerds get their hands on it.” Er, maybe you have to see the site to get it.
https://nerdsruineverything.tumblr.com/
April 19, 2011
There are some odd jobs out there. How would you like to sniff paper towels for a living?
https://www.womansday.com/Articles/Life/15-Jobs-You-Never-Knew-Existed.html
April 12, 2011
You know that thing where you insert an album cover into a scene to make a real-life collage? This is like that, only with books.
https://corpuslibris.blogspot.com/
April 5, 2011
Photographer Irina Werning finds old snapshots and asks the people in them to recreate the scenes decades later.
https://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/
March 29, 2011
These things look like other things. Simple. Simple and weird.
https://thingsthatlooklike
otherthings.tumblr.com
March 22, 2011
Can you name the classic movies that featured these famous objects?
https://famousobjectsfromclassicmovies.com
March 15, 2011
Some say these pictures are bad; this website says they’re beautiful.
https://blurrypicturesofmyfriends.
tumblr.com/
March 7, 2011
On this site, designers, artists, and inventors will find aluminum foam, bendable wood, and other materials that push the boundaries of what’s possible.
February 28, 2011
This portfolio site for sound artist Elise Baldwin is an eerie delight.
February 21, 2011
Hundreds of casual snapshots combine to make art. It’s the power of abstraction. Tip o’ the hat to Ben Long for the suggestion.
https://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/hundreds-of-tourist-photos
February 14, 2011
Exploring this deliciously minimalistic site will keep you entertained. (Just don’t try it on iOs devices.)
https://lab.mathieu-badimon.com
February 7, 2011
If the Zombie Choir from last week’s wacky website gets hungry, you’ll want this information handy.
https://ww2.zombieinitiative.org
January 31, 2011
Click each monster in the Zombie Tabernacle Choir to make it sing.
https://www.quality-schnallity.com/zombiechoir.html
January 24, 2011
The unusual images in the Foodscapes section of this portfolio website will blow your mind. Tip o’ the hat to Kort Kramer for the suggestion.
https://www.carlwarner.com/warner.html
January 17, 2011
Are you sick of cheesy advertising images and copywriting? Browse this site for relief.
January 10, 2011
This artist, who uses his own face as a canvas, comes up with amazing artwork day after day after day.
https://www.thisblogrules.com/2009/12/everyday-day-new-incredible-face-paint.html
January 3, 2011
This site, despite being nothing but list after list, can be addictive to browse.
https://www.listafterlist.com/
December 28, 2010
Be kind to your parents and send them a tech support package.
https://www.teachparentstech.org/
December 21, 2010
If this year’s holiday gatherings find you around friends or family who are not exactly computer-savvy, show them this site.
https://www.turnofftheinternet.com
December 14, 2010
You can find gifts for even the most difficult people at the Unemployed Philosophers Guild.
https://www.philosophersguild.com
December 7, 2010
It’s not nice to make fun of other people! Unless those people are mega-rich with stylists and yet still make highly questionable clothing choices. You can make fun of them.
November 30, 2010
You don’t think Amazon.com is wacky? Just you wait.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000796XXM?t=slickdeals&tag=slickdeals
November 23, 2010
Thank goodness someone created a device that detects and blocks cat-like typing on your computer. No more late-night bidding for tuna on eBay!
https://www.bitboost.com/pawsense
November 16, 2010
This site is like a World Wrestling smackdown… if the fighters were designers, one in Paris and one in New York… and they were fighting over who could make the coolest infographics.
https://parisvsnyc.blogspot.com
November 9, 2010
The Auto Correct feature on iPhones, iPods, and iPads can change words in very strange ways. Depending on what’s changed and who you’re communicating with, the results are either embarrassing or hilarious. This site chronicles them all.
https://damnyouautocorrect.com/
November 2, 2010
This site finds the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places: cakes!
https://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com
October 26, 2010
Since it’s almost Halloween, you may have expected this week’s wacky site to be frightening. Instead, we chose a site that is a safe haven for people who hate the scariest creature of all — THE CLOWN!
October 19, 2010
Have you ever wondered whether a certain tattoo design would look good on you? Visit this website and there’ll be no question.
October 12, 2010
This site lists odd places (ghost towns, urban legend locations, and more) that you can visit in the United States.
October 5, 2010
This blog, updated almost daily, pulls its images from one family’s collection of postcards.
https://apostcardaday.blogspot.com/
September 28, 2010
This site gives new meaning to the phrase “Play ball.”
https://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/ball_pool/
September 21, 2010
People have some wacky beliefs. This Wikipedia entry debunks many of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misconceptions
September 12, 2010
Everyone should know how to drop a line to Queen Elizabeth.
https://www.royal.gov.uk/HMTheQueen/ContactTheQueen/Overview.aspx
September 6, 2010
Warning: Do not show this site to children or to adults who collect toys in their original packaging. It’s just too disturbing.
August 29, 2010
Type in any business jargon into this site for a clear translation. Example: “Accelerated Emergence of High Maturity Behaviors” means “faster results.” Who knew?
August 22, 2010
Do you ever go to your parents’ home and shake your head in awe at the weird stuff they have? Take a photo and send it to this website.
https://crapatmyparentshouse.com/
August 15, 2010
You’ve probably heard of LOLcats. Now it’s time to add a little old-school dignity to silly captions.
https://historiclols.cheezburger.com
August 8, 2010
You know that Microsoft Office “helper” that looks like a paperclip? Customize the clip’s messages with hilarious results.
https://www.imagegenerator.net/create/clippy/
August 1, 2010
Looking at this website will make you feel like your desk is a plane — and that plane just did a barrel roll. Thanks to Jomo Moir for the tip.
https://www.freakingnews.com/Celebrities-Upside-Down-Pictures—2433.asp
July 26, 2010
Each artwork in this collection is made of a single sheet of paper.
https://www.6die.com/2010/06/artwork-single-sheet-of-paper.html
July 19, 2010
The next time you’re annoyed or frustrated, take out your feelings on a poor, defenseless can of beans.
https://www.simonpanrucker.com/beans.swf
July 12, 2010
This site celebrates the special bond between people and their pets.
https://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/
July 5, 2010
In the hallowed tradition of Selleck Waterfall Sandwich, we bring you Nimoy Sunset Pie. Caution: Bad Trekker jokes ahead. Thanks to Kort Kramer for the suggestion.
https://nimoysunsetpie.tumblr.com/
June 28, 2010
This site turns your handwriting int
o a font. What’s wacky about that? Nothing, really — it’s just cool! Tip o’ the hat to Daniel Gaugler for the suggestion.
June 21, 2010
This site showcases 18 cool inventions from the past, including a one-wheeled motorcycle circa 1931.
https://www.boredpanda.com/cool-inventions-from-the-past
June 14, 2010
Create your own disgusting monster, then battle other disgusting monsters. Bonus activity: bug squashing!
June 7, 2010
There were some very, very strange advertisements in the 1970s. Here are 37 of the wackiest.
https://www.guidespot.com/guides/70s_ad_funny_farrah
May 31, 2010
Now you have a perfect destination for this year’s summer vacation.
https://www.desertdutch.org/slabcity.htm
May 24, 2010
The waiter brings your dinner. Does it look a little… odd? Take a picture and post it on this site.
May 17, 2010
This site may not be wacky, but some of the things it sells certainly are.
May 10, 2010
Bruce Parsons, the reader who submitted this site, recommends that once the site loads in your Web browser, you don’t click on anything for a few seconds — just wait and watch what happens.
May 3, 2010
This site is resplendent with glittery suits, bedazzled capes, and candelabras on pianos. Be sure to visit the store for gifts that will please anyone with a flair for the tacky dramatic.
April 26, 2010
Anyone who deals much with clients will recognize some of these eye-rolling utterances that prove the customer isn’t always right.
April 19, 2010
This web site ponders the “art and science of pencils”. Pencils!
April 12, 2010
We think this site is actually more spooky than wacky. But maybe you won’t be disturbed by these photos of dolls carved to look like real people.
April 5, 2010
If you want to shorten a URL, you have many options. But they’re all boring! Instead, use this service and you’ll not only get a short URL, but one that sounds suspicious and/or frightening.
March 29, 2010
The Code Organ translates the content of a Web page into music. Andwww.creativepro.com sounds pretty catchy, if we do say so ourselves. Submitted by CreativePro.com reader Jerry Lehman.
March 22, 2010
Imagine one of the Golden Girls noshing on deep dish atop Mt. Fuji and you will have captured the essence of this profoundly important Web site.
https://beaarthurmountainspizza.tumblr.com
March 15, 2010
Christoph Niemann blends humor and technology to create tongue-in-cheek infographics.
https://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/my-way/
March 8, 2010
The Museum of Modern Tweets is… well, you’ll have to see for yourself.
March 1, 2010
You have to respect a site that embraces its nerdiness with such honesty.
https://www.toplessrobot.com (And don’t worry about NSFW nudity — we found no examples of actual topless robots despite several minutes of searching.)
February 22, 2010
Suffering from cabin fever? Explore this collection of the world’s wonders, curiosities, and esoterica.
February 15, 2010
This site is so wrong that it’s right.
February 8, 2010
The author of this blog ruthlessly critiques album art from independent musicians.
February 1, 2010
So you have a deep love for Tom Selleck, waterfalls, or the absurd? This is the place for you.
https://selleckwaterfallsandwich.tumblr.com/
January 25, 2010
The “Poorly Dressed” site features photos of people who have made, er,unfortunate clothing choices. Warning: Some photos and captions are not safe for work.
https://poorlydressed.com/
January 18, 2010
This site documents the sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre things said by the site creator’s “mild-mannered English husband” — while he sleeps.
https://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/
January 11, 2010
In this list of animals with fraudulent diplomas, cats far outnumber dogs. Does that means felines are more intelligent, or just better fakers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas
January 4, 2010
This site was founded on the belief that everything in life would be better with a little more Nicolas Cage.
https://niccageaseveryone.blogspot.com/
December 28, 2009
This site documents a gravitational anomaly approximately 150 feet in diameter that’s located just outside of Santa Cruz, California. The anomaly, known as “The Mystery Spot,” amazes anyone who experiences its puzzling variations of gravity, perspective, and height.
https://www.mysteryspot.com
December 21, 2009
Depending on the level of your childhood mall-Santa trauma, the Sketchy Santas site might make you laugh, or you might find yourself curled into a ball, murmuring the lyrics to “Jingle Bells” over and over.
https://www.sketchysantas.com/
December 14, 2009
Bagels and Möbius strips have way more in common than you thought. Here’s the proof.
https://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html
December 7, 2009
You’ve always wanted to play “Louie, Louie” on a telephone keypad. Here’s how.
https://www.jlc.net/~useless/telsongs.html
November 30, 2009
Tis the season to spend more time than usual with family. But first, visit this site to fortify yourself.
https://myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com/
November 23, 2009
This site is all about charts and graphs, but it’s not your typical business snore-fe
st. A recent favorite charts the appeal of “Twilight” in relation to the age of the female watcher.
https://www.graphjam.com
November 16, 2009
Recently discovered diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre reveal a man obsessed not with the void, but with food. Read excerpts here.
https://www.pvspade.com/Sartre/cookbook.html
November 10, 2009
Whoops! Someone’s birthday is today and you forgot to send a card? Go to this site (created by Mat Honan), type your message after “.eu/” in the Web browser address field, and hit Return/Enter. Then send the resulting URL to the birthday boy/girl.
https://happybirthdayto.eu/
November 2, 2009
Have your fortune told by The Great Bernie.
https://www.TheGreatBernie.com
October 26, 2009
Read about (and try, if you’re brave) classic home science projects from the early to mid-twentieth century.
https://bizarrelabs.com
October 19, 2009
You’re afraid of what?! This site documents strange fears of things that don’t exist (but give people the chills anyway). Warning: Fear #9 is accompanied by a photo that’s NSFW.
https://amog.com/health/strange-fears-dont-exist/
October 12, 2009
If you’re not yet in the Halloween spirit, you will be once you visit this site.
https://www.skulladay.blogspot.com
October 5, 2009
Make the puppet dance!
September 29, 2009
The UK Telegraph has gathered the 20 most bizarre Craigslist advertisements.
www.telegraph.co.uk
September 21, 2009
The Selby features Todd Selby’s photographs, paintings, and videos by of interesting people and their creative spaces.
https://www.theselby.com
September 14, 2009
Sooner or later, almost everyone will visit Wal-Mart. This site chronicles some of the more unusual shoppers. Caution: Some photo captions are NSFW.
https://peopleofwalmart.com
September 8, 2009
Want to see words made out of orange rinds? Clothespins? Tortillas? Soap suds?
https://wemakewords.blogspot.com
September 1, 2009
You will not believe what some people can do with a Red Bull can.
https://www.redbullartofcan.com
August 25, 2009
Astronaut posteriors saved for posterity.
https://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/astronautbutts/
August 18, 2009
Fess up — some of your repairs look like this, don’t they?
https://thereifixedit.com
August 11, 2009
More wonderful than wacky, odosketch is an online Flash-powered drawing application.
https://sketch.odopod.com/
August 4, 2009
Sign up for the image-only Friday Round-up, which creator Kate Steciw calls an “anti-blogging exercise.”
https://katesteciw.com/index.php?/projects/friday-round-up/
July 28, 2009
Nonsek is a web site that creates and sells “graphic remixes.” It won’t make sense until you try it. Happily, demos are free.
https://nonsek.com
July 21, 2009
Toilet paper origami. Go crazy!
https://www.origami-resource-center.com/toilet-paper-origami-pleat.html
July 14, 2009
The warning at the top of this how-to for making a jet-powered beer cooler says that it’s very dangerous. Like you would let that stop you.
https://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
July 7, 2009
First the office chair that tweeted farts, now this:
https://tinyurl.com/nekfxu
June 30, 2009
Take a bunch of junk, pile it up, and shine a light on it. The results, though perhaps smelly, are astounding.
https://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/incredible-shadow-art-created-from-junk/12265
June 23, 2009
Make a Lava Lite out of a few common household materials. You know you want to.
https://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/volcano.html
June 16, 2009
Wanna see some bad logos? Some REALLY bad logos?
https://www.yourlogomakesmebarf.com/
June 9, 2009
Is it mean to giggle at this? Maybe a little.
https://gothsinhotweather.blogspot.com/
June 2, 2009
Visit this photo booth from the comfort of your office chair.
https://www.laphotocabine.com
May 27, 2009
Reader mrbishi suggested the site “Where are you in the movie?” You plug in your birth date and life expectancy, choose a movie title, then see how far along in that movie you are. In the movie of my life, the Wicked Witch just jumped on her broom and flew out of her tower dungeon.
https://www.amberdigital.com/where/
May 19, 2009
You are going to laugh so hard when you see the “Awkward Family Photos” site.
https://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/
May 12, 2009
A modern ode to the 404 error page.
https://www.plinko.net/404/tribute.asp
May 5, 2009
Trainer, speaker, and author Claudia McCue pointed out this crazy-beautiful-yet-EEK!-bugs site.
https://www.formandpheromone.com/
April 28, 2009
You have a Bigfoot obsession? Hey, me too!
https://www.LivingSasquatch.com
April 21, 2009
You’ve heard the modern-art criticism “My kid could draw that”? While this art is done with crayons, it’s not kid stuff.
https://www.christianfaur.com/crayons/
April 14, 2009
Need to chill for a bit? Breathe deeply and click the blue button.
https://www.instantom.com
April 7, 2009
For all you Daft Punk fans.
https://www.najle.com/idaft/
March 31, 2009
Revel in EepyBird’s extreme sticky note experiments. Tip o’ the hat to Tim Hoffer for pointing out the extremitude.
https://www.eepybird.com/stickynote.html
March 24, 2009
Roadside America is your online guide to offbeat tourist attractions.
https://www.road
sideamerica.com/
March 17, 2009
Thanks to Jennifer of Perrella Graphics for alerting us to this site, which claims to have every single advertisement in all major magazines from 1930 to 1969.
https://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/index
March 10, 2009
This web site, which is all about photo booths, is a kick in the pants.
www.photobooth.net
March 3, 2009
This site is dedicated to paintings of dogs playing poker. Seriously.
www.dogsplayingpoker.org
February 24, 2009
Who do you want to be today?
www.faceinhole.com
February 17, 2009
You are forbidden from using this tool against CreativePro.com. Not that you would ever want to, of course.
https://keepmeout.com/
February 10, 2009
Take your short line of text. Add 48 possibilities for placing that text in a scene: on a marquee, a street sign, a hot dog, a…
www.redkid.net/generator/sign.php
February 3, 2009
I would like to be buried in the Letter Museum, please.
www.buchstabenmuseum.de
January 27, 2009
This site gives you knitting patterns so you can recreate the scarves worn by Doctor Who in the long-running TV show. And here I thought I was a big nerd.
www.doctorwhoscarf.com
January 20, 2009
Visit the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.
https://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/
January 13, 2009
The concept may sound stupid: Obscure or augment any part of your body with a record sleeve to produce an illusion. But the results often leave you shaking your head in wonder at the world’s creativity.
www.sleeveface.com
January 6, 2009
Syrian hamsters are the best breed to run a rodent-powered night light. Click below to find out why, and how to build it yourself.
www.otherpower.com/hamster.html
December 30, 2008
This flick is a bit like “Sean of the Dead.” Just subtract zombies and add killer sheep.
www.blacksheep-themovie.com
December 23, 2008
This site is a memorial to the Hartwig Gobbler, the “grooviest motel in Wisconsin.”
www.lileks.com/institute/motel/index.html
December 16, 2008
Format Magazine used Lego’s miniature figurines and building blocks to recreate the covers of 20 hip hop album covers.
www.formatmag.com/features/lego-hip-hop-album-covers/
December 9, 2008
Is a cat plotting to kill you? Learn the warning signs before it’s too late!
https://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php
December 2, 2008
Thanks to Chuck Green for pointing out The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies, “where tools of the trade that have died or have just about died a slow, slow death are cheerfully exhibited.”
https://www.drawger.com/show.php?show_id=32
November 25, 2008
Elf Yourself is soooo tired. Try Tundra Tubbing instead!
https://www.equifax.com/holidaygame/
November 18, 2008
Image and font seller Veer is always good for something twisted. In their latest offering, “Unusual Suspects,” you read an eyewitness report of a fictitious crime, then create a human face that matches the case.
https://ideas.veer.com/features/faces
November 11, 2008
Thanks to reader Debie Mansfield for suggesting Megamonalisa. Debie says that the site “pays tribute to (some would say defaces) DaVinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting. See what other versions have been created and even add your own.”
https://www.megamonalisa.com/
November 4, 2008
Play a game that tests your memory while you browse for stock imagery.
https://www.sodapix.com/games/sodamemory.php
October 28, 2008
Don’t read the ghost stories on this site at night. Or if you do, don’t turn your back to that open doorway. Or that window.
https://www.yourghoststories.com
October 21, 2008
It’s not too late for custom-printed Halloween goodies. And while you’re there, make the floating head sing along to “She Blinded Me with Science.” Classic!
www.thecandylab.com
October 14, 2008
Don’t leave home without your hand-crafted Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. Step-by-step instructions included!
ttp://zapatopi.net/afdb/
October 6, 2008
This week’s Wacky Web Site needs only two words to express its ineffable appeal: Squirrel Underpants.
www.squirrelunderpants.com/
September 30, 2008
Steven Woodward has created 37 traffic signs of unexpected content and charm.
https://www.stevenwoodward.com/signs/index.htm
September 23, 2008
It’s a question every person should know the answer to: How long could you survive chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor?
https://www.bunkbeds.net/velociraptor/
September 16, 2008
Tip o’ the hat to Daniel Gaugler of PrintingForLess.com for passing on this week’s site, Strange Maps. Among the many things you’ll see charted here: regional names for carbonated beverages, the world as seen by a 15th-century sailor, and today’s Eastern North America as seen by Aer Lingus — or rather, Err Lingus.
https://strangemaps.wordpress.com/
September 9, 2008
Read about the five hoaxes that fooled the world in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. I would say people were more gullible back then, but then I remember all those emails from Nigeria…
https://www.neatorama.com/2008/08/19/five-hoaxes-that-fooled-the-world/
September 2, 2008
Does the fact that I love this music video make me a big dork?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m5vt07W2n4
August 16, 2008
SongBlitz is an interactive quiz that tests your ability to correctly identify musicians. That may sound benign, but I warn you — it’s completely addictive.
https://www.jamsbio.com/games/songBlitzSolo
August 19, 2008
The awesomeness of this site goes without saying.
https://www.talkingpets.org
August 12, 2008
Thanks to CreativePro.com reader Sue Lowery for suggesting work clothing company Carhartt, which has taken the tired old “under construction” message to an extreme: You get to destroy their old site design using a jackhammer, wrecking ball, or dynamite!
https://www.carhartt.com
August 4, 2008
Swat flies in this online game. I like the noise it makes when I squash a big one.
https://majman.net/fly_loader.html
July 29, 2008
Cracked.com shares their take on “The 6 Most Terrifying Items People Actually Collect.” Warning: Don’t visit this site if explicit language and photos disturb you. Definitely not safe for work viewing.
https://www.cracked.com/article_16491_6-most-terrifying-items-people-actu…
July 22, 2008
Garden statuary may sound ho-hum, but that’s because you haven’t experienced Design Toscano’s selection of resin meerkats, aliens, and Bigfeet (sadly not life-sized, but “finely hand-painted for startling realism”).
https://www.designtoscano.com/home.do
July 15, 2008
Proving that there is a Web site for everything: Minneapolis has its own Art Car workshops, exhibitions, and parade.
https://www.artcarparade.com/
July 8, 2008
Archie McPhee has been selling the wackiest of items for 25 years. While I still miss the low-fi appeal oftheir old paper catalogs, that same goofiness is now much more accessible online. Bacon-flavored floss, anyone?
https://www.mcphee.com/
July 1, 2008
The wonderfully named company Flying Pig has oodles of paper animation kits for your enjoyment.
https://www.flying-pig.co.uk/index.php
June 24, 2008
PowerPoint is a pain, but flowcharts are all right — at least, when they’re flowcharts about bacon. (Thanks to John Nack for this tasty morsel.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fncll/2129889439/sizes/o/
June 17, 2008
The COLOURlovers site brings us forbidden color combos: Color pairings that dare not speak their names.
https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/08/29/forbidden-color-combinations…
June 10, 2008
In most cases, electronic cards are a poor substitute for the real thing. But the unusual art, clever writing, and not-afraid-to offend messages of Wrongcards make them stand out. Warning: Not recommended for viewing at work.
https://www.wrongcards.com/
June 3, 2008
Simple, yet so satisfying: Choose a Web site that represents something you dislike, then select what kind of disaster you’d like to befall it (meteors, wasps, spilled coffee, etc.). Blam!
https://www.netdisaster.com/
May 28, 2008
This virtual kaleidoscope game comes from the mind of Ze Frank.
https://www.zefrank.com/dtoy_vs_byokal/index.html
May 19, 2008
Sure, Instant Rimshot is a one-trick pony. But what better response is there to that coworker who’s just cracked a corny joke… again?
https://www.instantrimshot.com/
May 13, 2008
How many TV theme songs can you name? My best score is 754. Post your best here.
https://www.televisiontunes.com/game.html
May 6, 2008
Think rap songs and infographics don’t have much in common? Think again.
https://www.jamphat.com/rap/
April 29, 2008
Crashing copter: Successfully pilot the helicopter past obstacles and I assume something good will happen. I wouldn’t know — I’ve crashed 137 times.
https://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf
April 22, 2008
Flowers2Mail: I wouldn’t exactly recommend this as a substitute for the real thing on a major occasion, but it’s a fun site nonetheless.
https://www.flowers2mail.com
April 15, 2008
Animator vs. Animation: This Flash classic can still make you grin.
Animator vs. Animation
April 8, 2008
Wreck Your Worries: Type a worry into a box, choose one of five tools (for example, a hammer or a golf club), and whack that worry into oblivion.
www.wreckyourworries.com
April 1, 2008
Head to this illustrator’s site when you want a laugh.
www.charlesbeyl.com
March 25, 2008
Now these are business cards people will remember.
https://inspiredology.com/graphic-design/cool-business-cards/
March 11, 2008
Mystery moving rocks of Death Valley. Can you figure it out?
https://www.funcram.com/stories/moving-rocks.html
March 4, 2008
This is just a cool site full of odd images
https://weburbanist.com/
February 26, 2008
Cool Word Illusions
https://www.marcofolio.net/other/15_cool_word_illusions.html
February 19, 2008
Having trouble sleeping? Here’s a solution.
https://www.daniel-ritter.de/strange/sheep.php4
February 12, 2008
Just in case you need help with your next slogan
https://www.thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi
February 5, 2008
This gives new meaning to the term “freehand”
https://www.thatwasfunny.com/hand-painting/1082
January 29, 2008
Strange Facts: More water cooler fodder
https://www.strangefacts.com/
January 22, 2008
Money Faces: I always have to share unique origami creations.
https://www.funforever.net/archives/2007/12/12/
January 15, 2008
HassleMe: This actually may be more useful than wacky.
https://www.hassleme.co.uk/
January 8, 2008
Is too much honesty a bad thing?
https://www.guardedlyoptimistic.com/2007/10/if-taglines-were-honest.html
January 2, 2008
Now those are some Mr. Potatoheads
https://funtasticus.com/20070925/mrpotato/
December 18, 2007
Need some business card design ideas? These are some doozies!
https://static.iftk.com.br/mt/2007/11/coolest_business_cards_ive_eve.html
December 11, 2007
Zoomed in on Food: Sometimes you can get too close.
https://allfunny.net/index.php/funny-pictures/zoomed-in-food.html
December 4, 2007
Strange Google Maps sightings. These are definitely “needle in a haystack” findings
https://www.softmall.org/fusion/readarticle.php?article_id=17
November 27, 2007
Fireplace TV: Almost like the real thing
https://www.fireplacetv.nl/
November 20, 2007
Can I have some!?
https://www.animaltalk.us/for/Animals/what-chefs-do-when-they-are-bored/
November 13, 2007
Amazing and fun inventions. The storage in a staircase is BRILLANT
https://www.zuzafun.com/cool-inventions
November 6, 2007
Here’s a fun DIY project that has the added benefit of annoying your family and friends.
https://www.review-it.info/change-tv-channels-without-a-remote/
October 30, 2007
What are you afraid of?
https://www.nlpnow.net/phobia-ac.html
October 23, 2007
Mad scientists at their best!
https://www.u-starvin.com/micromaniac/
October 16, 2007
Get from here to there in style
https://funtasticus.com/20070719/weird-transport/
October 9, 2007
If you’re into architecture you’ll like these
https://www.roxanneardary.com/blog/strange-unusual-houses-buildings/
October 2, 2007
Modular Chair: Form and function exaggerated
https://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/fun/video/x151i9_modular-chair
September 25, 2007
Extreme Pumpkins: Halloween is just around the corner
https://www.extremepumpkins.com/
September 18, 2007
Crazy Facts: This week’s water cooler fodder
https://www.thebiglad.com/Crazy-Facts
September 11, 2007
Wow… Some of these animals look alien
https://divaboo.info/
September 5, 2007
15 Unfortunately Placed Ads
https://www.oddee.com/item_87332.aspx
August 28, 2007
The Twinkie Test: Is this cruel and unusual punishment?
https://www.twinkiesproject.com/
August 21, 2007
ourYa ebWa itesa ranslatedta intoa igPa atinLa — and others too
https://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/
August 14, 2007
Funny Painted Cars: There are a couple NC17 submissions — beware
https://www.weirdomatic.com/funny-painted-cars.html
August 7, 2007
50 Reasons Why People Buy: Brainstorming tool
https://www.50reasonswhy.com/
July 31, 2007
Zip it: Check your Photoshop “fly” PDQ
https://bestyoulike.com/?p=350
July 24, 2007
Another batch of amazing photoshopped images
https://www.funpic.hu/funblog/allatok/allatok.html
July 17, 2007
Barcode Art: Try barcoding yourself
https://www.barcodeart.com/
July 10, 2007
Mailbox Art: Snail mail at its best
https://sblom.com/mailbox/
July 3, 2007
Have a little fun with JavaScript
https://www.retrogismo.com/crazy.htm
June 26, 2007
Strangest Coincidences: We don’t vouch for their authenticity, but they are entertaining none the less.
https://funnyhobo.com/2006/12/16/top-15-strangest-coincidences
June 19, 2007
World Beard Championship: Something to plan for come Fall
https://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/
June 12,
2007
Side Show World: Delve into the real wacky
https://www.sideshowworld.com/
June 5, 2007
Duct Tape Fashion: Make your own sticky fashion statement
https://www.ducttapefashion.com/
May 30, 2007
musicovery.com: A fun way to listen to music
https://www.musicovery.com/
May 22, 2007
zefrank.com: Distracting Flash fun
https://www.zefrank.com
May 15, 2007
The Art And Philosophy Of Chindogu
https://home.bawue.de/%7ejtesch/chindogu.html
May 8, 2007
Keep this random image generator for those “gotta share” moments. Please note there are some graphic images in this collection.
https://www.maxheadroom.nu/funstuff/index.php?id=3407
May 1, 2007
Things You Never Knew Existed: Definitely the place for those “hard to shop fors”
https://www.thingsyouneverknew.com
April 17, 2007
Strange statues around the world.
https://saoma.com/central/
April 10, 2007
Very Funny Ads: We’re sorry for any deadline missing that may happen.
https://veryfunnyads.com/
April 3, 2007
Create your own South Park characters
https://www.vexatori.de/zib/sp-studio.swf
March 27, 2007
File Swap: Interesting give and take proposition
https://www.file-swap.com/
March 20, 2007
Are you feeling crafty?
https://www.notmartha.org/tomake
March 13, 2007
Annoy your colleagues with virtual bubble wrap
https://just-go.to/bubbles/
March 6, 2007
For the survey-aholic in all of us
https://www.buzzdash.com/
February 27, 2007
How will your favorite publication report the end of the world?
https://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/wiu/480/joke8.htm
February 20, 2007
Sarcasm Society: Do you have the chops?
https://www.sarcasmsociety.com/
February 13, 2007
eBizzare: Some weird weird facts
https://www.ebizarre.com/
February 6, 2007
Words of Inspiration: A little more profound than wacky this time.
https://www.worldofinspiration.com/
January 30, 2007
Drum Machine: Do you got rhythm?
https://www.greenweaver.net/drummachine/drummachine.html
January 23, 2007
Remove those unwanted elements from your images
https://www.snapmania.com/info/en/trm/
January 16, 2007
Check out these crayon sculptures
https://diemchau.com/storytelling/index.html
January 9, 2007
Can you swing and hang on?
https://i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=20277
January 3, 2007
Bore Me: Some funny texts to get your 2007 started
https://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-all/by-type-2006-Text-p1.php
December 19, 2006
Text-based Pong: It’s harder than you think
https://www.karber.net/textbased/pong/pong.asp
December 12, 2006
Contemplate: Take time to think
https://contemplate.us/think-proverbs.php
December 5, 2006
Thousands of Ways To Annoy People: What better time of year to annoy someone
https://www.bored.com/getannoyed/index.htm
November 28, 2006
Could you be the next Jackson Pollack?
https://www.jacksonpollock.org/
November 21, 2006
Online Shell Game: How far can you get?
https://www.ohoboho.com/games/bbf03c806f746dbf51a00fcc57051c66.swf
November 14, 2006
Two Sentences: Give this writing exercise a try
https://www.twosentences.com/
November 7, 2006
Guess the Logo: How many do you recognize?
https://www.guessthelogo.com/
October 31, 2006
When Cloning Goes Wrong: How are your “genetics” skills?
https://www.dnaco.net/~vogelke/pictures/when-cloning-goes-wrong/
October 24, 2006
FutureMe: Send yourself a message in the future.
https://www.futureme.org/
October 17, 2006
Paper Toss: Now you don’t have to mess up your office
https://www.jupitercolour.co.uk/dvdf/throwpaper.swf
October 10, 2006
elgooG: This will make your head hurt
https://www.alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/m/
October 3, 2006
Concert Venue Help: Definitely more useful than wacky
https://beethere.net
September 26, 2006
Pen & Ink Fun: Doodle away
https://www.andyfoulds.co.uk/amusement/pen_ink.htm
September 19, 2006
DontClick.It: Try to resist the urge to click.
https://www.dontclick.it/
September 12, 2006
Seat Guru: Not overly wacky, but extremely helpful if you travel a lot.
https://www.seatguru.com/
September 6, 2006
Marble Magnets: Make some for your clients
https://www.notmartha.org/tomake/marblemagnets.html
August 29, 2006
75 Years of Band-Aid: Follow the history of the boo-boo fixer
https://www.savetz.com/bandaid/
August 22, 2006
Create your own kaleidoscope
https://www.zefrank.com/dtoy_vs_byokal/
August 15, 2006
Airigami: Balloon animals are not just for clowns anymore
https://www.airigami.com/
August 8, 2006
Human For Sale: How much are you worth?
https://www.humanforsale.com
August 1, 2006
Putting Sheep to Sleep: The key to a quick time? Listen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf
July 25, 2006
Mini Putt: Careful… you may get hooked
https://www.zdb.activedomain.nl/games/mini_putt.swf
July 18, 2006
Trendy Magic: How do they do that?
https://magic.trendy.org/interactivemagic.html
July 11, 2006
Art de Toilette: Gift ideas for someone who has everything
https://www.artdetoilette.com/
July 5, 2006
Custom Creature Taxidermy Arts: Careful. This site may not be for the faint of heart or stomach.
https://www.customcreaturetaxidermy.com/
June 27, 2006
xHollywood: Good central location for all those funny ads you remember from TV. Warning: There are a lot of pop up ads on this site.
https://www.xhollywood.com
June 20, 2006
Dumb Warnings: Vacuum Cleaner — Do not use to pick up gasoline or flammable liquids
https://www.dumbwarnings.com
June 13, 2006
Crazy Fads: Have you updated your trendy ways?
https://www.crazyfads.com/
June 6, 2006
The PhobiaList: What are you afraid of?
https://www.phobialist.com/
May 31, 2006
Perpetual Bubblewrap: Are you one of the annoying ones? Here’s your ultimate time waster.
https://www.urban75.com/Mag/bubble.html
May 23, 2006
PhoneSpell: Mnemonics options for your phone number
https://www.phonespell.org/
May 16, 2006
Discordian Coloring Book: I still have mine! Some of them are posters of velvet.
https://www.dreamspell.net/LKS/eris-frame.html
May 9, 2006
Inkblot Test: What do you see?
https://www.inkblottestwallpaper.com/
May 2, 2006
Cute Overload: Exactly that.
https://cuteoverload.com/
April 25, 2006
Cool Quotes: What they said!
https://www.coolquotes.com/
April 18, 2006
RoadsideAmerica: Offbeat places to visit
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/
April 11, 2006
Human Clock: Now that’s what I call analog
https://www.humanclock.com/
April 4, 2006
Superbad.com: The ultimate site of non sequiturs
https://www.superbad.com
March 28, 2006
Museum of Bad Art: Isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?
https://www.museumofbadart.org/
March 21, 2006
What Would You Do?: Can you survive?
https://www.spicolisbarleybin.com/games/survival.swf
This file has been removed from the host’s server.
March 14, 2006
Totally Absurd Inventions: All of these examples have patents. Go figure.
https://www.totallyabsurd.com/
March 07, 2006
Sound of Pasta: Something new to do with some of your carbs
https://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Farm/9258/
February 28, 2006
Captain Quack: For you rubber ducky fans.
https://www.captainquack.com/
February 21, 2006
Star Trek Quotables: Just in case Terri’s reference wasn’t enough.
https://www.sjtrek.com/trek/quotes/
February 14, 2006
Wonders of the World: Check out some suggestions for some new wonders.
https://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/other.html
February 7, 2006
That’s Ironic: You’ll be rolling your eyes at this one.
https://www.thatsironic.com/
January 31, 2006
Celebrity Height: Are you taller than Tom Cruise?
https://www.ringophone.com/TallOrNot.swf
January 24, 2006
Tomatoes are Evil: For all you tomato haters
https://www.tomatoesareevil.com
January 17, 2006
Email Etiquette: How’
s yours?
https://www.emailreplies.com/
January 10, 2006
Favorville: Facilitating the exchange of helpful acts.
https://www.favorville.com
January 4, 2006
Let’s get 2006 off to a great start… with a HUGE time wasting yet addictive game.
https://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf
December 20, 2005
Get inspired with some book cover art:
https://www.coverpop.com/
December 13, 2005
Zoom Quilt: Hint, you’re zoomed in pretty far at the start.
https://zoomquilt.org/
December 6, 2005
Are you ready for Chrismukkah?
https://www.chrismukkah.com/
November 29, 2005
Wondering what to get the gadget-head in your life? Let Popular Sciencehelp.
https://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown2005/index.html
November 22, 2005
Be prepared with some first thanksgiving facts.
https://www.mayflowerhistory.com/
November 15, 2005
Create your own South Park characters
https://spstudio.elena.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html
November 8, 2005
Camera Toss Pix: Please don’t drop it when you try this!
https://www.flickr.com/groups/cameratoss/pool/
November 1, 2005
World Sunlight Map: Looking for a little sunshine on a cloudy day?
https://www.opentopia.com/sunlightmaprect.html
October 25, 2005
Pixelfest: Add your one dot to the mix.
Note: This flash program takes a while to load.
https://haub.net/pixelfest/
October 18, 2005
Pandora: Not overly wacky, but VERY addicting.
https://www.pandora.com
October 11, 2005
Make-a-Flake: A little virtual paper cutting fun this week.
https://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/
October 4, 2005
The PocketMod: When a piece of paper in your hand is just enough
https://www.pocketmod.com/
September 27, 2005
How intuitive are you?
https://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=04124
September 20, 2005
The Phrontistery: Toss one of these words into a conversation.
https://phrontistery.info
September 13, 2005
I’m throwing away my “Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.”
You can quote me on that.
https://www.cybernation.com/quotationcenter/quoteaday.php
September 7, 2005
Which File Extension Are You? Take this quiz and find out.
https://www.bbspot.com/News/2004/10/extension_quiz.php
August 30, 2005
Urban Legends: Are some of these really true?
https://www.snopes.com/
August 23, 2005
Virtual Stapler: For the love of an office staple
https://www.virtualstapler.com/
August 16, 2005
Desktop Ink Blots: Test your psyche on your computer
https://www.inkblottestwallpaper.com/
August 9, 2005
ABC Gallery: Remember your Art History textbook?
Here it is on your computer:
https://www.abcgallery.com/
August 2, 2005
Short Short Short Stories: Just in case you don’t have time for a full novel.
https://espressostories.com/
July 26, 2005
Paperdoll Heaven: Dress up your favorite celebs
https://www.paperdollheaven.com
July 19, 2005
Fruit Pages: Handy reference for your next trip to the farmers market.
https://www.thefruitpages.com/
July 12, 2005
Country Reports: No so wacky this week, but pretty darn informative.
https://www.countryreports.org
July 6, 2005
Celebrities Eating: Just in case you’ve already read your latest People Magazine this week and still need a Hollywood fix.
https://www.celebrities-eating.com
June 28, 2005
Crying While Eating: Whaaaa?!
https://www.cryingwhileeating.com/
June 21, 2005
Trivia-Library.com: Bone up before your next Trivial Pursuit game.
https://www.trivia-library.com/
June 14, 2005
Muffin Films: Is that blueberry muffin backing up on you?
https://www.muffinfilms.com/
June 7, 2005
Podcast Alley: A good place to start browsing for an aural distraction.
https://www.podcastalley.com/
June 1, 2005
Interactive Refridgerator Magnets: “Someone keeps stealing my letters…”
https://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/features photos of people who have made unfortunate clothing choices. Warning: Some photos and captions are not safe for work.
We regularly update this compilation of the Tip-of-the-Week mailings from InDesign Magazine. To receive the tips in your email in-box, sign up here.
Frame Resizing On the Double Click
You’ve placed an image into a selected Frame and decide afterwards that you’d like the Frame to Fit the whole image. Is there a quick way to accomplish this without applying any menu commands or dragging of bounding box points? If you’re using CS3 or later, you’re in luck.
Instead of dragging bounding box points, simply double-click on any corner bounding box point. The Frame will instantly resize to the image it contains.
If you double-click on a side center Bounding Box Point, the Frame will resize to fit the Image’s width leaving the height of the Frame untouched. If you double-click on a top or bottom center Bounding Box Point, the Frame will resize to fit the Image’s height leaving the width of the Frame untouched.
– Jeff Witchel
Make the Pasteboard Bigger
InDesign’s Pasteboard to the left and right of a page are plenty big enough to store design elements, but the default Pasteboard size above and below a page is just 1″ tall. To make the Pasteboard taller, go to the InDesign menu (PC: Edit) > Preferences > Guides & Pasteboard and increase the Minimum Vertical Offset in the Pasteboard Options section of the dialog window to any size up to 120″. Then click OK to apply.
– Jeff Witchel
Match Colors on Your Monitor and Your iPad
The iPad has a strange color gamut (range of colors). To get an approximate preview of iPad colors on your desktop, download Christian Albrecht’s ICC color profile for the iPad from https://bit.ly/xEI6nH.
Install this profile on your computer and then do the following in InDesign:
1. Be sure that Edit > Transparency Blend Space is set to Document RGB.
2. Be sure that Edit > Color Settings is set to North America General Purpose 2.
3. Choose View > Proof Setup > Custom.
4. Select iPad.icc for the “Device to Simulate” and check the Preserve RGB Numbers option.
5. Choose View > Proof Colors.
The colors on your monitor should now more closely match the colors on your iPad.
– Keith Gilbert
Tabbed Document Tips
By default in InDesign CS4, CS5, and CS5.5, documents open in a tabbed window format. If you don’t like the order of the tabs, you can click and drag the tabs to the right or left. You can also click on a tab and undock the document so it’s in a separate window by dragging it away from the tabs. Once undocked, you can click and drag the document by its title bar back up to the tabbed documents. When the tab section and the rest of the tabbed window is highlighted, release your mouse and the document will rejoin the tabbed window.
– Jeff Witchel
Printing a Booklet Made Easy
Printing out a brochure layout to create a client comp or a dummy was always an imposing task involving lots of cutting and pasting. In InDesign CS3 or later, however, there’s an easy way to print brochures in printers spreads on your desktop printer. Let’s say you designed an 8-page brochure that folds to 8.5″ x 11″. To output printers spreads, simply go to File > Print Booklet, and in the window that opens, use the Default settings and press Print. Your spreads will print out with page 8 next to page 1, page 2 next to 7, 6 next to 3, and 4 next to 5.
– Jeff Witchel
Panels Popping In and Out
You probably know that when your cursor isn’t in text, you can press the Tab key to make InDesign’s panels disappear and reappear. But with your panels hidden, you can also simply bring your cursor to the right or left edge of your Workspace and the panels will pop into view.
– Jeff Witchel
InDesign Templates for iPad Publications
When you’re creating an iPad publication, set InDesign’s measurement system to pixels and your “pages” (screens) to 1024 x 768. To download InDesign templates for iPad screens with these settings, as well as the correct transparency blend space and color, go to https://bit.ly/yiC79C.
– Keith Gilbert
Two Ways To Hide
In InDesign CS5, you can hide individual objects on the page by using the Layers panel or by pressing Cmd/Ctrl-3.
– from James Fritz on Twitter, @jamesfritz
Use Custom Dictionaries for Spell Check
Sometimes you want InDesign’s spell check to go beyond the default dictionary. To add a list of custom words to the program’s dictionary, take the following steps:
1. Build a custom dictionary by choosing Preferences > Dictionary and clicking the New User Dictionary icon. Name and place the dictionary.
2. Create a text file with your list of words and save it as an unformatted .txt file.
3. Go to Edit > Spelling > Dictionary. Use the Target pop-up menu to choose the dictionary you created in step 1. Click the Import button and select the text file you saved in step 2. As long as the custom dictionary is chosen in the Preferences, InDesign won’t flag those words as misspelled.
– Sandee Cohen
Banish Form Alerts from PDFs
Once an interactive PDF contains more than 100 buttons, Acrobat displays a form helper banner even when there is no form. This is apt to confuse people viewing the PDF.
To prevent Acrobat from interpreting buttons as a form, choose File > Export, name the file, and choose Interactive PDF. In the Export to Interactive PDF dialog box, click the Security button. Check the option to “Use a password to restrict editing, printing and other tasks” and then input the password you want to control the setting. In the Changes Allowed menu, choose either “None” or “Inserting, deleting and rotating page.”
– Sandee Cohen
Control Leading
Here’s how to change InDesign’s default value for automatic leading: Close all open documents, then open Paragraph from the Type menu and choose Justification from the Paragraph palette menu. Reset the Auto Leading value (I like 100%) and click OK.
To change the default leading to a specific value, once again start with no documents open. Hit T to select the Type tool. In the Control bar, click the Character symbol at the far left to display the character-formatting options. In the Leading field, pick or type a value of your choice.
– James Felici
Hanging Punctuation
You can hang an opening quote mark using the Indent to Here character: Cmd+ (Ctrl+). This special character indents all subsequent lines in the paragraph to the point where you add the character, fixing the optical hole on the left edge of the text. It’s especially useful for pull quotes and callouts that begin with a quote mark.
– Nigel French
The Best Video Format
InDesign CS5 and 5.5 can handle many video formats: .mov, .avi, .mpeg, .flv, .f4v .mp4, and .m4v. But for optimum compatibility with the greatest assortment of viewing devices, I recommend the H.264-encoded video formats; that is, .mp4 and .m4v.
– Steve Werner
Get Smarter about Spot Colors
Are you working with spot colors? Turn on Overprint Preview (View > Overprint Preview) and keep it on so that what you see onscreen will be closer to what you get from your printer.
– David Blatner
Make “Cutting Corners” a Good Thing
Paper that has been cut into an unusual shape with a metal die is certainly an attention getter, but it’s also beyond many budgets. To achieve the effect without the cost, try a simple guillotine trim, which just slices off an edge of the page. In the example below by Design Ranch in Kansas City, MO, the upper right and lower left corners of a four-panel accordion were cut at angles.
– Trish Witkowski
More Elegant Alignment
Punctuation at the margin of a text frame can make the left or right sides of a column appear misaligned. Fix that by turning on InDesign’s Optical Margin Alignment: Select the story, choose Story from the Type menu, and check the Optical Margin Alignment box in the Story panel.
To turn off optical margin alignment for certain types of paragraphs (bullets and numbered lists, for example), choose the Ignore Optical Margin Alignment option in your Paragraph Style Options.
– Nigel French
Go Hollywood with InDesign
You can place a video file into an InDesign document in two ways:
1. Choose File > Place.
2. Click the Place a Video or Audio File button at the bottom of InDesign’s Media panel (Window > Interactive > Media).
Either way, it’s best to just click or drag the Place icon to create the media frame (rather than place it inside an existing frame) so the video doesn’t appear cropped.
– Steve Werner
Articles That Don’t Export
In InDesign CS 5.5, the new Articles Panel is a great new way to control the order of your content when exporting to ePub. But what if you have elements on your page that you want in the Articles panel, but don’t want to be included in the ePub? One option is to click on the “Create New Article” button at the bottom of the panel; give it a name; and then make sure to deselect the “Include Article” checkbox. Any elements that you add to this particular Article will effectively be ignored when exporting to ePub.
– Ron Bilodeau
Reveal Overset Text
You can see by the red plus sign on the right side of your text box that it contains overset text. To reveal the hidden text, type Command-Option-c/Control-Alt-c. The box will grow to just the right size.
– Michael Ninness
Banish Extra Rows When Converting Text to Tables
When you convert tabbed text to a table in InDesign, is there sometimes an extra row at the bottom of the table? If so, it’s because you selected the pilcrow (paragraph symbol) at the end of the line. To avoid that, simply don’t select the paragraph symbol at the end of the last line of type.
– Sandee Cohen
Preview Your Folio
After creating an interactive document with InDesign CS5.5’s Overlay Creator, test it before you download it onto your tablet. To test your open document, choose File > Folio Preview. Or, to preview the entire folio, click on the preview link at the bottom of the Folio Builder Panel after you selecting your folio.
– James Fritz
Create an Adhesive Tape Effect with Hard Light
One of my favorite transparency blending modes for creating realistic effects is Hard Light. It gives you a greater range of tones than you can get with Overlay or Soft Light, and it’s less prone to blowing out highlights or plugging shadows like Color Dodge and Color Burn will. One fun trick you can do with Hard Light is to simulate adhesive tape. Start with a rectangle in the shape of a strip of tape. Fill it with 20% black in the Swatches panel and set it to Hard Light in the Effects panel. You might need to reduce the opacity a bit, too. Now give it a very small drop shadow directly behind (with a Distance of zero or one) and voila: tape!
– Mike Rankin
Let InDesign’s Help Help You
Once you start looking, you’ll find InDesign’s subtle “help” prompts everywhere. For example, when you hover over the yellow Live Corner diamonds in the corners of a frame, InDesign displays a tool tip that reads, “Drag to set corner size. Opt-click to change shape. (Press Shift to change one corner.)” Similarly, hovering over the icons at the bottom of the Links panel displays all kinds of useful information, such as how many missing links, how many unique links, keyboard shortcuts, and more. Certain panels—such as the Data Merge panel, the Object States panel, and the Articles panel (the last one is new in InDesign CS5.5)—will under certain conditions offer helpful hints right on the face of the panel. The ultimate helper, of course, is the Tool Hints panel (Window > Utilities > Tool Hints).
– Keith Gilbert
Lines with Strokes
You’ve turned a line into an arrow using InDesign’s Strokes panel. But perhaps you can’t see the arrow clearly over a dark background, so you want to add a small white outline. Unfortunately, you can’t add two stroke colors to one object in InDesign. So cheat a little and add an Outer Glow effect instead! This creates the appearance of a dual stroke. You’ll probably want to set the blending mode to Normal and Opacity to 100%. To remove the fuzzy edge on the glow, change the Spread value to 100%.
– Cari Jansen
Use a Custom Dictionary
A custom dictionary is a great way to ensure consistent spelling of technical jargon for specific projects. To create a custom dictionary, choose Preferences > Dictionary, and click on the New User Dictionary icon. Give the dictionary a name, and store it anywhere you’d like. When you want to add a selected word to the custom dictionary, choose Edit > Spelling > Dictionary. Then, be sure to change the Target pop-up menu from the default “User Dictionary” to your custom user dictionary before adding your word. Be careful: If you add several words throughout a work session, and then InDesign crashes, you’ll lose all the words you’ve added in that session, even if you’ve been saving your InDesign file along the way. Curiously, InDesign doesn’t actually write the words you’ve added to the custom user dictionary file until you quit InDesign. So save and quit every so often!
– Keith Gilbert
Two Ways to Handle CSS
When exporting your InDesign composition to HTML for the Web (File > Export, then set Format to HTML), InDesign CS5.5 creates a list of CSS styles that appears in the Head section of the HTML file with style declarations (attributes). If the Include Style Definitions checkbox is selected in the Advanced area of the HTML Export dialog, InDesign will actually attempt to match the attributes of the InDesign text formatting with CSS equivalents! However, if this option is deselected, the HTML file includes empty declarations that can later be customized with a CSS editor like Dreamweaver CS5.5.
– Jerry Silverman
Scale Frame and Content to Specific Measurement Value
Say you have a frame that is five inches wide, and you want to scale it and the picture inside the frame down to three inches wide. You probably know you can change the width and height of any selected object to any specific value by entering the desired measurement into the Width and Height fields in the Control panel. However, that only changes the width and height of the selected frame, or the selected image within a frame-not both at the same time. If you use the Scale X and/or Scale Y fields in the Control panel, you do scale both the frame and its image simultaneously, but you have to do the math because the Scale X and Scale Y fields use percentages by default. Don’t want to do the math? You don’t have to. Simply enter “3 in” into the Scale X field.
– Michael Ninness
View a Story in Multiple Windows
InDesign lets you view one document in multiple windows. When working on a long, text-heavy document, it can difficult to judge the effect of text changes on pages that appear later in the document. For example, in a book or multiple-page article, you may want to adjust the text early in the story to shorten the story by a few lines. By viewing the document in two separate windows, you can adjust the text in one window and use a second window to see the effect your text changes are having at the end of the story. To get a second window, choose Window > Arrange > New Window.
– Jay Nelson
Add One Color Swatch from Another File
You can add colors from another file to the Swatches panel by choosing Load Swatches on the panel’s flyout menu. But what if you want to add just one color? Choose New Color Swatch. Under the Color Mode menu, choose Other Library, then select the file containing the colors you want to add. The colors from the file will show up as individual swatches that you can add one by one to your current file.
– Diane Burns
Kill the Stroke!
Did you just draw a rectangle and end up with a stroke on it that you didn’t want? You can quickly change the fill and stroke attributes of any selected frame by pressing the following keys: Press the X key to toggle between the Stroke and Fill attributes. Press Shift-X and the fill color and stroke color will swap places. The comma key (,) applies the default color to the fill/stroke; the period key (.) applies the default gradient to the fill/ stroke; and the forward slash key (/) sets the current fill/stroke to None. These shortcuts work in Illustrator, as well.
– Michael Ninness
The Spelling Menu
Sometimes you know a word is misspelled, but you’re not sure how to spell it correctly. With Dynamic Spelling enabled (Preferences > Spelling > Enable Dynamic Spelling), you can right-click on a flagged word to choose from a contextual menu of suggested corrections.
– Mike Rankin
Align Left Edge of Drop Caps
Often, when you create a drop cap in InDesign, the left edge of the character is not perfectly aligned with the left edge of the text frame. Some folks still use this old and painful trick: Insert a white space character in front of the drop cap and then manually add negative kerning to it. Ick! Instead, simply choose the Align Left Edge option in the Drop Caps and Nested Styles section in Paragraph Style Options. (Note: This is now enabled by default in CS5.)
– Michael Ninness
I Need My Space(bar)
Did you know that you can reposition an object while you’re drawing out a frame? As you draw out the frame, don’t release the mouse button. Instead, hold down the spacebar and drag the object to a new position. Then release the spacebar and finish drawing the object.
– Claudia McCue
The Incredible Growing Text “Frame”
Need a text frame that grows or shrinks depending on the amount of text it contains? Try a one-cell table. You can turn off the strokes, add a fill, and text inset. As long as the row height is set to At least (the default), the cell will change height according to the amount of text within.
– Diane Burns
Color-Coded Highlighting
Just about everyone has opened a document or placed copy only to see the text highlighted in a color. Here’s what those highlight colors are telling you:
Pink: Missing font.
Yellow: Hyphenation and Justification (H&J) settings have been violated.
Amber (dangerously close to yellow): One or more alternate glyphs have been substituted for one or more glyphs in a font’s standard set.
Green: Someone has applied manual kerning or tracking.
You’ll always want to fix the missing font problem. But the other three colors don’t necessarily mean anything is wrong; InDesign is simply alerting you to a change.
Track Down Obscure Glyphs
Uncommon glyphs come in three categories:
1. Characters you can enter using a keyboard, but only after a lengthy search for the proper key combination; for example, the pilcrow (Option/Alt-7) and the twisted sign of infinity (Option/Alt-5).
2. Characters that show up only in particular symbol or pi fonts. You can still type these on a keyboard, though it’s often faster to open InDesign’s Glyphs panel (Type > Glyphs), scroll through the list, and double-click the one you want.
3. The third type of glyph is beyond the realm of the keyboard; for example, the interpunct or the sound recording copyright. For a detailed how-to on inserting these characters, see my article “Tracking Obscure Glyphs” in the April/May 2011 issue of InDesign Magazine.
– David Blatner
Turn Letters Into Neon Strips
You can combine multiple letters into one continuous shape that looks like neon–without leaving InDesign! Start with a heavy, monoweight typeface, such as VAG Rounded Bold (A). Convert the text to outlines (Type > Create Outlines). For the T and W, overlapping the letter shapes is sufficient, but for the other letter combinations you’ll need connectors (derived from a rotated I). Overlap them as necessary to bridge the gaps (B). Tweak their shapes with the Direct Selection tool to ensure smooth joins, then combine the letters into one shape (Object > Pathfinder). The combined result shows several unnecessary anchor points, which you must remove with the Delete Anchor Point tool (C). Finally, apply fill and stroke colors (D).
Turn Around Apostrophes
When Use Typographer’s Quotes (Preferences > Type) is on, InDesign automatically converts straight or “dumb” quotes into curly or “smart” quotes during text entry. That’s usually desirable; however, this automatic conversion can produce unwanted results. For example, the presence of a space before abbreviated years like ’11 for 2011 incorrectly produces an opening single quotation mark. To produce the correct apostrophe in this situation, press Option/Alt-Shift-].
– Yves Peters
Drag-and-Drop Anchored Objects
Anchored objects are not new; InDesign users have long been able to place graphics and text frames into the flow by anchoring them to specific places in running text. But in InDesign CS5.5, instead of a clunky cut-and-paste operation, you can simply grab a little blue box in the upper right hand corner of your desired object, and drag the resulting insertion point indicator to where you want to anchor the object. Want to reposition your anchor point? No more scouring the Story Editor for that anchor icon! Drag the blue anchor box again, setting the insertion point at your new desired location.
– Colleen Wheeler
Turn on Track Changes
InDesign CS5 and 5.5 can track text changes, a handy feature when you’re collaborating on a document or reviewing one another’s work. Each team member should select a unique user name and tracking color (File > User), then enable tracking by going to Type > Track Changes.
– Pariah Burke
Move the Top Rule on a Table Cell
Unlike ordinary strokes that can be aligned on the outside, center, or inside of an object, table strokes can only straddle the boundaries of the cells. So what do you do when you want to move the top rule on a table cell down a bit? Instead of repositioning the rule, you can add another rule to the cell with the fill. Select only the top rule that needs to be evened out. You can add a rule just to the top of this cell by deselecting the proxy rules in the cell rule control box. (This box is visible only when cells are selected.) Click the lines in the proxy rule box so that only the top line is blue. That means that whatever formatting you create will be applied only to the top of the cell. Create a rule with the formatting as the top cell for the adjacent cell and the top of the two cells will be even.
– Sandee Cohen
Carve Shapes Out of Letters with Pathfinder’s Subtract Option
In the image above, I’ve subtracted a shape relevant to the word from the counter of one of the letters. To do this yourself, enter the word “CATS” and convert it to outlines (Type > Create Outlines). With the type selected, go to Object > Paths > Release Compound Path. Place a vector outline of a cat over the C, select both, and choose Object > Pathfinder > Subtract.
– Nigel French
Interlock Letters with the Pathfinder’s Intersect Option
In the image above, I’ve created the illusion of interlocking letters to give the design greater depth. To do this yourself, enter text and convert it to outlines, then copy the text frame and Paste it in Place. (It helps to put the copy on a separate layer and lock the layer beneath.) With the type (now frames) selected, go to Object > Pathfinder and choose the Intersect option. That leaves just the overlapping pieces, which you can recolor to give the illusion that the letterforms are interlocking.
– Nigel French
When to Use Presentation Mode
InDesign CS5’s Presentation Mode (View > Screen Mode > Presentation) sounds like a natural fit for PowerPoint-style presentations, but it’s not because any interactivity you’ve built into your layout (buttons, animations, transitions, etc.) won’t work. Presentation Mode is better suited for a quick review of your layout as someone looks over your shoulder.
– James Fritz
Create an Animation along a Path
Are you tired of the canned animations in InDesign CS5’s Animation panel? If so, create your own. Using the pencil or pen tool, draw a path that you would like to have an object animate along. Next, select the path and the object that you want animate and go to the Object menu > Interactive > Convert to Motion Path. Now your object will move along this path. To reverse the direction of the path, click to select the path and go to the Object menu > Paths > Reverse Path.
– James Fritz
Craft Cool Drop Caps
To create a drop cap in InDesign, insert your Type cursor into the paragraph where you want the large initial letter, type the number of lines for the drop cap in the Control panel, then specify the number of drop cap characters you want—usually one. To refine the look of the drop cap, choose Drop Caps and Nested Styles from the Control panel menu (or Option/Alt-click on either of the drop cap icons in the Control panel).
– Nigel French
Edit Without Ungrouping
To edit one object in a bunch of objects that are grouped together, double-click to drill down in the group until you isolate just the item you want to edit. If you press the Escape key, you can back out one step at a time, or deselect to leave the group completely.
– James Fritz
Lock It Away with CS5
When you want to prevent yourself from editing an object on the page, lock it by pressing Cmd/Ctrl+L. To unlock just the object, click the lock icon at the edge of its frame. To unlock everything on the spread, press Cmd+Opt+L (Ctrl+Alt+L). Another way to lock objects is to use InDesign’s Layers panel to individually lock any item on the page.
– James Fritz
Hit the Tab Key, Hide the Panels
IPress the Tab key (when you’re not typing or editing text with the Type tool) to hide all the panels on your screen. Hit the Tab key again to restore the panels. If you’ve chosen Preferences > Interface > Auto-Show Hidden Panels and you have some panels docked on the side of your screen, hovering the mouse over the edge of the screen will temporarily show the docked panels until you move the mouse away from the panels.
– Keith Gilbert
Who Needs the Align Panel?
Instead of using the distribution options in the Align panel, use InDesign CS5’s Live Distribute. With multiple objects selected, click and drag the resize handles. As you drag, hold the space bar and the space in-between the objects will change instead of the objects themselves.
– James Fritz
Put Your Files on a Diet
For the slimmest possible InDesign files, follow these rules:
1. Don’t copy and paste content from Photoshop or a web browser.
2. Don’t place images right out of a digital camera into InDesign.
3. Don’t leave extra items floating around (stuff on pasteboards, extra master pages or styles, and so on).
4. Do go to File > Save As to create a duplicate of your document.
5. Do resize images and set their resolution in Photoshop, not InDesign.
6. Do export as IDML or INX to clear out corruption and unneeded gunk.
– David Blatner and Mike Rankin
Stroll Through Multiple Tabbed Documents
When you have multiple tabbed InDesign documents in a window, press Command/Control and the ~ (tilde) key to view the document the right of the one you’re viewing. Press Command/Control-Shift-~ to see the document to the left of the one you’re viewing.
– Mike Rankin
Control Guides Quickly
Here are three quick ways to control InDesign’s Guides:
1. Step and Repeat. Select a guide and choose Edit > Step and Repeat, as you would with any object in the page.
2. Distribute. Select three or more guides and use the Distribute controls in the Align panel (Window > Object & Layout > Align). This is a great way to get equal spacing between them.
3. Change color. Select guides with the Selection tool, then choose Layout > Ruler Guides and pick from the absurdly long list of colors (including Lipstick and Cute Teal).
– Claudia McCue
Spot On
To create a new spot color swatch, Command-Option/Ctrl-Alt click the New Swatch button on the Swatches panel.
– Mike Rankin
Don’t Read Ancient Greek
Is there any point in greeking text nowadays? Wouldn’t you rather see the real letter shapes of your type? Unless you’re still working on the same computer you had in 1999 when InDesign debuted, you probably won’t notice any dip in performance if you turn off greeking altogether. Go to Preferences > Display Performance, and set Greek Type Below to zero for all view settings (Fast, Typical, and High Quality).
– Mike Rankin
Copy into a Fresh Frame
You can duplicate a placed graphic into a new frame just by selecting the graphic and option/alt dragging beyond the current frame. The new frame will have the same properties as if you drew it with the Rectangle Frame tool (no stroke or fill, Fitting of None, and zero for all crops).
– Mike Rankin
Spring-Loaded Tools to the Rescue
InDesign tries very hard to help you align objects when you drag by snapping them Do you dislike the Frame Edge Highlighting that appears when you mouse over frames in CS5? Spring-loaded tools can help. Frame edge highlighting only appears when you use one of the selection tools. With spring-loaded tools, you can press and hold single keys to temporarily switch to any other tool. As long as you hold the key for more than a second, you’ll switch back to your previous tool when you release the key. You have plenty of choices (t, , p, f, m, n, c, e, g, z, etc). Holding the spacebar also prevents the highlighting from appearing, and it’s a nice big place for your fingers to rest. Heck, you don’t even have to pay much attention to where you press–just rest your hand in the middle of the keyboard and lift it up when you want to select something. But don’t hold v or a, which are the shortcuts for the selection tools.
– Mike Rankin
Unsnap To It (Mac only)
InDesign tries very hard to help you align objects when you drag by snapping them into alignment with other objects, margins, and columns. Usually this is great, but it can become a, uh, drag, when there are a lot of items nearby and you literally can’t put something where you want it. To temporarily turn off the snap, press and hold the Control key as you drag.
– Mike Rankin
Open Files Quickly
Want to get to the Open a File dialog box quickly? If no documents are open, just double-click the application frame. (Mac users must have the application frame active.) This tip works in CS4 and CS5. [Editor’s note: There are a few system configurations in which this tip doesn’t work.]
– Bob Levine
You Don’t Need the Chain to Constrain Proportions
To force InDesign to constrain proportions when applying width, height, or scale values in the Control panel, press Ctrl+Enter/Command+Enter. This way, you can leave both chains “broken” and only constrain proportions when you mean to via the keyboard shortcut.
– Mike Rankin
Toggle Between Text and Cell in a Table
To toggle between selecting a cell and the text within that cell, click with the Type tool anywhere in the cell. Then hit the Escape key: Now the cell itself is selected. Hit the Escape key again, and the text is selected. You can keep hitting Escape, but you’ll never escape…
– Claudia McCue
Quick Color Swatch
If you’re creating a new paragraph style and you realize you don’t have the color you need in your swatches panel, just double click the color proxy to bring up the new color swatch dialog box.
– Bob Levine
Change Ruler Guide Orientations
Illustrator and Photoshop users have long had the ability to change the orientation of a ruler guide by pressing Alt/Option while dragging the guide from the ruler. With CS5, InDesign users can do the same. Note that in CS4 and earlier, pressing Alt/Option sets the current magnification as the view threshold for that guide and new ruler guides.
– Mike Rankin
Two Shadows Per Frame
If you place vector art or a silhouetted image in a frame, you can apply two shadows to the frame; one for the frame, and one for the graphic inside. Select the frame with the Selection tool, and apply the first shadow. Switch to the Direct Selection tool (or if you have CS5, use the new Image Grabber) and select the graphic itself, and apply the second shadow.
Note: Be sure the frame is large enough to reveal the entire shadow cast by the graphic inside; if not, the shadow will be cropped by the frame.
– Claudia McCue
Changing Presentation Mode Background Color
InDesign CS5 offers a new presentation mode (Shift-W) that is great for making quickie presentations. Your document is displayed full screen with a black background by default, but you can change the background color to gray by pressing “g” or to white by pressing “w”.
– Diane Burns
Export Images from Word Files
Did you know that Word’s DOCX file format is a glorified ZIP file? Change the extension to ZIP, unzip it, and you’ll find all of the document’s original assets, including the images as individual files in a folder. More importantly, InDesign can access the original high-resolution images when you place a DOCX file, even if they’re CMYK. The older DOC format converts all images to RGB PNG files.
– Bob Levine
Shift A Swatch
Do you like an existing swatch but want a lighter or darker version of it? As you’re creating or modifying the color in the Colors panel, just Shift-drag one of the sliders, and all of them will move together. (This works in Illustrator, too.)
– Claudia McCue
Scroll Through Your Fonts
Need to try out different typefaces on existing text? Select the text you want to change, insert your cursor in the font field of the Character panel, then use the Up and Down arrows to scroll through fonts, changing the selected type as you go.
– Erica Gamet
Have a Fit
To zoom into currently selected object(s), press Command-Option-(+)/Ctrl-Alt-(+) [plus sign]. This command also works when you’re editing text, but in that mode it may zoom in too close for comfort. Also, Mac users may notice that the shortcut conflicts with the Universal Access System Preference for screen zoom.
-Mike Rankin
Convert Corner Effects
You can convert any object that has Corner Effects applied to it to actual Bezier lines and points by choosing Object > Paths > Closed Path for a closed object, or Object > Paths > Open Path for an open path.
– Cari Jansen
Instapages
A super-fast way to create new pages directly after the currently selected (as opposed to targeted) page is to press Shift+Ctrl+P/Shift+Command+P. The new page will be based on the same master as the selected page. This shortcut also works to add pages to a master spread.
– Mike Rankin
OOPS! I HAD THE CAPS LOCK KEY ON
Inspired, you’re blindly typing your compelling copy at incredible speed. But you look up to realize that — doh! –the Caps Lock key has been on for quite some time.
That’s OK: InDesign offers a quick fix. Select the text, choose Type > Change Case, and select the correct approach from the submenu that appears. You can pick from UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, and Sentence case.
– Claudia McCue
Snap Guides to Tick Marks
You like pulling guides out on to your pages, but you don’t like placing them at positions such as 10.256 cm? You can snap a guide to the nearest tick mark — and therefore to more normal values — if you hold down the Shift key while you’re dragging it.
– David Blatner
Secrets of the Application Frame
If you double-click on the background area of the Application Frame when no files are open, you’ll get the Open Document dialog box. This works in both InDesign CS4 and CS5.
– Sandee Cohen
Nail Down That Text Wrap!
It can be very quick and easy to base a text wrap on the edges of a placed graphic. But one downside of this method is that when someone edits the graphic, even just tweaking the color a little, your text wrap may unexpectedly change. To prevent this, select one of the text wrap points with the Direct Selection tool and nudge it just a tiny bit. Your text wrap won’t change, but the Contour Options Type in the Text Wrap panel will now be User-Modified Path, and it will not change if someone changes the graphic.
– Mike Rankin
Select All Guides
Don’t drive yourself crazy by trying to Shift-click on all the rulers in a document to select them and move or delete them. Instead, use this handy shortcut: Command-Option-G/Ctrl-Alt-G to select all guides. You can always Shift-click on the few you don’t need before moving or deleting.
– Erica Gamet
Apply Colors Quickly
To apply a color quickly, drag a swatch onto a frame, stroke, or table cell. This is also the easiest way to colorize a grayscale TIFF or PSD image.
– Claudia McCue
Keep Tabs on Preflight Errors
Look in the lower-left corner of InDesign’s document window to see whether you have any preflight errors. If the error number starts creeping up, go to the Preflight panel for more information.
Dynamic Rotation Cursor
In InDesign CS5, you can forever eliminate trips to the Tools panel to choose the Rotate tool. Hover just beyond any object’s corner with the Selection tool, and the cursor switches to a rotate icon. If you’ve selected multiple objects, they all rotate together — no need to group them.
– Michael Murphy
Bring Hidden Characters to Light
Hidden characters (also called invisibles) indicate the presence of non-printing characters, such as spaces, tabs, and paragraph returns. Most of the time, you don’t need to see these, but when you do, Choose Type > Show Hidden Characters. The characters will be in the same color as layer they’re on. When that’s light yellow, for example, the hidden characters may be hard to see even after you choose Show Hidden Characters. In that case, just change the color of layer in the Layers panel.
No More All-Caps in Panel Names
When text is in all-caps, it can be difficult to read. Why then are the names of InDesign’s panels in all caps? To change that, create a new, empty folder and name it “noallcaps”. Place that folder in the InDesign application folder. The next time you restart InDesign, all panel names will be the more-pleasing upper/lowercase!
– Colin Fleming
Add Tabs to Table Cells
To jump from cell to cell in an InDesign table, just press the Tab key. Handy, right? But to insert an actual tab character in a cell, you’ll have to go to Type > Insert Special Character > Other > Tab.
Control Layer Guides
Ruler guides are layer-specific: When you create them (Layout > Ruler Guides), they appear on whatever layer is selected at the time. To hide, show, or lock ruler guides by layer, go to the Layers panel and double-click a layer. The Layer Options dialog pops up, and now you can turn the relevant options on and off.
– Terri Stone
Paste Remembers Layers
When you want objects to stay on their original layers as you cut and paste them, check Paste Remembers Layers in the Layers panel drop-down menu. This even works for cutting and pasting between different documents.
– Terri Stone
Find Out Who Changed What
In InDesign CS5, you can track text changes in the current story or all stories in a document. You can make edits and insert notes either in the layout or Story Editor, but you’ll see changes highlighted only in Story Editor. And you must be viewing your text in Story Editor to accept or reject changes, using the new Track Changes panel.
– Claudia McCue
Mac Users, Explore the Application Frame
In CS4 on Mac OS X, Adobe introduced the Application Frame. It’s turned off by default, but if you choose Window > Application Frame, you’ll see a change on your screen. The InDesign user interface, plus whatever document(s) you’re working on, will be entirely contained in a single large self-contained window. If you grab the gray bar at the top of the window, all the bits and pieces of InDesign (except for floating panels) move with the Window. The gray backdrop hides the clutter of your desktop, it keeps panels out of the way of your document, and tiled-window layouts automatically adjust as you resize or move the window.
– Keith Gilbert
Make Your Own Accented Character
When a typeface is missing an accented letter, you’re not out of luck–you can make it yourself, as long as individual parts (the character and the floating accent, also called diacritical marks) are available in the font. Check the Glyph panel (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs) for the accent, then type the character and then type the accent. Use baseline shift to raise or lower the accent to the desired position, and use extreme reverse kerning to center the accent over the character.
– Ilene Strizver
Convert Word’s Local Formatting to InDesign’s Character Styles
To quickly convert Microsoft Word’s local formatting to InDesign’s character styles, try these free and easy-to-use scripts: Preserve Local Formatting.jsx is by Dave Saunders and works for InDesign CS1, CS2, and CS3. PrepText.zip is by Jongware, and works with CS4 only. Both scripts can run through text and replace locally formatted bolds and italics, among others, with equivalent character styles. The scripts add the styles to the Character Styles palettes on its own — no need to create them yourself.
For links to the scripts and more information, see my article Easy Fixes for Microsoft Word Formatting in InDesign.”
— Anne-Marie Concepción
Import Options Are Important
When you place anything into an Adobe InDesign document (File > Place), you’ll get a whole new level of control if you click the Show Import Options checkbox in the lower left-hand corner of the Place dialog box before hitting the Open button. These Import options include Microsoft Word text and graphics; images (layered .psd files, .ai files, etc.), and PDFs.
Modified Gate Fold with Short Panels
Has InDesign CS5’s support of multiple page sizes piqued your interest in documents that go beyond the usual? Then check out Trish Witkowski’s video demonstration of a modified gate fold with short panels at https://www.foldfactory.com/fotw_archive.php#. It’s her April 7, 2010, “Super-Cool Fold of the Week”. And of course, while CS5 makes it easier to work with multiple page sizes, you can use any version of the program to design such a piece.
Meet the Content Grabber
In the past, you had to do the Texas two-step to select a graphic in an InDesign frame: Double-click to get the Direct Selection tool, click again to select the image, double-click again for the Selection tool. Rinse and repeat as necessary. In InDesign CS5, you just hover over a graphic frame with the Selection tool and a viewfinderlike icon appears. (I call it the Donut.) Click, and–poof–you’ve selected the graphic, without even changing tools. To leave this mode and return to dealing with the frame, press Escape or double-click.
– Claudia McCue
Clean Up Imported Word Documents
If you’ve imported a Microsoft Word document that’s riddled with problems (for example, two hyphens instead of an em dash, or tabs instead of paragraph indents), don’t repair your file line by line. Instead, use Edit > Find/Change and correct the problems with a single mouse click. In the Find/Change dialog box, on the Text tab, first define the scope of your search with the Search dropdown menu. Then use these Find What/Change To pairs to solve common problems:
Replace two hyphens with an em dash.
Find what: —
Change to: ^_
Multiple spaces after punctuation or used for indent.
Find what: [space][space]
Change to: [space]
Replace multiple tabs with a single tab.
Find what: ^t^t
Change to: ^t
Replace three periods with an ellipses.
Find what:…
Change to: ^e
Space before a carriage return.
Find what: [space]^p
Change to: ^p
Space at beginning of paragraph.
Find what: ^p[space]
Change to: ^p
Tab before a carriage return.
Find what: ^t^p
Change to: ^p
Tab after a carriage return.
Find what: ^p^t
Change to: ^p
– Pariah Burke
Next-Level Keyboard Shortcuts
You likely know and use the keyboard shortcuts for cut (Command/Control-X), copy (Command/Control-C), and paste (Command/Control-V). But what about these less-common keyboard combinations?
Mac
———————–
Paste Into: Command-Option-V
Paste in Place: Command-Option-Shift-V
Paste without Formatting: Command-Shift-V
Windows
———————–
Paste Into: Control-Alt-V
Paste in Place: Control-Alt-Shift-V
Paste without Formatting: Control-Shift-V
Convert Spot Colors to Process Colors
To convert a spot color to process, double-click the name of the swatch in the Swatches panel and change the Color Type from Spot to Process. If you used the Pantone color library to define the color, first change the Color Mode to CMYK. You can also specify that all spot colors are automatically converted to process when the job prints. Choose Ink Manager from the Swatches panel menu. You’ll see all the colors in your document. Click the All Spots to Process option and the spot color will be converted to process.
– Sandee Cohen
Banish Ugly Hyperlink Rectangles
To disable the Visible Rectangle option for multiple hyperlinks all at once, select them in the Hyperlinks panel, then go to Hyperlink Options in the panel’s drop-down menu and set Appearance to Invisible Rectangle.
– David Blatner
What To Include When Exporting Interactive InDesign Files to PDF
In InDesign, choose File > Export Adobe PDF to open the Export Adobe PDF dialog. If you have included bookmarks, that item must be checked in the Include section at the bottom. For buttons, transitions, and hyperlinks to appear in the PDF file, check Hyperlinks and Interactive Elements. If you’ve placed a movie or sound file, you’ll get the best results if you choose the Compatibility to be Acrobat 6 or higher.
– Steve Werner
Sync Files Across Multiple Computers
To ensure that everyone working on a project always has the latest versions of all of its related files, try a service like Dropbox or Windows Live Sync. They’re platform agnostic and can synchronize files across many computers, ensuring that you, the client, and anyone else involved all have the exact same files, updated in near-real-time.
– Pariah Burke
Enlarge Characters in the Glyphs Panel
InDesign’s Glyphs panel (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs) reveals all the characters in a font. If you’re having trouble seeing exactly what those characters look like, make the glyphs larger by clicking the mountain button in the lower right corner. You can also filter the display by choosing options from the Show menu.
– David Blatner
Quickly Escape Quick Apply
You open the Quick Apply window and begin typing, then change your mind. A menu command is currently highlighted in the Quick Apply window. The fastest way to close the Quick Apply window without triggering the selected menu command is to press the Esc key.
– Mike Rankin
Create a Snippet with Multiple Objects
To create one snippet that contains several objects on a page, select the objects and drag and drop them to the desktop. You can also choose File > Export, then choose InDesign Snippet from the Format menu in the Export dialog box.
– Mike Rankin
Put Automatic Page Numbers on Top
To ensure that a text frame that contains an automatic page number always appears in front of document page elements, simply place the text frame on a master page and move it to its own top-most layer.
– Mike Rankin
Horizontal Pages Panel
By default, InDesign’s Pages panel has a vertical orientation. If you’d prefer your Pages panel to be horizontal, choose Panel Options… from the Pages panel menu. In the Panel Options dialog box, you’ll see a checkbox labeled “Show Vertically.” Deselect the option for the pages and/or the masters.
– Sandee Cohen
Hyphenate Words Your Way
To tell InDesign exactly where to hyphenate a word, open InDesign and go to Edit > Spelling > Dictionary. Do this with no document open to set the default for all new documents. Type the word in the Word field and then click Hyphenate. The tilde (~) characters indicate how InDesign will hyphenate the word. To change those settings, retype the word in the Word field using tildes as follows:
• One tilde (~) indicates the most desirable hyphenation position.
• Two tildes (~~) indicate a slightly less desirable hyphenation position.
• Three tildes (~~~) mark the least desirable hyphenation position.
• A tilde inserted before the word tells InDesign never to hyphenate the word at all.
Finally, click the Add Button to change the word to your customized setting.
– Sandee Cohen
No Kerning Pairs? No Problem
In many typefaces, there are no kern pairs for the number characters, and these characters occupy equal widths — a narrow number like a 1 uses the same amount of space as a 9 or 0. This is great for making numbers line up perfectly in columns down a page, but it can look awful when numbers are in body text. To make the numbers as beautifully spaced as the rest of the characters, place your cursor between the characters you want to kern and select Optical in the Character panel’s Kerning menu. By the way, InDesign has had the Optical kerning option since version 1!
– Jeff Witchel
Change One Corner of a Rounded Rectangle to a Point
Once you’ve applied rounded corners to a rectangle, you can change one or more curves to a corner point. Select the path you want to expand, and then click either the Open Path or Close Path icon in the Pathfinder panel (Window > Object and Layout > Pathfinder). Either one converts the electronic corner effect into actual path points. Choose Open Path if you’re converting an open path (like a Bezier line), or Close Path if you’re converting a shape (like a rectangle).
– Sandee Cohen
Change the Default Font
To change InDesign’s default font, open InDesign but don’t open any documents. On the Character panel, change the Font Family and Font Style dropdowns to your preferred default. Edit the “[Basic Paragraph]” style on the Paragraph Styles panel to match your new font. Quit or restart InDesign. From now on, every new document you create will use your chosen font. Note: You will lose this Basic Paragraph Style custom formatting if you copy-and-paste a paragraph into another document. If you’re sure all your documents will be created with this custom Basic Paragraph style, it’s probably okay. If not, create a new paragraph style and click on it while no documents are open. That, then, becomes your default paragraph style instead of the undependable Basic style.
– Pariah Burke
Find Out if an Image Is Flipped
In the past, editors and fact checkers couldn’t tell for sure if an image was flipped after it was placed in InDesign. But in CS3 and CS4, you can find out the truth by clicking on the image with either selection tool. If the image was flipped in InDesign, you’ll see a reverse “P” symbol in the Control panel. But beware! If the image was flipped in Photoshop, saved, and then placed in InDesign, there’s no trail of evidence left behind.
– Keith Gilbert
Optical Alignment Makes You Look Good
By default, InDesign vertically aligns type in a text frame by moving the character as far left or right as it can go. Unfortunately, smaller characters (such as punctuation marks) and characters with slanted strokes (such as A, W, and V) can look indented instead of flush to the edge. You can solve this problem by selecting the text frame, opening the Story panel (Type > Story), and checking the panel’s Optical Margin Alignment box.
– Jeff Witchel
Is an Image Stretched?
To find out if an image in your InDesign layout has been stretched, click on it with the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow). Only then will the Control panel’s Scale fields reveal the truth. To return the image to its original proportions, enter equal values in the X (width) and Y (height) scale fields.
– Keith Gilbert
InDesign Peers Helping Peers
The free LassoSoft InDesign email list is a good source of peer help. Once you sign up at www.ListSearch.com/InDesign/, you can email your questions to the list; all of the subscribers will see your question and can choose to respond. You can also search an archive of previous conversations at www.listsearch.com/InDesign/Browse/index.lasso. To get the most accurate answers, provide clear, concise information, including platform, operating system, and the exact version and build of InDesign (e.g., InDesign CS3 5.0.4) installed on your computer. To find this information, Ctrl-/Cmdclick About InDesign under the Help menu (Windows) or the InDesign menu (Mac).
– Bob Levine
Displaying Multiple Documents
By default, InDesign CS4 displays multiple documents as tabs. To change that, go to the Arrange Documents pop-up menu in the Application Bar and select Float All in Windows. (You can also choose Window > Arrange > Float All Windows.)
— Renée Dustman
Easy Calendar Layout
Building calendars in InDesign can be an exercise in pain, but Scott Selberg’s Calendar Wizard can help — and it’s free! This script takes the date ranges you provide and builds monthly calendars while you sit back and watch. It lets you start weeks on Sunday or Monday, supports styles, can include holidays and Moon phases, can add an image layer, and more. You can customize calendar layouts after the script runs, too. Download version 3 at https://calendarwizard.sourceforge.net. For a tutorial on using an earlier version of the script, see David Blatner’s article in the December 2007/January 2008 (#21) issue of InDesign Magazine.
– Jeff Gamet
When Saving Copies, Control Which File Stays Open
In InDesign CS3 and CS4, the keyboard shortcut Command+Option+S/Control+Alt+S saves a copy of your document and leaves the old document open. If you want to save a copy of your document and leave the copy open, use Command+Shift+S/Control+ Shift+S.
– George Norman, Hello Design Studio
Sort Paragraphs Alphabetically
For basic alphabetical sorting of paragraph text — bulleted lists, numbered lists, or just plain paragraphs — use SortParagraphs.jsx, a script that comes with InDesign.
In InDesign CS3 and CS4, go to Window > Automation > Scripts to open the Script panel, click the spinning arrow beside the Application folder to see its contents, then Samples, and finally JavaScript. That’s where you’ll find SortParagraphs.jsx. In InDesign CS2, first grab the script from the Adobe Web site, then drop it into the Presets/Scripts folder under your InDesign CS2 installation folder.
To sort your list, highlight a selection of paragraphs and double-click SortParagraphs.jsx on the Scripts panel.
– Pariah Burke
Document Repair With IDML
IDML (InDesign Markup Language) is an XML-based file format that InDesign CS4 can read and write. It can also help clear the cobwebs from a creaky old document. If you’re having trouble with a document (especially one created in a previous version of InDesign or converted from QuarkXPress and PageMaker), export it to IDML, then open the IDML file and work with the new InDesign document. You can even strip a document of third party plug-in information by disabling those plug-ins prior to opening the IDML file.
– Mike Rankin
Break Facing Pages into Single Pages
Here’s how to convert a facing-pages document into a single-page, non-facing pages document without affecting master page items:
Open the facing pages document. In the Pages panel menu, choose Allow Document Pages to Shuffle (CS3-CS4) or Allow Pages to Shuffle (CS2). (This should uncheck, or deselect, this option.) Grab the right-hand page of each spread and pull the page to the right of the spread until you see a vertical black bar appear and then release the mouse. This will separate the page from the spread, but the page will remain a right-hand page.
– Keith Gilbert
White Isn’t Always White
Some white paper is whiter or brighter than others, and that can affect the colors of your inks. To better judge how they’ll look, ask your print shop for a color profile targeted to the output device and substrate you’ve chosen. Once you have the profile, follow these steps to proof your work onscreen.
1. With InDesign closed, install the ICC/ICM file into the following path:
Windows: Windowssystem32spooldriverscolor
Mac: /Library/ColorSync/Profiles
2. Open your document in InDesign.
3. From the View menu, choose Proof Setup > Custom.
4. Select the newly installed profile from the Device to Simulate dropdown menu and check Simulate Paper Color, which will also automatically check Simulate Black Ink.
Click OK and, if your monitor is properly calibrated, you’ll see onscreen colors very close to what you’ll get off the printing press.
– Pariah Burke
The Best Place for Almost-Instant InDesign Help
Adobe’s very active User to User forums are such good resources, even Adobe’s technical and customer support refer people to the forums. You can subscribe to forums or specific topics via email, which lets you respond to any post the same way you would to an email without returning to the forum. You’ll also receive responses immediately after they’re posted. When plain text descriptions of your dilemma won’t do, you can also upload and attach files for others to analyze.
– Bob Levine
What Is the Registration Color Good For?
The InDesign Swatches panel includes four undeletable swatches: None, Black, Paper, and Registration. The purpose of the first three is obvious. You probably know not to use Registration for any object to appear on the printed page, but do you know why?
The Registration color prints on every ink plate. In CMYK, that means anything with Registration applied to it prints in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The result is usually not a nice rich black but rather the color of old mud. That’s why the Registration swatch should be reserved for registration marks and other information or structures that need to print on all plates (usually in the slug area), such as the client name, job number, and other specific information. The easiest way to include that information on the film is to set it in the slug area, in the Registration color swatch.
– Pariah Burke
Wrap Text around a Silhouetted Image
Place an image with a solid, contrasting background or an alpha channel or clipping path masking the background. Open InDesign’s Text Wrap panel, choose Show Options from the panel’s menu, and you’ll see seven Contour Options. From the Text Wrap panel’s Type pop-up menu, choose a contour option. Some, like Alpha Channel and Photoshop Path, are only available if they’re embedded in the image file. But this doesn’t mean you have to use a collage of empty frames to wrap text around a silhouetted image! Arranging the image behind the text (Object > Arrange > Send To Back) and choosing Detect Edges from the Contour Options’ Type pop-up menu often does the trick.
– Renée Dustman
Simulate Ripped Paper
With InDesign’s Pencil tool, draw a rough shape with lots of twists and turns. Take your time and go slowly. Be sure to hold the Option/ALT key as you release the mouse button so the shape is a closed path. Use the Effects panel to add an inner shadow. Place an image in the shape. By varying your drawing speed and angles, you can make your shape look like a cracked eggshell, peeling paint, torn paper, and so on.
For examples of and variations on this technique, see the August/September 2009 issue of InDesign Magazine.
– Mike Rankin
Automatic Drag-N-Drop Image Libraries
For image-intensive page layout in InDesign, selecting images visually is better than doing it by filename, and dragging and dropping is easier than File > Place. Rorohiko’s ImageLibraryLoader is a free script-based plug-in for Mac and Windows versions of InDesign CS, CS2, CS3, and CS4. It automatically builds a thumbnail library of images in a folder inside InDesign. That library is a floating panel from which you can drag entries and drop them into the layout without stepping out of InDesign. For more info and the download link, go to www.creativepro.com/article/free-all-just-what-youre-looking.
– Pariah S. Burke
Create Paragraph and Character Styles Automatically
If you often receive text from multiple sources that’s styled every which way, you need Thomas Silkjaer’s Auto-Create Paragraph and Character Styles script.
This free Mac- and Windows-compatible script scans a selected InDesign story for local formatting that differs from the Basic Paragraph style. The script then generates and applies new paragraph and character styles describing, and assigned to, the locally formatted text. Read more and download the script at https://indesigning.net/auto-create-paragraph-and-character-styles.
– Pariah S. Burke
Turn Off Multiple Layers Simultaneously
InDesign’s layers are great, but sometimes you can end up with so many layers that it gets confusing. To instantly hide all layers except one, hold the Option/Alt key and click the eye icon of the layer you want to remain visible.
– Sandee Cohen
Simulate Duotones
This super-easy trick doesn’t create a true duotone, where the only colors are black and a second color (and where only two separation plates would result), but if you’re printing to a composite printer, it works very well.
First, place an image, then select the frame containing the image with the Selection tool. Apply a color to the fill of the frame. Select the image with the Direct Selection Tool. Choose Transparency from the Effects panel (Object > Effects > Transparency). Click on the Basic Blending Mode menu, and select Luminosity. Voila! You have a faux duotone!
– Diane Burns
One Business Card, Many Names
Using InDesign’s Data Merge feature can take the tedium out of generating business cards for a company with multiple employees. You design the card as usual and then combine it with a data file prepared in Microsoft Excel that lists the names and other information that changes. In the template card, you place fields for the real information, merge the file with the Data Source, and presto! Your result is a document with as many cards as there are records in the data source.
For step-by-step Data Merge instructions, see Rufus Deuchler’s “Automate This!” in the April/May 2006 issue (#11), also posted on CreativePro.com.
– Nigel French
Arrange Floating Windows
InDesign CS3 and earlier open multiple documents in individual floating windows. Don’t waste time dragging windows around onscreen in search of a particular document. Instead, choose Window > Arrange > Cascade. The active document is brought to the top of the stack, and the other InDesign files are staggered neatly behind. To activate a different document, click on its title bar.
– Renée Dustman
Go Native
To preserve any live transparency in files you place in InDesign, Adobe recommends working with native file formats, such as .AI and .PSD. This workflow not only lets you continue editing transparency effects in placed graphics, it can also improve final results.
– Mordy Golding and Renée Dustman
Free InDesign Template
If you think you’ll ever have to design a presentation folder, grab this free InDesign folder template. It comes with fold and die-cut guides, including a business card holder flap complete with ready-made die-cuts. And yes, Graphire Media really is giving it away. For more where this came from, read my article “We Love InDesign Freebies!” in the August/September issue of the magazine, coming out next week.
– Pariah S. Burke
Sizing Up Business Cards Around the World
Are you creating business cards for other regions of the world but don’t know the standard card sizes for those regions? Well, now you do!
Australia, New Zealand (1.636 aspect ratio): 90mm x 55mm / 3.54 inches x 2.165 inches
China (1.667 aspect ratio): 90mm x 54mm / 3.543 inches x 2.125 inches
Czech Republic, Hungary (1.8 aspect ratio): 90mm x 50mm / 3.543 inches x 1.968 inches
Europe (1.545 aspect ratio): 85mm x 55mm / 3.346 inches x 2.165 inches
Japan (1.655 aspect ratio): 91mm x 55mm / 3.582 inches x 2.165 inches
US, Canada, Netherlands (1.75 aspect ratio): 89mm x 51mm / 3.5 inches x 2 inches
– Nigel French
Export InDesign Documents to Multiple Single-Page Files
When you want to export an InDesign document to multiple single-page files, try Page Exporter Utility, a free JavaScript that runs in InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4 on both PCs and Macs.
Download Page Exporter Utility at https://tinyurl.com/2hm8fe.
– Claudia McCue
Update TOCs
The easiest way to create a TOC for a long, structured document is to use InDesign’s automatic Table of Contents feature: Create your document, assign unique paragraph styles to the paragraphs you want in the TOC, choose Layout > Table of Contents, and tell InDesign which Paragraph Styles to include in the TOC.
InDesign won’t auto-update this TOC when your text or page numbers change, but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to manually updating the content yourself. Just choose Layout > Update Table of Contents at any time, and InDesign will make it so.
– Keith Gilbert
Two Baseline Grids in One Document
When you want the first line in a custom baseline frame to always line up with the main baseline grid, follow these steps:
1. Set the baseline grid for the document (Preferences > Grids). Let’s say the increment is 18 points.
2. Apply the paragraph command Align to Baseline Grid to force the text to align to the document-wide baseline grid.
3. Select the text frame that needs the custom baseline grid. Choose Object > Text Frame Options and click the Baseline Options tab. Set a custom baseline to, say, 12 points.
4. Set the Start of the baseline grid to be 18 points from the top of the frame. When the top of the text frame is positioned along the baseline grid for the main document, the first line of text in the custom text frame will automatically align on the document baseline grid. Then, the rest of the text aligns to the custom baseline grid.
— Sandee Cohen
Convert RGB Swatches to CMYK
If you import swatches, you may introduce quite a few RGB colors into your four-color print publication file. To quickly convert them, download and run the free RGB to CMYK script from InDesign scripting master Dave Saunders: https://pdsassoc.com/downloads/ConvertRGBtoCMYK.zip . Thanks to Bob Levine for the tip about Dave’s script!
Note that the colors may shift significantly because many RGB colors can’t be reproduced in CMYK. Also, the printed colors may not match what you see on screen. It’s always better to pick CMYK colors from a current printed swatch book.
– Pariah S. Burke
Skip the New Document Dialog Box
To create a new InDesign document without summoning the New Document Dialog Box, add the Opt/Alt key to the Cmd/Ctrl-N keyboard shortcut. The resulting new document will be based on whatever setting you last chose in the New Document dialog box’s Document Preset pop-up menu.
– Sandee Cohen
Universal Punctuation Keyboard Shortcuts
You won’t find em dashes, ellipses, and other common punctuation and special characters on your keyboard. Within InDesign, you can insert these characters the long way using the Glyphs palette or the Type > Insert Special Character menu. Or you can memorize the InDesign-only keyboard shortcuts. Or, you can save that bit of brain space for other things and instead use the standard keyboard shortcuts below, which work in almost any app:
– Pariah Burke
Applying — and Ignoring — Text Wrap
Sometimes you need text to wrap around one area of an object but not another. That’s when a little check box, located far away from the Text Wrap panel, comes into play. This little text wrap helper, Ignore Text Wrap, is at the bottom of the Text Frame Options dialog box under Object > Text Frame Options. Select the frame containing the text that you don’t want to be affected by an overlying item that has Text Wrap applied, and check Ignore Text Wrap.
— Diane Burns
Creating Complex Shapes
While InDesign’s Pen tool is the page-layout app’s only tool that lets you draw complex shapes, InDesign does have a handy panel that lets you create complex shapes from two or more basic shapes. When you select two or more objects, the Pathfinder panel (Window > Object & Layout > Pathfinder) provides five options for creating a single shape that’s generated from the selected objects: Add, Subtract, Intersect, Exclude Overlap, and Minus Back.
— John Cruise and Kelly Kordes Anton
Test Document Bleeds
Does your document have bleeds? Just before you output the file, test whether the objects off the page will print properly by turning on Use Document Bleed Settings in the Marks and Bleed pane of the Print dialog box (or the Export Adobe PDF dialog box).
— Steve Werner
Combine a Roll Fold with an Accordion Fold
This week’s tip is a little different — it’s a video! To watch Trish Witkowski demonstrate a roll fold with a nested accordion fold, go to www.foldfactory.com/foldoftheweek.php.
In just 60 seconds, Trish will help you understand a cool fold combination that makes a big impact on customers.
Frames First, Images Second
When you have to place a number of images into your layout, save yourself some effort and first set up the graphic frame with particular specifications (Fit Proportionally, fit content to frame, fit frame to content, etc.). That way you won’t have to fidget as much to make the fit.
Drag out the frame to the desired size and proportion. Select Object > Fitting > Frame Fitting Options. Define the Crop Amount or the Reference Point (the point from which your sizes will emanate), and select Fitting > Fit Content Proportionally. Once you define one frame, Option/Alt-drag it to make a duplicate with the same parameters. Now when you Place (Command/Ctrl-D) an image, it will come into the frame with the predefined sizing.
This tip applies to InDesign CS3 and CS4.
— Andrew Shalat
Using the Scissors Tool
You can use InDesign’s Scissors tool to convert a closed path into an open path and to cut an open path into two separate open paths. First, select it in the Tools panel, and then move the crosshair pointer over the edge of an object. When a circle is displayed in the middle of the crosshairs — indicating that the pointer is over the edge of the object — click the mouse button. An anchor point is added where you click. If you select this anchor point with the Direct Selection tool and move it, you’ll find another anchor point in the same place. This anchor point is the other endpoint if you cut a closed path. It’s an endpoint on a separate path if you cut an open path.
— John Cruise and Kelly Kordes Anton
Stay Away from System Fonts
When you’re preparing InDesign files for print on a Mac, stay away from System fonts. These include the Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Courier, Symbol, and Zapf Dingbats fonts found in [Your computer] > System > Library > Fonts. They won’t print badly, but the names are the same as PostScript fonts you may also be have. Sometimes the wrong version can be substituted by mistake, causing incorrect spacing or missing characters.
— Steve Werner
New Tabs for Document Windows
If you’re not a fan of CS4’s tabbed document windows, you can disable them either temporarily or permanently.
Under Window > Arrange, there are commands that let you float one InDesign document outside the tabs or float all InDesign documents outside the tabs. Or simply drag the tab down a bit, and the document becomes a regular floating window.
For the permanent solution, go to Preferences > Interface and turn off the Open Documents as Tabs.
— Sandee Cohen
Setting Defaults for the Polygon Tool
To set defaults for the Polygon tool and the Polygon Frame tool, double-click either tool in the Tools panel. The Polygon Settings dialog box lets you specify the number of sides and, optionally, a star inset, which creates a starburst shape. The settings you specify are used for new polygons until you change settings again.
— John Cruise and Kelly Kordes Anton
Apply Effects to Objects Quickly
You just spent 30 minutes in InDesign’s Effects dialog box, settings options for the perfect effect. Now you want to apply the same effect to several other objects in the file quickly and easily.
Apply your settings in the Effects dialog box (Objects > Effects >) while no objects are selected to make your settings the default for the document. InDesign will automatically apply your perfect effect to each object you draw after that.
Or, select the formatted object and create a new object style in the Object Styles panel. Use Quick Apply (Command-Return/Ctrl-Enter) to format subsequent objects with the new object style even faster. Or finally, copy and paste formatting from one object to another. Double-click on the Eyedropper tool first to select which formats you want to copy. Then select the objects you want to format with the Selection tool. Switch to the Eyedropper tool and click on the object with formatting you want to copy.
— Renée Dustman
Remove Hyperlinks from Text in Word
Do you hate the blue links with the gray rectangles you sometimes get when you place Microsoft Word documents into InDesign? The fastest way to get rid of these automatic hyperlinks is in Word itself before you flow in the text.
Open the file in Word, select all, and type Command/Ctrl-6. (Use the 6 key on the main keyboard, not the number pad.) The URLs and e-mail addresses remain but are no longer hyperlinks, so InDesign imports them as regular text and doesn’t add its default grey rectangle hyperlink formatting to them.
— Anne-Marie Concepción
Quick and Handy Layout File Info
Do you want to know how large your InDesign file is or which folder it’s in? Check out the Info panel (Window > Info). When nothing is selected (Edit > Deselect All), the Info panel reports on the document itself. In addition to file size, you can also see the path to the active file on your computer or server. Usually the path appears truncated on the non-resizable panel, but if you hover your cursor over the readout, the tooltip shows the full path.
— Anne-Marie Concepción
Add Files to a Book
To add individual InDesign files to an InDesign book (File > New > Book), choose Add Document from the Book panel menu or click on the plus sign at the bottom of the Book panel. To add multiple InDesign files, drag and drop files from the Macintosh Finder, Windows Explorer, or Adobe Bridge into the Book panel. You can drag and drop multiple files at a time. You can even drag and drop a top-level folder, and all the InDesign files in that folder, as well as all the subfolders, will be added to the book.
This tip works in InDesign CS2 through CS4.
— Keith Gilbert
Help Needs Help!
Do you prefer the PDF User Guide/Help File to InDesign CS4’s HTML help? No problem. Just launch the HTML help, look in the upper-right corner for “Help (printable)”, and click the PDF icon.
–Claudia McCue
Safe Style Editing
If you have the Type tool in a text frame and realize you want to edit a Paragraph or Character Style but don’t want to apply that style to the selected text or paragraph, select Shift-Option-Command (Mac) or Shift-Alt-Ctrl (PC) and double-click on the style name you wish to change. Alternately, Control- or right-click on the style name in the panel and choose Edit “Style Name.” This tip applies to InDesign CS2 to CS4.
— Erica Gamet
Anchored Snippets
InDesign CS4 lets you import snippets directly into a text story, as inline or anchored objects. (If there is more than one object in the snippet, they must be grouped for this to work.) You can also apply an object style to the object (or group) before creating the snippet, which means that every time you place it in a story, it shows up in exactly the correct position.
— David Blatner, editorial director of InDesign Magazine
Find the Right Font
When you’re having trouble deciding on the best typeface or combination of typefaces for a particular project, try these sources:
* The Type Library section of the Adobe Web site lets you search for fonts by use.
* Each typeface on the Font Bureau Web site includes a list of comparable and compatible fonts.
* Independent blogs such as Typophile are populated with type-savvy folks who will give advice on font usage, identify orphaned fonts, and steer you toward little-known fonts that may have escaped your attention.
* Blogs associated with type foundries that don’t just promote their own products are great resources, as well. For example, a wonderful post on FontFeed, the blog affiliated with FontShop, explored alternatives to Helvetica with helpful background about the suggested typefaces and detailed characteristics that distinguish them from Helvetica.
— Pamela Pfiffner, author of “How to Cure Typochondria,” the cover feature in the December 2008/January 2009 issue of InDesign Magazine.
Draw, Reposition, Continue Drawing
Start drawing a frame in InDesign, then (still holding down your mouse button) press and hold the Spacebar so you can reposition the frame. Once it’s in the correct position, release the Spacebar and continue drawing.
– Claudia McCue
Compare Two Layouts
You have two InDesign layout files that look identical, but you suspect they’re not. Short of going through every page with a fine-toothed comb, how can you find the differences?
Simple: Export each layout to PDF with a unique name and then use the Document > Compare feature in Acrobat Pro 8 or 9. It can churn through even the longest layout files in a minute or so and present you with a page-by-page breakdown of where formatting, position, and/or text changes occur in the two PDFs you selected.
– Anne-Marie Concepción
Way Better than Standing on Your Head
In InDesign CS4, you can rotate an entire spread from the Pages panel, which is handy when you’re editing text that would otherwise be sideways or upside down on a page. However, you can’t rotate the spread to any arbitrary angle: just 90- or 180-degrees.
— David Blatner, editorial director of InDesign Magazine
Weird Lines in InDesign
Are you seeing purple or green lines as you move objects around the InDesign CS4 page? Maybe some arrows, too?
Nothing’s wrong with the software. Those lines and arrows are the new Smart Guides feature in action.
The purple guides are the alignment guides that pop up when your object is positioned at the center of the page. The plain green lines that pop up indicate when one object is aligned with the sides or center of another. When three or more objects are on a page, you may see green arrows and distribution indicators as you move one object around the page. These distribution arrows indicate that the space between the three objects is identical.
— Sandee Cohen, senior editor of InDesign Magazine; author of InDesign CS4 Visual QuickStart Guide
Wrapping Outlined Type Around a Path
Once type has been outlined, it’s very difficult to flow that type accurately around a curve. While Illustrator’s Warp or Envelope Mesh commands can get you part of the way, they often distort the letterforms.
Another option is to copy and paste the outlined type into InDesign CS3 or CS4, ungroup it, and then copy and paste the letterforms one-by-one on to the shape you want the type to wrap along. You can then select each letterform with the Type tool and manually adjust the letter spacing. The undistorted letterforms will follow the path you want.
If your workflow calls for it, you can then copy and paste the adjusted shape back into Illustrator. Once in Illustrator you may need to unmask the selection, but then you can continue with your wrapped type design.
— Jennifer Wills, principal, W+W Design
Navigation Shortcuts
Unless you work only on one-page documents, you need to navigate around InDesign files. To do so quickly, use these shortcuts:
• Temporary Hand tool = Option/Alt and the Spacebar
• Jump from page to page = Option/Alt -Page Down and Option/Alt -Page Up
• Jump from spread to spread = Option/Alt
• Jump to a specific page = Command/Ctrl-J
• Jump to the last page you were on in a document = Command/Ctrl-Page Up
Note that on laptops and some wireless keyboards, you have to add the fn key to the above shortcut combinations.
— David Blatner, editorial director of InDesign Magazine
Magnification Shortcuts
Everyone needs to zoom in and out on the page, so the more efficient you are at this, the more productive you’ll be throughout the day. Here are some frequently needed magnification shortcuts:
Zoom in a little: Command/Ctrl and = (equal)
Zoom out a little: Command/Ctrl and – (hyphen)
Actual Size: Command/Ctrl and 1
200 percent: Command/Ctrl and 2
400 percent: Command/Ctrl and 4
50 percent: Command/Ctrl and 5
Fit page in window: Command/Ctrl and 0 (zero)
Fit spread in window: Command-Option-0/Ctrl and Alt-0
Type in arbitrary zoom percentage: Command-Option-5/Ctrl and Alt-5
Toggle between last two zoom amounts: Command-Option-2/Ctrl and Alt-2
— David Blatner, editorial director of InDesign Magazine
InDesign Lock Files
Have you noticed file icons that contain the word “LOCK” and a little padlock? Those are InDesign Lock files. InDesign creates them when you have a file open so that no one else can work on it at the same time, but the Lock files are supposed to disappear when you close the file. If you’re seeing the Lock file icons after you’ve closed that file, something’s wrong, but it isn’t a nightmare. Just delete the icons — you won’t hurt anything.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS4 Visual QuickStart Guide
Avoid Transparency Troubles
In the bad old days, printing an InDesign file with transparency caused problems. That’s no longer the case.
However, always ask your print shop what PostScript level they’re using to output an InDesign document before you submit it. Some shops prefer that you submit InDesign files as PDF/X files, which are flattened; while others may prefer you to submit an unflattened InDesign or PDF 1.4 (or later) file.
— Mordy Golding, instructor, consultant, and InDesign Magazine author
Copy Multiple Table Cells at Once
It used to be that when you copied tabular data from a word processing or spreadsheet document into an InDesign table, you had to do it cell… by cell… by cell. In InDesign CS3 and CS4, can copy and paste table data from multiple cells into multiple cells by choosing the cell, not the content of the cell.
— Keith Gilbert, instructor, consultant, and InDesign Magazine author
Find Patterns You Can Automate
To be efficient in InDesign, automate the repeating elements in your documents. For example, the Text Variables feature (new in CS3) is ideal for handling repeating elements, such as variable running heads in a book or catalog, or the current date.
You can find a list of premade text variables in the Type > Text Variables > Insert Variable submenu. If you don’t see any, your document was probably created in CS2 or earlier. You can load text variables from another InDesign document (such as one created in CS3) by choosing Type > Text Variables > Define, then clicking Load.
— David Blatner
Editorial Director, InDesign Magazine; co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Open A Window For A Fresh Look At Type
You’re laying out text, experimenting with different faces, colors, and styles. But when you select the text to change it, the colors invert, so it’s hard to tell what your changes look like.
To fix this, choose Window > Arrange > New Window. Nothing will be selected in the new window, so you can use it to preview all the changes you make to your type in the original window.
Note that this trick works for type on a path and tables, too.
— Mike Rankin, InDesign Magazine author, trainer, and blogger
Master Items and Books
Say you have several documents in a book, each of which ends on a right-hand (odd) page, and you want each following document in the book to start on a right-hand page.
In InDesign CS3, choose Book Page Numbering Options from the Book panel menu, then choose “Continue on next odd page” from the Page Order options. Click Insert Blank Page to automatically add a left-hand page to any document in the book that ends on an odd page.
However, the inserted pages are always based on no master page. To give those blank pages master page information, you have to manually drag a master onto them.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Show Guides at Certain Zooms Only
When you zoom out on your InDesign document, do all those guides clutter up your screen? Sure, you can hide the guides or turn off the layer showing the guide or change the view options for the guides on a layer. But here’s a better technique. Before you start dragging guides out, go to Layout > Ruler Guides, and change the View Threshold from 5% to something higher, like 101%. From that point on, any guide you create will only be visible when you are zoomed in to 101% or higher. This means that guides that you need for close up work are visible when you’re zoomed in, but they’re not visible when you zoom out to see the entire page.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Unlink Text Boxes Without Disturbing Their Contents
You can unlink text boxes without disturbing the boxes’ contents by running one simple script that you already have.
In InDesign CS3, open your Scripts panel (Window> Automation> Scripts) and look in the Application folder, then the JavaScript folder. You’ll see a script called SplitStory. Place your cursor in one frame of the story and double-click the script name in the panel. InDesign will split all the frames of the story into individual frames.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Make All Frames the Same Height or Width
So you have a whole bunch of frames on the page, and you want them all to be the same height (or width).
Select one of the frames and enter the correct height (or width) in the H (or W) field in the Control panel. Press Return.
Now, select all the other frames you need to fixe. Choose Object > Transform > Transform Again Individually.
Presto! All of the frames change their height (or width) to the previous amount.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Keyboard Shortcut to Restore Default Workspace
Do you want to quickly restore your InDesign CS3 workspace to the default but don’t know the keyboard shortcut for Window > Workspace > Default Workspace? Don’t bother looking in the Keyboard Shortcuts list — it’s not there. But you can make your own shortcut.
Begin by going to Window > Workspace > Default Workspace. Select Window > Workspace > Save Workspace, and name the workspace something like Default Workspace. That places the saved workspace at the top of the saved workspaces.
Then go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and click the New Set button to create your own custom set and name it anything you want. Choose Window menu under Product Area. Scroll down and find Workspace: Load 1st Workspace. Now assign a keyboard shortcut to that command. Be sure to click Assign before clicking OK.
Because the workspace is forced to the top of the list, you’ll always have a keyboard shortcut for that workspace which is the default layout.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Guides as Snippets
Way back in 2005, InDesign Magazineprinted this tip from Erica Gamet:
“You can save a page’s guides by selecting them and choosing Add Item from the Library’s palette menu or by clicking the New Item button at the bottom of the palette. Then, when you want to use the same set of guides on another page, simply select it in the Library and choose Place Item(s) in the palette menu. This places the same guides, in the same positions, on the new page. You can’t add to or place guides from a Library using drag and drop.”
But today, there’s another way to work: Save your Guides as Snippets. Instead of adding them to a library, just select the guides and choose Export as InDesign Snippet. The Guides will be fully visible in Adobe Bridge, where they can be dragged onto new InDesign pages.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Rotation — Clockwise or Counter-clockwise
Have you ever had that moment of doubt as to which direction InDesign’s rotation angle is going to move your object? Are positive numbers clockwise or counter-clockwise?
I can’t remember myself, but there’s a little cheat that helps me look smart in front of a class. Just take a quick peek at the Rotation tool in the Tools panel. Notice that it indicates a counter-clockwise direction. That’s your clue that positive numbers rotate objects counter-clockwise. Negative numbers go clockwise. This half-second glance saves me a lot of undos.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
A Better Selection Tool
Have you ever wished the Direct Selection tool were a little less destructive? For instance, I like to be able to select the image within a frame, but I hate when the Direct Selection tool inadvertently moves a point in that frame. That means I have to press down on the Direct Selection tool slot in the Tools panel, then choose the Position tool. (To find the Position tool, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+A, or put your pointer over the Direct Selection tool in InDesign’s toolbox and hold down your mouse button.)
Instead, think of the Position tool as the Direct Selection tool but without the ability to edit points and paths. Bonus: The Position tool still lets you change the dimensions of a frame. It’s the best of the Selection and the Direct Selection tools!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Houdini Hidden Panels
Presenting, for your entertainment and enjoyment, the amazing “Houdini Hidden Panels.”
You may know that pressing the Tab key or the Shift-Tab key will hide all of InDesign’s onscreen panels. And pressing Tab or Shift-Tab will bring them back.
But here’s the trick worthy of the great Houdini! With the panels hidden, bring your mouse over the area where the panels were originally hidden. Pause for a second.
The hidden panels automatically pop into view!
You can then choose a tool or use the panel commands. Then when you move the mouse away, the panels disappear.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Open Bridge with InDesign’s Browse Command
You probably know that you can launch and navigate through Bridge by clicking the Bridge icon on the right side of InDesign’s Control panel. But you don’t have to click on that icon to open Bridge. The File > Browse command (Cmnd-Opt-O/Ctrl-Alt-O) also opens Bridge with a single keystroke — no mousing required!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Make the Default Display High Quality
There are some documents, especially those with placed Adobe Illustrator files, that I want to always open at High-Quality Display. But even when I switch the file to View > Display > High-Quality Display and save the file, the file reopens with the Typical Display.
That’s because the control for the view for a document isn’t the view at which the document was last saved. You need to go to Preferences > Display Performance and change the Default View to High-Quality to make sure the document always opens in that display setting.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Unlock the Mystery of Locked Guides
Say you’re pulling guides down onto the page. Oops, you didn’t get one of them just yet. You try to select and move the misplaced guide. No luck! You can’t select any of the guides, much less unlock them. You check whether the Lock Guides command (View > Grids and Guides > Lock Guides is active, but it’s not chosen.
Here’s the secret: There are TWO commands for Lock Guides. The second is in the Layer options (Layer panel menu > Layer Options for ).
Amazingly, when the guides are locked through the Layers panel, the View menu may not reflect that lock.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Place Images Like CS3 or CS3
As you may know, InDesign CS3 has a terrific feature that lets you load a cursor with multiple images from the Bridge, Finder, or Windows Explorer by dragging multiple files into an InDesign document window. Once you drag, you can click to place each image individually.
But what if you want to go back to CS2 behavior and place all of the files at once? Simple! Once you drag onto the page, hold the Cmd/Ctrl-Shift key. You’ll see a multiple image icon that consists of three “pages” and a small rounded triangle. Click the icon to place all the images in the loaded cursor.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Using SWF files in PDF files?
For a while now, Macintosh users have been frustrated by the inability to import SWF files into InDesign and PDF files. This inability wasn’t due to Adobe products’ limitations, but to Apple QuickTime. Fortunately, the newly released Acrobat 9 fixes that problem. Mac users can once again import SWF movies into their PDF files.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Protect Master Page Items
A feature that debuted in InDesign CS3 lets you make a master page object impervious to being overridden on the document pages.
Select the object on the master page and turn off the toggle command “Allow Master Item Overrides on Selection” from the Pages panel menu.
This command makes it possible to “protect” items you never want overridden on the document page. For instance, you might not want automatic page numbers to be moved or modified.
This tip was inspired by a post by Robert Levine in the Adobe InDesign User to User forum.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Scaling without Grouping
In previous tips, we’ve told you that you can scale grouped text and images together by holding the Cmd/Ctrl+Shift key and then dragging. But grouping can be awkward, as objects all move to the same layer.
Fortunately, you can resize multiple objects without grouping them. Select all the objects and switch to the Free Transform tool in InDesign’s toolbar. Then simply drag on a corner of the selection and hold the Shift key to constrain the proportions.
Your objects scale together without being grouped.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Make a Smoother Text Wrap
Let’s say you’re trying to wrap text around something. You open the Text Wrap panel (Window > Text Wrap), select Show Options by clicking the tiny triangle on the panel’s right side, and choose Detect Edges, Alpha Channel, or Photoshop Path in the Contour Options dropdown menu.That usually works well, but occasionally it produces a text wrap path with more points than is convenient. If so, use the Pen tool to make a path with no fillor stroke that’s a simpler version of the object you want to wrap around. Then you need only to select the simple path and choose Wrap Around Object Shape in the Text Wrap panel.
For more on InDesign text wraps, see “Take Control of Text Wrap” on CreativePro.com.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
What’s a Slug?
Besides being a garden pest (or the slacker in the office), in InDesign the Slug area is an area that may or may not be set to print. You’ll find the Slug area in the New Document dialog box (File > New) by clicking the More Options button. The Slug area is a handy place to stash information about the client, product, insertion date, and so on. You can choose whether to print the Slug by clicking Marks and Bleed and then checking the Include Slug Area checkbox in the Print dialog window.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Learn a Foreign Language
Well, maybe not the whole language, but you can learn the names of the days of the week as well as the months of the year in French, German, Spanish, Estonian — any of the languages built into InDesign.
Create a new Text Variable (Type > Text Variables > Define) and then click the New button. In the Type dropdown menu, choose one of the date options, such as Output Date or Modification Date. Then use the Date Format controls to insert the code for Day Name and Month Name. Save this new text variable with the name “Lingua.”
Now that you’ve defined the variable Lingua, you can insert it into a text frame (Type > Text Variables > Insert Variable> Lingua). It should show up in English if that’s the language for your text. Now the fun part: Select the variable and in the Control or Character panel, change the language from English to something else. Ta da (or voilà) — the days and months change to the language you just selected. Note: Some languages, such as Russian, may not display the correct glyph characters.
— Sandee Cohen Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Clear a Page’s Guides at Once
Want to clear out all the guides on a page fast? Press Cmd-Opt-G (Mac) or Control-Alt-G (Windows). This selects allthe guides on the spread. Tap the Delete key and they’re gone!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Where Am I?
Have you ever opened an InDesign file (say, by using the app’s File > Open Recent command) and then wonder where that file is located? There are several ways to find a file’s path location, but some are platform-specific. Here’s an OS breakdown.
Cmd-click the title bar (Mac only):
The easiest way to find the location of a file within InDesign is to hold the Command key and click the title bar for the document. The complete path will be displayed. But this path can’t be selected.
Address bar for Windows Explorer (Windows XP and Vista):
You can also find the path within Windows Explorer by setting the option to open the Address bar and clicking the name of the file. Or you can find the path by right-mouse clicking a file in Explorer and choosing Properties.
And here’s a related tip for Windows Vista users: To display the hidden pop-up context menu items, hold down the Shift key, then right click on the file or folder. You will see the Copy as Path command. Choose Copy as Path and then you can paste the full path to the file or folder.
Text Variable File Name (Mac and Windows):
Finally, you can define a text variable within InDesign for the File Name of a document. There is an option to display the full path of the file. Insert this text variable in the pasteboard or slug area of your document on the master page and you’ll always have the file path staring right back atcha!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
How Spaces at the Start or End of a Line of Text Affect Centering
Let’s say you have a single line of text that you need to center in the frame. It’s no problem to click the center alignment icon in the Paragraph panel. But what if that line of text has an extra space at the end of the paragraph? Do you have to delete the extra space at the end of the line? Does the extra space affect the position of the text?
Fortunately, the answer is “No.” InDesign ignores an extra space at the end of a line when centering text. However, the opposite is not true. An extra space at the start of a paragraph will affect the position of a line when centering text.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Reposition as You Create Objects
So you’re right in the middle of drawing a frame or a line and you realize that you need the object a little further up the page so you can get a better idea of how big it should be. There’s no need to stop the drag and reposition — just hold the spacebar and you can move the object anywhere you want. When you’re satisfied with its position, release the spacebar (but not the mouse) and continue to draw. This tip also works while drawing in Photoshop or Illustrator!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine; Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
A Quick Way to Load Scripts
Perhaps, like me, you can never remember the path to where InDesign scripts are stored. Fortunately, we don’t have to.
Open InDesign and go to the Scripts panel (Window > Automation > Scripts). Right-mouse click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on any script in the panel and choose Reveal in Explorer (Windows) or Reveal in Finder (Mac). This opens the folder that holds the scripts. Now you can simply drop a script in the folder without navigating through a long path.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine,
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Placing a Cascade of Images
If you’ve been reading these tips for a while, you know that you can select a whole bunch of images to load into the cursor, then use the up/down arrow keys to cycle through the images. But did you know that you in CS2 and CS3, can place all the graphics in a cascade (one slightly overlapping the other) on the page by holding Cmd-Shift (Mac) or Ctrl +Shift (Windows) and then clicking with the cursor? Try it!
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine,
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Customizing Text Wraps
Once you’ve applied a text wrap to an object (Window > Text Wrap), you can modify that wrap by choosing the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and clicking on the wrap’s nodes (anchor points). But to add new nodes to the text wrap, switch to the Pen tool.
Position the Pen cursor over a point you want to delete and you’ll see a little minus sign (-) next to the cursor. Click to delete the point. Position the Pen cursor where you want to add a point and a plus sign (+) appears. Click and a point appears at that position. You can even reshape type of point using the Convert Direction Point Tool, which you can quickly access by holding the Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) key.
Switch back to the Direct Selection tool to move the points.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
The Numbered List Feature — Not Just for Numbered Lists Anymore!
There’s no need to limit InDesign’s Numbered List feature to inserting numbers before text paragraphs. For example, perhaps you would like to have the word “TIP” followed by a colon in front of certain paragraphs. The easy way to do this is to define a numbered list by choosing a paragraph style and, in the Paragraph Styles panel, clicking on the flyout menu and mousing down to Paragraph Style Options. In the resulting Paragraph Style Options window, select the Bullets and Numbering option in the left-hand pane.
In the right-hand pane, set the List type as Numbers and leave the Format option set as None. But then, in the field for Number, enter the word TIP followed by the code for a tab (^t). You can even apply a character style to this non-numbered list.
There are two big benefits to this process:
1. You don’t have to type the word TIP and insert a tab character.
2. If your client decides to change the word “TIP” to “NOTE”, you simply change the style definition, and the word will change everywhere that style is applied.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine,
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Fitting Text Frames to Content
The command Fit Frame to Content (Object > Fitting…) automatically expands or contracts a text frame to fit the text within. But you can also use some nifty double-clicks to accomplish even more. Double-click the control handle on the bottom of the frame to force that side to expand or contract to hold the text. Double-click the control handle on the right side of the frame to force that side to expand or contract to hold the text. And finally, double-click the control handle on the bottom right corner of the frame to force both the bottom and right sides to expand or contract to hold the text.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Close the Tabs Panel
In versions of InDesign before CS3, the same keyboard shortcut opened and closed the Tabs panel (Shift+Ctrl+T for Windows; Shift+Command+T for Macs).
In CS3, that keyboard shortcut only opens the Tabs panel. However, if your insertion point is blinking within the Tabs panel, you can press the Esc key to close the panel.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Reverse the Direction of an Arrow
When you add an arrowhead to an open path, the arrowhead appears at either the start of the path or the end. However, you might want to change the placement of the arrowhead from one end of the path to the other. The quickest way to do so is to choose Object > Paths > Reverse Path. That will change the start of the path to the end and the end to the start. You can also click the Reverse Path icon in the Pathfinder panel.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Lost Your Welcome Screen?
Remember the screen that welcomed you to InDesign when you first launched the program? If you’re like most people, you clicked Don’t Show Again at the bottom of the screen and forgot all about it. But it’s not just for newbies. It includes a handy list of the recent items you’ve worked on, as well as links for support groups.
To bring it back, go to the Help menu and choose Welcome Screen. Uncheck don’t show again, and you’re set.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Select and Distribute Guides
Guides are objects, but they have a few special properties when it comes to selecting them. If guides are the only objects on a layer or document, hit Cmd/Ctrl-A to Select All the guides.
However, when there are any selectable objects (frames or rules) on the page or layer, Select All won’t select the guides.
Once you have selected the horizontal or vertical guides for a page, you can use the Align panel’s (Window > Object & Layout > Align) Distribute command to place the guides equally on a page.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Moving Gradients between Illustrator and InDesign
You may know that the Adobe Swatch Exchange format (ase) does not support transferring gradient swatches between InDesign and Illustrator. But does that mean that InDesign and Illustrator can’t trade swatches? Not at all.
To get a gradient from Illustrator into InDesign, simply copy/paste or drag/drop an object that contains a gradient from Illustrator into InDesign. The gradient will automatically show up in the Swatches panel.
It’s not quite as simple to get a gradient from InDesign into Illustrator. If you copy/paste or drag/drop an object from InDesign into Illustrator, the gradient will appear, but it won’t be added to Illustrators Swatches panel. You’ll need to ungroup and release a few clipping paths to coax the object to display the gradient in the Gradient panel.
You can add this unnamed gradient to the Swatches panel by first showing the options in the Gradient panel, then dragging the small gradient preview square from the Gradient panel into the Swatches panel. You now have a named gradient from InDesign in Illustrator’s Swatches panel.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
The Fifth Text Wrap Option
InDesign CS3 added tons of controls for all sorts of commands to the Control panel. This makes it easy to add text wraps to objects without going to the regular Text Wrap panel. Watch out, though.
There’s an extra text wrap option that is only available in the regular Text Wrap panel, and not in text wrap options in the Control panel. The fifth text wrap option is Jump to Next Column (or frame or page). This command ensures that the text wrap object is the final object in the column.
But you’ll never know the option is there if you look only at the Control panel for your text wrap commands.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Use the Script Label Panel for Notes
How do you add notes to others working on a document? If you’re working within text frames, you’ve got the handy Note tool. But what if you want to make a comment about an image or other non-text element on a page? How can you give the next person who works on the file instructions about that object?
Here’s how to do it in CS3: Select the image, then open the Script Label panel (Window > Automation > Script Label). Write anything you want in the area inside the panel — there’s room for hundreds of words.
Tell the next person working on the document to keep the Script Label panel open. When any object is selected, the note will appear in the panel.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Transparency Grid for InDesign
You may be familiar with the Transparency Grid in Photoshop or
Illustrator. This checkerboard pattern sits behind artwork to let you know which areas are transparent and which are filled with white or a color. InDesign doesn’t have an actual Transparency Grid, but another feature can act as one.
Choose Preferences > Grids and make sure the Grids in Back option is checked. Click OK. Then choose View > Grids & Guides > Show Document Grid. If you see the Document Grid beneath something, that something is transparent.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Working with Layers
Have you ever had a long list of layers in the Layers panel and wanted to turn off the visibility for all except one? Instead of clicking madly up and down the list, hold the Option/Alt key and click on the layer you want to see. That layer will remain visible while the others are turned off. The same technique can be used to lock all the layers except the one you want to work on.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Dragging Effects from Object to Stroke to Fill
It’s easy to forget to target just the stroke or fill when you apply an effect such as a drop shadow to an InDesign frame. But instead of deleting the effect and then reapplying it to the correct attribute, you can drag the little “fx” label in the Effects panel from Object to Stroke or Fill.
If you want to add the effect from the stroke to the fill, hold the Opt/Alt key as you drag. You’ll keep the effect on the first attribute and duplicate the effect onto the second attribute.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
More Detailed Previews in Bridge
You can preview InDesign documents in Bridge, but most of the text may be greeked; that is, appear only as gray lines. You can create a bigger preview, with more details, from within InDesign by going to Preferences > File Handling with no document open. Under the section for Saving InDesign Files, change the Preview Size to Extra Large 1024 x 1024. From that point on, each document you save will have a more detailed preview, and most text will be visible in Bridge.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Leading like Quark?
Unlike QuarkXPress, InDesign applies leading as a character attribute. This means that you can have a paragraph with one line at a certain leading and another with a different leading. One way prevent mis-matched leading is to make sure you select an entire paragraph before changing any leading.
If you’d prefer that InDesign’s leading work more like QuarkXPress, go to Preferences > Type and set the Type Option for Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs. Now when you change the leading in one line, the change applies to the entire paragraph.
Warning: Even after making the change in Preferences, it’s still possible to create paragraphs with mis-matched leading: for example, when you copy text with different leading into another paragraph. So if you copy and paste text, your next step should be to select the entire paragraph and set the leading.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Sorting Styles
All styles in their panels (Object, Paragraph, Character, Table, and Cell) are usually listed in the order they are created — from first to last. You can instead sort them alphabetically by choosing Sort by Name in each of the styles panel menu. But you can also drag styles from one position to another, letting you customize the order in any way that makes sense to you.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Place EPS Images without the “White Background”
If you have legacy vector files saved in the EPS format (this includes Illustrator, FreeHand, and CorelDraw files), they may show up with a white background when you place them into InDesign. There are many ways to fix the problem, but here’s my favorite:
Choose Show Import Options when you place an EPS file and check the Rasterize the PostScript option under Proxy Generation. Don’t panic, you’re not actually rasterizing the vector information; you’re only changing how the preview appears.
From that point on, you don’t have to select Show Import Options; InDesign applies the setting to all new placed images.
I prefer this solution because other methods require changing the file from EPS to AI. That’s not always possible for FreeHand or Corel files, and it can take a while to process a large library of legacy documents. My method also works with any platform and doesn’t require changing any other ID preferences.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Clear Overrides of Mixed Paragraph Styles
The Clear Overrides button at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel lets you quickly strip out the local formatting (indicated by a plus sign) in a paragraph. But you don’t have to limit your selected text to a single paragraph style. Select a whole bunch of text, or even all the text in a story. Even though no one single paragraph style is selected, the Clear Overrides button still cleans up all the different paragraph styles.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Use Quick Apply to quickly edit styles
The Quick Apply feature does more than just allow you to apply styles. Press Cmd/Control-Return/Enter to open the Quick Apply panel. Then, type as many letters as necessary to get to the name of a specific style. BUT, instead of pressing the Return/Enter, press Cmd/Control-Return/Enter again. You’re now in the Style Options dialog box for that style! Make your edits and then close to change the style definition.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
What’s New in CS3?
Have you updated to InDesign CS3 but have the nagging feeling that you’re working with it like it’s still CS2? To see what’s new in InDesign CS3 as you work, go to Window > Workspace > New and Improved. This changes your menus so that new and modified features appear in blue.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Easier ways to modify and replace a template
Ever want to modify and then replace a template? If you simply double- click the template file or drag it onto the InDesign application, you have a copy of the template or an untitled document. That means you have to then rename the template with the same name as the original, and then replace the original.
Instead, choose File > Open, and navigate to the template file. When you choose the template file, look at the bottom of the dialog box and click the option to Open Original. This will open the template file as a template, instead of a copy or untitled document. Once you’ve made your changes, just save and close the document. You don’t have to rename or write over the original file.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Double Paths Copied from Illustrator
Watch out when you copy paths from Illustrator into InDesign. Depending on the attributes applied to the path in Illustrator, you may wind up with more than one path in InDesign. For instance, double strokes or fills will always create multiple paths in InDesign. But even a single fill and stroke with a Twist effect will create multiple effects. The easy way to tell if you’ve pasted in multiple objects is to look at the Fill/Stroke display in the Tools panel. If you see question marks instead of colors, you know you’ve got multiple objects.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
See Guides Only at Certain View Magnifications
When you zoom out on your InDesign document, do all those guides clutter up your screen? Sure, you can hide the guides or turn off the layer showing the guide or change the view options for the guides on a layer. But here’s a better technique. Before you start dragging guides out, go to Layout > Ruler Guides, and change the View Threshold from 5% to something higher, like 101%. From that point on, any guide you create will only be visible when you are zoomed in to 101% or higher. This means that guides that you need for close up work are visible when you’re zoomed in, but they’re not visible when you zoom out to see the entire page.
— Sandee Cohen
Senior Editor, InDesign Magazine
Author, InDesign CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide
Turn a Frame to a Grid of Frames
Need a whole grid of frames? You could use the Step and Repeat feature, but if you know how large you want the grid and not necessarily how large each frame should be, Step and Repeat can be a hassle. Instead, just draw one big frame to cover the size you want the grid to cover. Then, while that’s selected, open the Scripts panel (Window > Automation > Scripts) and double-click on the MakeGrid script. That converts any single frame into a bunch of frames on a grid, according to your specifications (how much space between each one, and so on). This script is installed automatically in CS3, but in CS2 you’ll need to install it from the sample scripts that come on the installer discs. To learn how to install scripts, or find where to download them from the Web (in case you don’t have the installer discs anymore), go to: https://indesignsecrets.com/free-bundled-scripts-on-adobecom.php
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Sizing a Group or Image in CS3
InDesign CS3 radically changed the rules for scaling groups and images. You used to be able to select an image or a group and change the W or H fields in the Control panel and have it scale everything to that measurement. No longer! Fortunately, the functionality isn’t gone, it just moved. To scale a frame and its image, or all the objects in a group, to a specific width or height, type that measurement in the scaling fields (the X or Y percentage fields, that usually say 100%). For example, if you replace 100% with “20 cm” then the object or group scales to that size.
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Getting Your Buttons and Hyperlinks Into PDFs
It’s easy to make a button in InDesign with the Button tool, or by selecting any object and choosing Object > Interactive > Convert to Button. And it’s relatively easy to make a hyperlink using InDesign’s Hyperlinks panel (even though the user interface for hyperlinks definitely leaves something to be desired). But the number one problem people have with these interactive features is them not functioning once they get to Acrobat. Why? In almost every case, it’s that they’ve neglected the most important step: Turn on both the Hyperlinks and Interactive checkboxes in the Export PDF dialog box. Without that last crucial step, you don’t get bubkes!
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Resizing Tables by Dragging
You can resize a table with the Type tool by dragging the right or bottom edge. But if you want to resize all the rows, hold down the Shift key while you drag the bottom edge. To resize all the columns proportionally, Shift-drag the right edge. Or, to resize the table rows and heights at the same time, just drag the lower-right corner of the table with the Type tool. Resizing the table using this technique does not scale the text in the table.
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Quicker PDF Export of Books
You can open the PDF Export dialog directly from the Book palette by holding down the Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) key while selecting the Print icon in the Book palette.
–John Feld
Switch Between Selection Tool and Direct Selection Tool
There are several ways to switch between the Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool quickly. When you’re not editing text, you can press V for the Selection tool and A for the Direct Selection tool. I recommend that you use Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts to assign your own custom keyboard commands for these two tools that will also work when editing text.
You can also press Control/Ctrl-Tab to alternate between the Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool. In CS3, you have even more options. When you’re editing text, you can press Esc to switch to the Selection tool. And double-clicking on a frame or graphic with the Selection tool switches to the Direct Selection tool (and vice versa)!
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Select a Table’s Text or Cell
To select a cell within a table, click the cell with the Text tool and press the Esc key. This will select the cell. To place the text cursor in the cell, press the Esc key again.
— John Feld
See What Files are Loaded
The Place dialog box in InDesign CS3 lets you select more than one item in a folder at a time and import them all at once. To select more than one item in the dialog box, Shift-click (to select contiguous items) or Command/Ctrl-click (to select discontiguous files). After you click Open, InDesign loads all the files into the Place cursor, showing you a thumbnail of the first one along with a number that shows the total number of files loaded. You can rotate through the loaded files by pressing the left or right (or up and down) arrows on your keyboard. If you decide you want to “throw away” one of the files (remove it from the Place cursor), press Esc.
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Align Guides to Objects
Of course, you can align objects to ruler guides. But you can also align ruler guides to objects. Just select the object and aim for one of the object’s handles as you drag the guideline. The guideline will snap to the handle
–Claudia McCue
Quick Zoom Shortcuts
I love shortcuts, especially when navigating around my documents. Here are some of my favorites involving zooming in and out.
* Command-Option-5 highlights the zoom field in the lower-left corner of the document window. Just type the percentage you want and press Enter.
* Double-click the Hand tool to fit the spread in the window (or press Command-Option-zero/Ctrl-Alt-0)
* Double-click the Zoom tool to jump to 100% (or press Command/Ctrl-1).
* Command/Ctrl-spacebar-click zooms in, Command-Option/Ctrl-Alt-spacebar-click zooms out.
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
Select a Table’s Text or Cell
To select a cell within a table, click the cell with the Text tool and press the Esc key. This will select the cell. To place the text cursor in the cell, press the Esc key again.
— John Feld
Creating a Knockout Rule
Want a line that has a “knockout area” on either side of it? For example, a line that when placed over an image will still be visible because it has white areas around it. It’s easy to do: Select the line, make it at least one point thick, and change its style to a double line (double stripe). Now in the Stroke palette, set the line color to Paper and set the Gap color to Black (or whatever color you want the visible line to be). Finally, make an object style out of it, so you don’t have to take these steps again!
–David Blatner
Editorial Director, “InDesign Magazine,” co-host, InDesignSecrets.com
View Image Scaling with a Shortcut
Assign keyboard shortcuts to Select Container and Select Contents (Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts > Product Area: Object Menu). Now when you have an image frame selected with the Selection tool, you can quickly see the image’s true scaling amount in the Control palette’s Scale fields by using the shortcut for Select Contents. Press the shortcut for Select Container to get back to where you started.– Anne-Marie Concepción
Quick Duplications
You probably already know you can hold down the Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) key to drag and duplicate objects. The Option/Alt key can perform the same duplication function during other operations, too. For example, you can hold down the Option/Alt key as you choose Flip Horizontal from the Control palette menu. InDesign will duplicate and then flip the selected frame. Or place the cursor in the X field of the Control palette and change the value. Then press Option/Alt-Enter and InDesign moves a duplicate of the object to the new location.
— Claudia McCue
Apply Only Color Attributes with the Eyedropper
If you load the attributes of an object with the Eyedropper tool while holding down the Shift key, the Eyedropper loads only the color of the object (ignoring all other object attributes). If you load attributes of an object with the Eyedropper and hold down Shift while applying the attributes to another object, InDesign applies only the color to the object.
— Eliot Harper
Select the Return
You can triple-click or press Ctrl-Shift- or Command-Shift- to select a line. Both of these combinations also select the Return.
— John Feld
Switch Swatches
The New Swatch button on the Swatches palette duplicates any selected swatch. To duplicate the swatch and open the New Color Swatch dialog, hold down Option/Alt while clicking it. To create a spot color version of a swatch, select the swatch and hold down Command/Ctrl while clicking the new swatch icon. You can also switch among RGB, CMYK, and Lab modes inside the Color Swatch dialog box by holding down Shift while clicking on the color proxy.
— Eliot Harper
Find Missing Fonts
If you search for a missing font using the Find Font dialog box and can’t locate the troublemaker on a page, cancel out of the Find Font box and bring up the Story Editor. Your cursor will be where the missing font is.
— Jamie McKee
Quick Single-spread Documents
Do you want a two-page spread all by itself in its own file? Simply create a new two-page document and check the Facing Pages option as you create the file. Then turn to page one and choose Layout > Numbering & Section Options and start the page numbering at 2. Click OK to leave the dialog box, and you’re done. Because it’s an even number (page 2), InDesign moves it to the left side of the spread
— Keith Gilbert
One-Click Selection in Palettes
If you’re manually clicking or dragging inside of fields in palettes to select the fields’ contents, you’re doing it the hard way. Just click the label or icon to the left of the field-its contents are automatically selected, ready for you to replace it with new values. Remember that you can press the Up and Down arrow keys on your keyboard to increment a field’s current setting
— Anne-Marie Concepción
Change Color Modes Quickly
To change the color mode (RGB, CMYK, LAB) in the Color palette, Shift-click on the color spectrum bar (the color picker). If you see an out of gamut warning (the yellow triangle with exclamation point), click on the symbol to force the color to the nearest in-gamut color.
— Erica Gamet
Say Hi to the Alien
In QuarkXPress, there’s a hidden alien that could be induced to walk on to the screen and eradicate a selected page item with his ray gun. InDesign also has an alien, this one friendly. To see it, make a new Printing Preset (File > Print Presets > Define) and name it “Friendly Alien”; the settings don’t matter. Save it, then go to the Print dialog, change the Print Preset to Friendly Alien, and click on the Preview window in the lower left corner. Soon a small space ship will appear.
— John Feld
Fix Flaky Files
If your InDesign file is behaving erratically, it may be damaged. One easy troubleshooting technique is to choose File > Export and export the file in the InDesign Interchange format. This will create an .inx file. When you open the .inx file, InDesign rebuilds the file from the ground up — hopefully without the problems of the original.
— Keith Gilbert
Navigate the Control Palette
When you use the Control Palette, you don’t need to open as many palettes. You can choose to dock the Control Palette at the top or bottom of your screen, or you can drag its left edge to tear it off and create a floating palette. To jump easily to the first field in the Control palette, press Command/Ctrl-6. From the first field, use Shift-Tab to highlight the Reference Point box. Use the arrow keys to highlight a specific Reference Point and press the Enter key to selec
— Erica Gamet
Apply Swatches to Frames and Tables
You can apply a swatch to any frame or stroke by dragging a swatch from the Swatches palette and dropping it in a frame or on a stroke. Try this method for tables, too; you can apply a swatch to any table cell or cell border
— Eliot Harper
Obtain Exact Color Values
The eyedropper tool lets you view the exact color used in a .psd, .tif, or .jpg file. However, it provides only an approximate color match for .eps images or for vector artwork. Furthermore, it doesn’t sample spot colors from vector artwork. To see the exact CMYK or spot color that will be used to output any image or artwork on your page, activate the Separations Preview palette (Shift-F6). Choose Separations from the View popup menu and move your cursor over your artwork. The exact ink percentages are displayed next to the inks in the Separations Preview palette
— Keith Gilbert, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Turn the Tools Palette
You can rotate and elongate the Tools palette so it fits your screen size and working style. For example, a longer, narrower Tools palette is good when your screen is small. If you rotate the palette, it can reside at the bottom right of the screen, where there’s usually little action. Change the orientation in the Preferences dialog box or by double-clicking on the tab of the Tools palette
— John Feld, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Move Precisely
Sometimes the most precise way to move objects on a page is to use your keyboard’s arrow keys. Press arrow keys to move items in 1-pt increments. (That’s the default; you can change this preference in the Units & Increments panel of the Preferences dialog box.) Add the Shift key to move items in 10-pt increments (or 10 times the current increment value). Press Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and the Shift key to move items in .1-pt increments (or one-tenth the increment value).
— Keith Gilbert, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Add Ruler Guides Fast
To quickly add a ruler guide, double-click on a ruler to create a guide out from that point. For instance, for a vertical guide at 3 inches, double-click at 3 inches on the horizontal ruler. Add the Shift key to snap to the nearest ruler tick mark
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Make Tints
You can easily create a named, tinted color from any color in your Swatches palette in InDesign (including CMYK builds). Open your Swatches palette (Window > Swatches), choose the color you want to start with, type a percentage in the Tint box, then immediately click the New Swatch icon at the bottom of the palette. The new color is named the same as the original with the percentage indicated to the right of the name. Changes to the original color are reflected in the tint based on that color
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Maintain Vectors from Illustrator or FreeHand
Paths and shapes from Illustrator or FreeHand can be placed and edited directly in InDesign. Simply copy the item or items from the source document (Illustrator or FreeHand) and paste into your InDesign document. The paths are now fully editable within InDesign. To copy paths from Illustrator 10 and up, be sure that AICB is checked and the Preserve Paths button is selected in Illustrator’s File Handling & Clipboard preferences.
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Switch Measurements Quickly
To use a unit of measure other than the one displayed (for example, centimeters instead of inches), type in the amount and the proper abbreviation for your desired unit of measurement and InDesign converts it for you. For example, if you set your measurement preferences to inches but want a three-millimeter drop shadow offset, enter 3mm in the Drop Shadow dialog box. You can also quickly switch to another unit of measure for the rulers by Control-clicking (Mac) or right-clicking (Windows) on either ruler and choosing the new unit of measure
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Paragraph Styles = Diagnostic Tool
When you edit a file created by someone else, you may not know the full range of styling applied to text. To find out, place the cursor in the text and create a New Paragraph Style. The dialog box immediately displays every style applied to the object.
— Tracey Lawrence, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Reset Your Kerning and Tracking
The easiest way to reset the kerning and tracking for a range of selected text is to press Command/Ctrl-Option (Mac) or Alt-Q (Windows). I run all my copy with Optical Kerning on by default, as it does most of the work before I begin to edit.
— Matt Davis, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Sample Images with the Eyedropper
Use the Eyedropper tool to sample colors from placed images. With the Eyedropper tool selected, move over the desired color in the placed image. Click to sample the color, then click the New Swatch icon in the Swatches palette, or Add to Swatches from the Color palette to store the color as a swatch. The eyedropper samples the color in the same color mode as the placed graphic. For example, sampling an RGB image creates an RGB swatch. Now you can apply that new color to an item by clicking on it with the full Eyedropper. When you want to sample a new color, be sure to use Option/Alt-click to get the empty Eyedropper.
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Build Guide Libraries
You can save a page’s guides by selecting them and choosing Add Item from the Library’s palette menu or by clicking the New Item button at the bottom of the palette. Then, when you want to use the same set of guides on another page, simply select it in the Library and choose Place Item(s) in the palette menu. This places the same guides, in the same positions, on the new page. You can’t add to or place guides from a Library using drag and drop
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Suppress a Color Onscreen and in Output
Some publishers use a special spot color for items in a layout they don’t want printed in certain situations, such as teacher’s annotations in a textbook. The print vendor produces the teacher’s edition normally — using all color plates in the file — but doesn’t print the spot color plate for the student edition. The problem with these sorts of projects is that it’s impossible to proof the student edition onscreen or in composite print/PDF output because there’s no Hide command for individual inks or colors.
The solution is to create a new spot color that’s white, named something like Hidden. When you need to suppress the unwanted ink for onscreen proofing, alias it to the Hidden color (using Ink Manager inside the Swatches palette menu) and turn on Overprint Preview in the View menu. Abracadabra, the color disappears. It will also print and export as it displays. Just don’t forget to turn off the ink alias before you send the file to the print vendor.
— Anne-Marie Concepción, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Find that Color
Find/Change can’t search for a color swatch unless it’s applied to text. If you need to find all instances of a color used in a document, temporarily turn it into a spot color (if it’s not already) from its Swatch Options dialog box. Choose View > Output Preview > Separations, turn off all color plates except the new spot in the Separations palette, and scroll through your document. You’ll see black “ink” appear everywhere the color is used. (For very long documents, you may find it faster to print only that spot color plate to separations and leave the Print Blank Pages checkbox off so you only get the pages with spot colors on them.) Change the color back to its original color mode if necessary when you’re done
— Anne-Marie Concepción, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Find Font Errors
If you suspect that errors in printing may be related to font problems, turn everything into outlines and print again. If the problem goes away, you have a font issue to deal with. Start by uninstalling the font from your font manager if you have one; otherwise just delete and replace the font. Don’t leave any font as an outline, as it prevents editing and makes for a much larger file
— John Feld, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Same Image, Multiple Frames
For an interesting effect, you can make one image look as if it’s inside multiple frames:
- Place the image in a circular frame.
- Use Edit > Step and Repeat to create a row of frames.
- Using the DIRECT Selection tool, shift-click to select each IMAGE (not frame).
- Using the Alignment controls in the Control Palette, align first the top edges and then the left edges of the images within the frames. (Yes, you can align images just like you can align frames!)
- Poof! It looks like you’re looking through portholes.
Here’s another method: Place the image in just one of the frames and choose Object > Arrange > Bring to Front. Now choose all the frames (the image frame and the empty frames) and choose Object > Pathfinder > Add. The image in the topmost frame appears in all the frames.
— Claudia McCue, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Sort Menus Alphabetically
To sort menus in the menu bar in alphabetical order, select the required menu while holding Ctrl+Shift+Alt (Windows) or Shift+Option+Command (Mac). This shortcut sorts the menu and sub-menus in alphabetical order; it’s also useful for sorting fonts in the Type > Font menu
— Eliot Harper, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Shadow One Word
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a shadow behind just one word in text? You can: Copy the word into its own text frame, choose Object > Fitting > Fit Frame to Content (or press Command/Ctrl-Option/Alt-C), and apply a drop shadow to the frame. Copy the frame to the Clipboard, then highlight the word in the main text and paste. The text of the word will be replaced with the shadowed inline frame.
— Claudia McCue, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Thread Frames Fast
Situation: Big story in a frame, no existing empty text frames to thread it to, can’t autoflow for whatever reason. Solution: The fastest way to manually thread a story, starting with just a single overset text frame, is to click on the overset icon with the Selection Tool to load the overset text in the cursor; then hold down the Option key (Mac) or Alt key (Windows) and drag out successive text frames. Every frame you Option/Alt-drag is automatically threaded to the previous one.
— Anne-Marie Concepción, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Page Guides vs. Spread Guides
To create a horizontal ruler guide that crosses all pages of a spread, drag the guide onto the page while your cursor is on the pasteboard area to the left or the right of the spread. Or press Command/Ctrl while dragging a guide to make it a spread guide.
— Keith Gilbert, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Zoom-sensitive Ruler Guides
Hold down the Option key (Mac) or Alt key (Windows) while dragging out a ruler guide to make it visible only at the current zoom level and larger. If you zoom out, the guide will disappear. When you zoom back to the previous magnification or above, the ruler guide will reappear
— Keith Gilbert, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Harmless Error
When you open a file and get an alert saying, “Cannot open resource file,” it probably means that the last time you quit the program with that file open, the Scripts palette was open and included a script. The alert is harmless-just cancel it and continue. To prevent its recurrence, close the Scripts window before closing the document.
— John Feld, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Don’t Forget the Info Box
The Info box, which shows the size and location of a selected frame, can be a very useful tool. Select an image and the Info box displays size, active and effective resolution, color space, and ICC profiles. Select a text box with the Text tool and the Info Box displays a count of characters, words, lines, and paragraphs. (It also shows this information for linked text boxes.) Select the frame with a Selection tool instead, and the box shows the current fill and stroke colors. When nothing is selected, the Info Box displays information about the document itself
— John Feld, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Show Options When Placing
When you place content into your layout, click the Show Import Options checkbox to intercept a file and perform certain functions, such as stripping formatting from a Word file. You can access the Import Options dialog by holding the Shift key when you click on the Place button in the Place dialog box
— Mordy Golding, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Preview Image Moves
When moving a cropped image inside a frame, hold down the mouse button for about a second before you move the object. You’ll get a ghosted preview of the whole image in the frame
— Jamie McKee, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Type-size Shortcuts
To change type size and leading incrementally, start by setting increment size (Preferences > Units & Increments). In your document, use Shift-Command/Ctrl-< to decrease the point size of selected type by one increment, and Shift-Command/Ctrl-> to increase the point size. Add the Option/Alt key to these combinations to multiply the increment by five. You can change leading via Option/Alt-Up and Option/Alt-Down arrow key combinations. Add the Ctrl/Command key to these combinations to multiply the increment by five
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Copy Text Formatting
Do you need to copy text formatting from one location to another? To do it quickly, select the Eyedropper tool, click on text you want to sample, and then use the Eyedropper to click or drag over text you want to modify. This technique even copies text attributes from one document to another. To set which qualities the Eyedropper tool will copy, double-click the Eyedropper tool and enable or disable the individual attributes
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Reveal Custom Kerning
One person’s idea of appropriate kerning can be a compacted visual disaster for another person. My limit for the loosest and tightest kern is 30 (thousandths of an em). That means if some copy is kerned into -20 I will never go over +10 elsewhere in the document.
To see where kerning has taken place outside of paragraph and character styles, go to Preferences > Composition, select the Custom Tracking/ Kerning option, and click OK. In normal view mode (not in preview mode), InDesign now highlights in green text with custom tracking and kerning.
— Matt Davis, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Quickly Convert Corner Points to Curves
Everyone knows that you can use the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow) to select a point on any frame. But did you know that if you hold down the Command and Option keys (Ctrl and Alt on Windows) you can drag on any corner point to convert it to a Bezier curve? Alternately, you can click once with those modifier keys on a curve point to convert it to a corner point.
Split Stories
A frequently-requested feature by InDesign users is the ability to split a long text thread into multiple pieces so that each text frame retains the text that’s in it, but that the frames are no longer linked. There is no built-in feature to do this, but Adobe does bundle a script that does it for you. It’s called SplitStories and you can find it on your install discs. Or, go to https://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/xml_scripting.html and download the bundle of scripts from there.
Better Text Wrap
When you assign a text wrap to an imported graphic, be sure to first select the graphic with the Selection (black arrow) tool. This applies the text wrap to the frame, not the frame’s contents, which makes it easier to delete the graphic or replace it with a new graphic without deleting the text wrap
— Keith Gilbert, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Break Words
To manually break a word at the end of a line, use a discretionary hyphen. Put your cursor where you want to break the word, then choose Type > Insert Special Character > Discretionary Hyphen or Command/Ctrl-Shift-Hyphen. If type should reflow so the word is no longer at a line ending, the discretionary hyphen disappears. To hyphenate a word that never breaks on that hyphen, use a non-breaking hyphen: Type > Insert Special Character > Nonbreaking Hyphen. To prevent a word or string of text from breaking, select the text and choose No Break from the Character or Control palette menu
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Edit Text Frames
You can edit text frames just like graphics frames and transform them into almost any shape. Use the Selection or the Direct Selection tool to select the text box, and then use the Pen tool to add anchor points. You can manipulate these anchor points just as you would any vector path
— John Feld, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Multi-column Text, One-Column Headline
Making one headline span several columns of text in a multi-column text frame takes some trickery. Here’s one way to do it.
- Use the Text tool to create a text frame.
- In Text Frame Options, choose the desired number of columns.
- Use the Type on a Path tool on the text frame outline and type the headline.
- Position the text brackets so that the text begins and ends above the text frame.
- Thread the text frames by selecting the headline out-port and connecting it to the text frame.
- To vertically distance the headline from the body text, apply a baseline shift to the headline.
Why bother with all these steps? Because you can use Object Styles and Apply Next Style to format this type of frame and its content with one click. Also, both the headline and the body appear together in the Story Editor.
— Rufus Deuchler, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Delete Preference Files
You can delete InDesign’s preference files when launching InDesign. To display this option dialog, launch InDesign, then immediately select Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Ctrl+Option+Command+Shift (Mac OS).
— Eliot Harper, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Extending a Line
Need to add rows or columns to a table? Here’s the fastest way to add rows at the end of a table or columns at the right hand side of a table:
- Hover your Text tool cursor over the bottom or right edge of the table so that the cursor changes to a double arrow.
- Now, press and hold down the mouse button — but still don’t move the mouse.
- Press and hold down the Option/Alt key.
- Now move the mouse down (for extra rows) or to the right (for extra columns). The more you drag, the more rows or columns InDesign adds.
The Environment Dialog Box
One of the most useful dialog boxes in InDesign is also one of the least seen: The Environment dialog box. You can find this little creature by holding down the Command/Ctrl key and choosing About InDesign (from the Help menu on Windows, or the application menu on the Mac). The Environment dialog box tells you all about your version of InDesign, including what plug-ins are running. More importantly, it tells you about the current document, such as: Was it originally a QuarkXPress or PageMaker file? When was it last saved? And what special plug-ins were used to create it?
Jump from One Master
Do you have lots of master pages in your document? Need to jump from one to the next? It’s a hassle to double-click on each of them in the Pages palette. Don’t bother: Just use the Next Spread or Previous Spread features from the Layout menu. Better yet, just use the shortcuts: hold down Option/Alt and press Page Up or Page Down. When you’re viewing any master page, this shortcut takes you to the next (or previous) one.
Build Guide Libraries
You can save a page’s guides by selecting them and choosing Add Item from the Library’s palette menu or by clicking the New Item button at the bottom of the palette. Then, when you want to use the same set of guides on another page, simply select it in the Library and choose Place Item(s) in the palette menu. This places the same guides, in the same positions, on the new page. You can’t add to or place guides from a Library using drag and drop.
— Erica Gamet, InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Stroke Frame and Table Corners
Here’s how to make a stroke that appears only at the corners of a frame:
- Create a new dashed stroke style by choosing Stroke Styles from the Stroke palette menu. Call it something like Corners.
- Apply the stroke to a text or graphic frame and give it an adequate stroke width.
- Return to the stroke style to edit Corners.
- For Pattern Length, insert a value that’s much larger than your frame.
- For Corners, choose Adjust Gaps (which will keep the length of the dash fixed).
- Choose Preview for real time fine-tuning.
- Move the little ruler arrow until you achieve the desired result (or enter a value for Length).
You can then apply that stroke to any frame (of any size) and the corners will be identical for all objects. For surprising effects, try it on tables, too.
— Rufus Deuchler, InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Look Back at History
If you hold down the Command/Ctrl key while you choose About InDesign from the InDesign menu (Mac) or Help menu (Win), you’ll see the Component Information dialog box. It tells you exactly what version of InDesign you’re running and which plug-ins are installed. The Document History section of the dialog tells you when the document was first created and by what version of InDesign, when it was last saved, whether the file was ever converted from Quark or PageMaker, and other information. All of it may be useful for diagnosing a troublesome document.
— Keith Gilbert, InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Quick Switch for Measurements
You know you can type any measurement into any number field. (For example, even if your measurement preferences is set to inches, you can type “3p” into the X field to position an object at three picas.) But sometimes it’s helpful to actually change InDesign’s rulers. You can change the ruler measurement system in the Preferences dialog box, but here’s an even faster method: Press Command-Option-Shift-U/Ctrl-Alt-Shift-U. Each time you press this shortcut, InDesign rotates through to the next measurement system (millimeters to centimeters to ciceros, and so on). One more technique you should know about: You can right-click on a ruler (or Control-click with a one-button mouse) to set the measurement system for that one ruler.
Recompose All Stories
Sometimes you need to re-compose all your stories in your InDesign document. This could be because you changed your hyphenation method, because you switched languages, or for a handful of other reasons. Or perhaps you simply want to make double-sure that all of your stories are composed with the very current settings. But how to do that?
One way is to turn on the checkbox “Recompose all stories when User Dictionary is modified” in the Dictionary panel of the Prefences dialog box. Now make any change in the user dictionary, save this change, wait until the stories have been re-composed, and finally revert the change in the User Dictionary.
A much faster method is to choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, choose the product area “Text and Tables,” scroll down the list to the entry “Recompose all Stories immediately” and assign a keyboard shortcut to it. Save your change, and then just type your new keyboard shortcut! –Courtesy of Rudi Warttmann, ITIP.biz
Place a Guide with a Click (or Two)
You can place a guide on your page by double-clicking at the appropriate position on the horizontal or vertical ruler. (If you can’t see the rulers around the page, choose View > Show Rulers, or press Command/Ctrl-R.) Even better, hold down the Shift key when you place the guide and it will be placed at the location of the nearest ruler tick mark. That is, you don’t have to click exactly on the 100mm tick mark to get a guide there; just get near that tick mark and Shift-double-click.
Switch to the Next Window
I almost always work with several InDesign document windows open at the same time and I often need to swtich from one window to the next. Sure, I could use the Window menu to do this, but it’s often much faster to press Command/Ctrl-tilde to switch to the next window Command-Shift/Ctrl-Shift-tilde to switch to the previous window. The tilde key is in the upper-left corner of the keyboard on US keyboards.
If you have a non-US keyboard, the keyboard shortcut might be different. You can customize it to whatever you want by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, picking “Views, Navigation” from the Product Area popup menu, and finding the Next Window and Previous Window commands.
Jump to the End of the Story
One of the best ways to get efficient in InDesign is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for navigating around text. For example, you probably know that Command/Ctrl-Down Arrow moves to the beginning of the next paragraph. Here’s a few that I find many people don’t take advantage of:
- Command/Ctrl-End jumps to the end of the current text story
- Command-Shift/Ctrl-Shift-End selects from the current text cursor position to the end of the story, even if the end of the story is overset (past the end of the last text frame).
- Replace the Home key above to jump or select to the beginning of the story.
- Note that on some keyboards, you may have to add another modifier key. For example, on my PowerBook I have to add the “Fn” key before pressing the right-arrow key to select to the end of the story (because Fn-Right Arrow equals the End key on my keyboard).
Thread Backwards
Just about everyone knows that you can click on the out-port of a text object to click on or draw another text frame that creates or continues a text thread. But you can also click on the in-port of a text frame-even if it’s the first frame in the thread-to start the thread in a different frame. This is especially useful when you place a story, then realize you want the headline in its own frame so you can give it a drop shadow.
— Mordy Golding, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Linking Multiple Text Frames
You can easily link three or more text frames using the Option/Alt key. To link existing text frames, click in the overflow box of the first frame, then Option/Alt-click in each subsequent text frame. To create and link text frames on-the-fly, create the first frame, click in its overflow box, then Option-click and drag to create each subsequent frame.
— Erica Gamet, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Lock Objects when Aligning or Centering
If you select two objects on your page that aren’t overlapping and use the Align or Control palette to center them, both objects will move. That can be very annoying if you wanted one of them to stay put. Similarly, if you align two objects horizontally, the left-most object always stays in position and the other one moves. Fortunately, you can tell InDesign that an object should not move by selecting it and choosing Object > Lock Position (Command/Ctrl-L). If an object is locked when you use the Align features, then all the objects align to it.
Speedy One-Word Spell Check
InDesign CS2’s new Dynamic Spelling feature — it flags misspelled words as you type-is useful and convenient for on-the-fly corrections, but it can be distracting, especially when you’re trying to concentrate on something other than spelling. For the best of both worlds, assign a keyboard shortcut to Dynamic Spelling with Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. Keep the feature turned off (it’s off by default), but when you’re curious if a certain word is spelled correctly, use the keyboard shortcut to briefly toggle it on. If the word is misspelled, it’ll sprout a (non-printing) red underline. Right-click on the word to choose the correct spelling or add it to the dictionary from the contextual menu. If the word is spelled correctly, nothing changes — no underline appears. Press the shortcut again to toggle Dynamic Spelling off and continue with your work.
— Anne-Marie Concepción, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Fast Word Replacement
Create your own shorthand dictionary for words you type all the time (or that tend to slow you down) by using InDesign CS2’s new Autocorrect feature. The secret is to create a string of text that would not otherwise occur; this is a placeholder for your desired text. For instance, if you routinely butcher the capitalization of the word “InDesign,” set up the text “qq” to stand in for “InDesign” by opening the Autocorrect pane in Preferences, choosing Add, and entering the Misspelled Word (qq) and the Correction (InDesign). Now when you type the word “qq,” Autocorrect swaps the correct text for the placeholder. Autocorrect ignores the string of text if it occurs within a word.
–Erica Game, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Quick Tints of Colors
Need a color a little lighter or darker than the one you’ve got? When you edit or create a new color (in the Colors palette or the New Color Swatch dialog box), you can hold down the Shift key while dragging the sliders to make all the others sliders move, too. The result is a more or less saturated version of the color you started with.
What’s That Override?
To see local overrides in InDesign CS2, hold the mouse over the plus sign of the name of a paragraph or character style name in the Paragraph Styles and Character Styles palettes.
— Jamie McKee, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
No More Rasterized Text
Drop shadows and other transparency can be very effective, but not when small text such as a caption rasterizes in the flattening process at print time. For worry-free designs, create at least two layers in your document: One at the top level for all of your text, and one at the bottom level for all of your images. Text that appears above a transparency effect in the stacking order will never rasterize.
— Mordy Golding, from InDesign Magazine #7, Aug/Sept 2005
Removing a Frame from a Thread, Part 2
I previously suggested a method for removing a text frame from a story. Several people wrote to ask me why I shouldn’t just delete the frame itself. Sure, that works, but the hard part is keeping the frame on the page and just making the story skip past it. Then tip-of-the-week reader Arsim Shala from Kosovo wrote me with a great solution: Select the frame you want removed, cut it to the clipboard (Command/Ctrl-X), and then paste it back in the same place (Command-Option-Shift-V/Ctrl-Alt-Shift-V). Now, if you want the frame to be empty, double-click on it to place the Text cursor in the frame, press Command-A/Ctrl-A to select all the text, and press Delete. This is one of those tips that is much faster to do than to explain in writing.
Thanks for the tip, Arsim! In appreciation, we’re going to give you a free 2-issue subscription to InDesign Magazine! (You can pick any two past issues, or be signed up to get the next two issues free.)
Typing a Tab in a Table
Need to place a tab character inside a table cell? You can choose Type > Insert Special Character > Tab. Or, even easier, on the Macintosh, just press Option-Tab. If you do this a lot on Windows, you should apply a keyboard shortcut to the Tab character by:
1. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. If you haven’t already created a custom shortcut set, click New Set
3. Choose Type Menu from the Product Area popup menu
4. Choose Insert Special Character: Tab from the Commands list.
5. Choose Tables from the Context popup menu.
6. Type a keyboard shortcut (such as Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Tab) in the New Shortcut field.
7. Click Assign and then click OK.
Remove A Frame From a Thread
You’ve linked four text frames (lets call them A, B, C, and D) but now you realized that frame B was supposed to be some other text story, so you want to take it out of the thread. Can you do it? First, unlink text frame A from the thread by double-clicking on its out port with the Selection tool. Next, select text frame B and unlink it from the thread by double-cliking on its out port. Finally, select frame A and link it to frame C (by clicking frame A’s out port and then clicking anywhere on top of frame C). This works because when you unlink text frame A, InDesign preserves the thread from frame B to C, to D.
Custom Placeholder Text
When you need to fill a text frame (or a bunch of linked text frames) with “dummy” text, place the text cursor in the frame and choose Type > Fill with Placeholder Text. InDesign applies the current text formatting (the style of the text where the cursor was placed) to all the text it adds. By default, the text is quasi-Latin based on the Lorem Ipsum text that designers have been using for decades. However, if the Caps Lock key is held down, InDesign uses random words from an oration by Cicero. Don’t like that either? Save any text file (ASCII txt file only) in the InDesign application folder with the name placeholder.txt and InDesign will use that text instead!
Centering Objects on the Page, Part 2
Last week’s tip focused on aligning objects to the page (rather than other objects on the page). I received a number of emails pointing out that InDesign Magazine already published another solution to centering an object on a page:
1. Select the object(s) and cut them to the clipboard (Command/Ctrl-X).
2. Press Command/Ctrl-0 (zero) to go to Fit in Window view.
3. Paste (Command/Ctlr-V)
I like this method of centering objects, but it is not always entirely precise. Sometimes (depending on the actual percentage view when you are in Fit in Window), the object appears slightly off center — though usually only a tiny distance from the center.
For other cool methods of centering and aligning objects on your page, see the article in an upcoming issue of InDesign Magazine!
Center an Object on the Page
InDesign offers all kinds of cool features, but some of the basic features it lacks can leave you scratching your head. For example, the Align palette and the Control palette make it easy to align two or more objects along their edges or centers. But how do you align one or more objects to the page itself? The trick is to create an object that is the same size as the page itself. I typically press F (for the Frame tool), draw out a small frame, press Command/Ctrl-6 to jump to the Control palette, type zero-tab-zero-tab-W-tab-H-enter (where H and W are the width and height of the page). Now select that object along with the ones you want to align and use the aforementioned palettes to align them. Store the big object as a snippet in Bridge, a Library, or your desktop for use later, and then (optionally) delete it from the page.
Duplicating a Page
Need to make a slight variation on a layout but keep the original? You can duplicate a page in your document by holding down the Option/Alt key while dragging it in the Pages palette.
Moving Objects Behind Other Objects
You know that you can select one object behind another one by Command/Ctrl-clicking, right? Just keep clicking with Command/Ctrl key held down until you select the one you want. But now how do you move that object? You could use the Control palette to adjust its X and Y coordinates. Or, even cooler: Just drag the centerpoint of that object. If you drag anywhere other than the centerpoint, you move the topmost object. But the centerpoint moves the object itself.
Go and Fit in Window
You know you can jump to a particular page by double-clicking on it in the Pages palette. But did you know that you can hold down the Option/Alt key while double-clicking to jump to that page and switch to Fit Page in Window at the same time?
Copying Color Swatches
Michael Brady pointed out a clever way to copy color swatches from one document to another in InDesign CS2: Just select them in the first document (Command/Ctrl-click to select swatches that aren’t next to each other) and then drag them from the palette to the second document (the one you want to add them to). Simple, easy, fast. I wish we could do that with paragraph styles and object styles, too!
Target That Page
If you drag the vertical scroll bar halfway down, you’ll end up about halfway through your long InDesign document. But if you follow that by pressing Shift-Page Down (to jump to the next page), you may end up on a very unexpected page. Why? Because this keyboard shortcut takes you to the next page after the currently-targeted page in the Pages palette, not the one you’re actually looking at. So after dragging the scroll bar, click once anywhere on the page or pasteboard. That targets this spread. Now the shortcut will work as expected.
Linking Two Full Frames
Unlike QuarkXPress, InDesign can link two text frames when both frames contain text. When you do this, the stories in the text frames are merged into a single story. If the text in the first text frame did not end with a carriage return, InDesign will run the text in the second frame into the last paragraph of the first text frame.
Follow-up on Search and Replace Quote Marks
One of my favorite things about tips & tricks is that they are sometimes so obvious, and yet I learn new ones all the time. Here is a great example.
In response to last week’s tip about converting straight quotes to curly (“typographer’s”) quotes, Martin Braun wrote to us from Germany:
“I think there is an even faster way to set all quotation marks to typographer’s style: Just replace all quotation marks by another character or combination of characters that is not included in the text (e.g. “###”). Then replace “###” with ” (the quotation mark). InDesign will automatically use the correct quotation mark.” (Note that this only works when the Use Typographer’s Quotes checkbox is turned on in the Preferences dialog box.)
Thanks, Martin!
Search and Replace Quote Marks
I was recently sent a file that had straight quotation marks (both single and double) instead of curly (typographer’s) quotes. It turns out that it’s harder to replace these than it should be. Here are two methods, each with their pros and cons.
- Method 1: Find/Change
It’s easy to search for quotes: Just type a single or double quote mark in the Find What field of the Find/Change dialog box. But how do you convert a straight single quote to a curly quote? There is a keyboard shortcut (different on Mac OS and Windows) to type curly quotes, but why bother trying to remember it? Just pick a special character from the little flyout menu to the right of the Change To field (it’s the one labeled with a small black triangle).Unfortunately, you have to pick either the left or the right quote — so you should probably search for a space character followed by a quote first. That will find most of the beginning quotes (because there is usually a space before an open quote mark). Replace that with a space followed by the Single or Double Left Quotation Mark (from that flyout menu). Next search for all the paragraph characters (again, from that menu) followed by a quote mark. That’ll find all the quote marks at the beginning of a sentence. The quote marks that are left over are probably close marks, so you can search for all the rest of the quote marks and change them to the Single or Double Right Quotation Mark. - Method 2: Export/Import
Here’s a far faster way to accomplish the same thing. (Thanks to Anne-Marie Concepcion for the clue to this solution.) Place the flashing text cursor in the story and choose File > Export. Then choose InDesign Tagged Text from the Format popup menu and click Save (noting where you’re saving the file, of course). Now select the whole text story in your document, delete it, choose File > Place, and select the file you just saved out. Before you click OK, turn on Show Import Options. Now, when you click OK, InDesign offers you the option of replacing your quotes with typographer quotes. Turn it on, click OK, and you’re done.
The first solution takes longer, but is great when you have a bunch of different text stories in your document (or you want to search across multiple open documents). The second solution is faster, but only works one story at a time.
Save All Open Documents
I have 15 InDesign files open, and I’ve just performed a Find/Change across them all. (Did you know you can do that? Just choose All Documents in the Find/Change dialog box.) Now I want to save them all. It’s a hassle to switch to each window and choose File > Save. Avery Raskin to the recue! He recently pointed out to me the hidden keyboard shortcut for Save All: Command-Option-Shift-S (or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S). That just saved me a bunch of time. That’s what I like about InDesign: You learn something new everyday.
Hide and Seek Side Palettes
To expand or contract all the side palettes (the palettes that are stashed along the left or right side of the monitor), press Command-Option-Tab, or Ctrl-Alt-Tab. Alternately, you can Option/Alt-click on one of the palette tabs to expand or contract all the side palettes on that side of the screen.
Clear Overrides in a Paragraph
You’ve got a paragraph with a paragraph style applied, but part of the paragraph has local overrides (like font, size, color, or whatever) that you want to get rid of. If you select some text (such as a word or two) and click the Remove Overrides button in the Paragraph Styles palette, InDesign removes any local formatting applied to that text. But if you place the cursor in the paragraph and don’t actually select any text before clicking this button, InDesign removes the local formatting from the entire paragraph.
Get Those Points
You’ve applied a Corner Effect to a frame, but now you want to edit the path slightly with the Direct Selection tool. Unfortunately, the Corner Effects don’t actually place editable points on your frame; they just simulate the rounded corners or inverse corners (or whatever effect you’ve applied). The Pathfinder palette to the rescue! In CS2, simply open the Pathfinder palette (Window > Object & Layout > Pathfinder), select the frame, and click the Open Path or the Close Path button. The corner effects suddenly get converted to real Bezier points!
Manage Your Palettes Better
Let’s face it: InDesign has a LOT of palettes, and a huge amount of time each day is spent just opening the right set of palettes, positioning them, closing other palettes, and so on. Make life easier for yourself by creating workspaces. Workspaces remember which palettes are opened (or closed) and where they’re located on the screen. To make a workspace, set up the screen just the way you want it and then choose Window > Workspace > Save Workspace. InDesign then lets you name your workspace whatever you want. Later, when your palettes are all mixed up again, you can choose that workspace from the same Workspace submenu. Make one workspace for editing text, one for laying out pages, one for proofing, and so on.
Aligning Decimals in a Table
How on Earth are you going to align the decimal points in that column of numbers in your table? No problem. Just select the whole column (choose the Type tool and click over the top of the column when you see the bold down-arrow cursor), open the Tabs palette (Window > Tabs), select the Decimal Tab Stop in the palette, and click in the palette’s ruler where you want the decimals to be aligned. The cool thing is that this works without you typing a tab character into each cell!
Go Back to the Previous Page
Two of my favorite underused features in InDesign are the Go Back and Go Forward commands (hiding under the Layout menu, even though they should be under the View menu). Let’s say you’re in the middle of your document and you decide to jump to a master page. Now, you want to return to the page you were last on. Choose Go Back! (Faster, press Command/Ctrl-Page Up). It’s like navigating back through pages you’ve seen in a Web browser. Then you can choose Go Forward (Command/Ctrl-Page Down) to navigate forward again.
Drag Into New Frame
You know you can drag-and-drop a graphic or text file into InDesign from the Finder, Windows Explorer, or Bridge. But if you drag the file on top of an empty frame, InDesign fills that frame with the incoming file. If that’s not what you want to do, hold down the Command/Ctrl key while dragging. This forces InDesign to create a new frame for it.
Fast Edit Original
If you select an image and click the Edit Original button in the Links palette (or choose Edit > Edit Original), InDesign launches the program that created that graphic. Actually, it’s based on whatever application the operating system thinks should open the file. So if you export a PDF from InDesign, re-import it into another InDesign page and then choose Edit Original, the PDF opens in Acrobat (not InDesign, of course). The fastest way to choose this feature: Option/Alt-double-click on a graphic with the Selection or Direct Select tool.
Show Your Options
The Show Options checkbox inside the Place dialog box is sticky — that is, if you turn it on, it remains on each time you place until you turn it off. However, instead of turning on and off the checkbox, hold down the Shift key when you click the Open button. The Shift key forces the Options dialog box to open whether or not the checkbox is on.
Tip from Creative Suite Conference
Here’s a tip I just learned today while attending a session at “The Creative Suite Conference” in London. While I already knew that Adobe Bridge can display a thumbnail preview of the first page of InDesign documents, I didn’t realize that it could show a preview of every page… if you save your file as an InDesign template. (You can choose between a document and a template in the Save As dialog box.) Because Bridge can scroll through these thumbnails, you can effectively use Bridge as a (low-res) InDesign reader, even if you don’t have InDesign running. Note that when you open a template file, you’ll get a new “Untitled” document unless you choose “Open Original” in the Open dialog box. Using Open Original will open the file with its proper name.
–Courtesy of Branislav Milic and Sandee Cohen
Better Drop Shadows
Want better-looking drop shadows? Normal drop shadows are cool, but they’re too pure. You’ll get a much more natural drop shadow if you increase the Noise value in the Drop Shadow dialog box a little — you only need 5 or 6 percent to help.
Switch to Type Tool Fast
If you double-click on a text frame with either the Selection tool or the Direct Select tool, InDesign automatically switiches to the Type tool and places the blinking cursor where you double-clicked. Need to get back to the Selection tool again? Here’s one way to do it: Command/Ctrl-click on the text frame and then press V.
Change Object Shape
Need to change one frame shape into another? Check out the Convert Shape submenu (under the Object menu). Want to make a bunch of objects into starbursts? First double-click the Polygon Frame tool to open the Polygon Settings dialog box and specify settings for a starburst. From then on you can select any frame and then choose Object>Convert Shape>Polygon to get those same starburst settings.
More Quick Apply Features
Here are some hidden shortcuts for the Quick Apply feature in CS2: Press Command-Return (Mac) or Control-Enter (Windows) to open the Quick Apply feature. Now you can type a few characters of a style name. They don’t have to be the first characters; typing “B2” will find “Bhead2” and “2B or not 2B.” If more than one style appears in the list, you can press the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate them.
Now, you can press Enter to apply the selected style, Option/Alt-Enter to remove all local overrides and apply the style, or Option/Alt-Shift-Enter to remove all local overrides including character styles before applying the style. If you’re not sure which style you want to apply, press Shift-Enter, which applies the style, but leaves the Quick Apply window open. Or press Esc to cancel the Quick Apply.
Change Object Shape
Need to change one frame shape into another? Check out the Convert Shape submenu (under the Object menu). Want to make a bunch of objects into starbursts? First double-click the Polygon Frame tool to open the Polygon Settings dialog box and specify settings for a starburst. From then on you can select any frame and then choose Object>Convert Shape>Polygon to get those same starburst settings.
Rearranging Colors
Almost no one uses the Registration color (which applies 100% of all colors… a big problem for everything except printer marks). So why is it at the top of the Swatches palette? Because most people don’t realize you can reorder your Swatches palette: Just click-and-drag the swatches up or down. Move that Registration color to the bottom of the list while no documents are open and it’ll stay there for all future files.
Import Lots of PDF Pages
You can more than one page of a PDF at a time in CS2 by turning on the Show Import Options checkbox in the Place dialog box, then choosing which pages you want to import (or select All to import the whole thing). After you click OK, you’ll see the Place PDF cursor. Each time you click you’ll place another page of the multi-page PDF. Or Option/Alt-click to place all the selected pages on the same page.
Fast Edit via Quick Apply
Quick Apply is one of my favorite features in CS2: Just press Command/Ctrl-Enter to open the Quick Apply window, type a few characters of a style name (character style, paragraph style, or object style), and press Enter to apply it. But did you know that if you press Command/Ctrl-Enter after choosing the style name (instead of Enter), InDesign opens the edit dialog box for that style? Much faster than navigating through the palettes, especially when you have a lot of styles.
Quick Custom Underlines
Trying to navigate through submenus to find the Custom Underline and the Custom Strikethrough dialog boxes is a hassle. Instead, just Option/Alt-click on the Underline or Strikethrough buttons in the Control palette. Try holding down the Option/Alt modifier key when you click on various buttons or icons in the Control palette; it opens all sorts of hidden dialog boxes.
Scaling by Dragging
If you select more than one object on your page, you can scale them all quickly by holding down the Command/Ctrl key while dragging a corner handle. However, you must either group the objects first (and then Command/Ctrl-drag the group’s corner handle) or Command/Ctrl-drag the corner of any text frame within the non-grouped selection. If you don’t group and then Command/Ctrl-drag a frame that isn’t a text frame, only that one frame changes size. Weird, eh?
Transform and Duplicate
Select an object, place your cursor in the Rotate field of the Control palette, and type a rotation number — such as 30 degrees. If you press Enter, the object is rotated 30 degrees. If you add the Option/Alt key when you press Enter, you rotate a copy of the object instead. It works in all the fields! If you want a duplicate of a frame, but this one should start at 20 picas from the left side of the page, type 20p into the X field and press Option/Alt-Enter. And so on.
Trivia: Find the Ways to Add a Swatch
Anne-Marie Concepción recently tried to stump me by asking me to name all the places in InDesign that you can create a new color. There’s the Color and the Swatches palette, of course. But where else? In CS2, you can double-click on the Fill icon at the bottom of the Tool palette to open the Color Picker. (Which is, by the way, my least favorite feature in the entire program.)
There’s also another way that works in both CS and CS2: The Drop Shadow feature lets you create new colors if you change the Color popup menu to something other than Swatches. But there’s another hidden way… one that actually lets you save the color you make as a swatch: When you create or edit a paragraph or character style, you can double-click on the fill or stroke color in the Character Color panel. This opens a dialog box that lets you create and save a swatch.
Can you find any other clever ways to create colors in InDesign? (Importing them from an EPS, PDF, PSD, or DCS file doesn’t count!) Email me at david@indesignmag.com with your favorite tips.
Right Align Tab with Leader
You know you can type Shift-Tab to create a right-indent tab (or choose Right Indent Tab from the Type>Insert Special Character menu). But how do you apply a tab leader (like dots) to it? Can’t do it in CS, but you can in CS2: Just apply a tab leader to the last tab stop in that paragraph. If there isn’t already a tab stop, then add one anywhere in the paragraph and apply a leader to it. The right-indent tab always uses the leader from the last tab stop.
Reset the Zero Point
It’s easy to change the zero-zero point of the document rulers: Just drag from the corner where the two rulers meet and let go of the mouse button where on your page (or pasteboard) you want the zero-zero point to sit. But how do you get the zero-zero point back to the upper-left corner? No problem: Double-click that little square where the rulers meet to reset back to the ruler default position.
Change a Palette Value Again and Again
You might now know if you want an object to be rotated 20 degrees, or 25 degrees, or 30 degrees… but you know you like typing these values numerically rather than just using the Rotate tool. After selecting the object on your page, click once on the Rotate icon in the Control palete (clicking on the icon selects all the text in that field) and type 20. Now instead of pressing Return/Enter, hold down the Shift key and press Return/Enter. This rotates the object but leaves the rotation field selected in the palette! If you don’t like it, you can type a new value without having to take the time to click in the field again. It’s a little timesaver, but it’s the kind of thing that can save you a lot of time over the course of a week.
Turn On and Off Curly Quotes
Sometimes you want to type a curly (“typographers”) quote and sometimes you want a straight quote. But by default, InDesign always converts straight quotes to curly quotes as you type. Isn’t there a way to get both? Sort of. Press Command-Option-Shift-‘ (that’s the quote key on your keyboard) — or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-‘ in Windows. This turns off the quote converter preference, so now you’ll get your straight quotes. Press the shortcut again to turn the converter back on to get your curly quotes.
Dramatic Backgrounds for Preview
When you show your InDesign pages to your art director or client, consider turning on Preview mode to hide all non-printing objects (click on the Preview Mode icon at the bottom of the Tool palette, or press W when not in a text frame). Then press Tab to hide all your palettes. For even more dramatic results, open the Preferences dialog box, choose the Guides & Pasteboard panel, and choose Black from the Guides and Pasteboard dropdown list. The black preview color boosts the visual contrast of the colors on your page and makes it look great.
Lower the Size of Your Files
An InDesign file can get larger (and larger, and larger) each time you save it. It’s really a good idea to choose File > Save As every so often and give the InDesign file a new name. Using Save As clears out all the gunk that builds up over time. Here’s another option: Deselect all objects on your page and then choose File > Export to export the entire file. Choose InDesign Interchange (.inx) from the Format popup menu in the Export dialog box. Once you have exported the file in the INX format, open that INX file in InDesign and then do a Save As. This really cleans out the file of any weirdness that might have crept in.
Colorize Color Images
You can colorize a color image (make it look like a duotone) by selecting the picture frame with the Selection tool and choosing a fill color from the Swatches or Color palette. Now click on the image with the Direct Select tool and choose the Luminosity blend mode in the Transparency palette. If the image is in grayscale, choose Darken instead. Note that this will convert spot colors to CMYK, so it’s better to select a process color.
–Courtesy of Branislav Milic, Brussels https://www.milic.com/indesign/index.html
Select Everything on a Layer
You can select all the objects that live on a specific layer on your page by Option/Alt-clicking on the layer’s name in the Layers palette.
Printing Non-consecutive Pages
You can print non-consecutive pages and page ranges by typing in the page numbers in the Range field of the Print dialog box. For instance, you could type ?3, 6, 14-18?. This also works in the Export PDF dialog box. To print the fifth page of a document that starts on a page number other than 1, type +5 (the plus sign means absolute page number). So to print the third through fifth pages, you would type the really confusing: +3-+5.
Fast Saves from Word
You should never use Fast Save in Microsoft Word before importing text into InDesign. To get around Fast Save, go to the Preferences dialog box in Microsoft Word and turn off the Allow Fast Saves check box.
Explanation: When Word’s “Fast Save” feature is turned on, each time you save your Word document it just saves what is different from the previous version, like an “incremental backup.” When you place this file into Word, InDesign has to sift through the original document, plus every notation about how that document was changed. It lowers the reliability rate significantly. When you turn Fast Save off, Word saves the document more or less as though you had done a “Save As,” so you get a clean version of the file. It takes a little longer to save from Word, but it’s worth it. Of course, if you always use Save As before placing your file in InDesign, then it probably doesn’t matter.
The Style Plus Sign
A little plus sign appears in the Paragraph Styles and Character Styles palettes when the cursor is in some text that has local formatting (beyond the style description). If you’re using paragraph and character styles properly, this symbol shouldn’t appear very often. If you’re not sure what local formatting has been applied, Option/Alt-click on the New Style button in the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles palette. Look at the listing of attributes in the Style Settings list at the bottom of the palette; the items in the list (after the + sign) are the local formatting.
Watch Out When Typing
Remember that many keys are keyboard shortcuts when you’re not typing in a text frame. For example, pressing the period key fills the current shape with the last-used solid color. Pressing comma fills the object with a gradient, and pressing / (slash) fills it with None. These are great time-savers, but if you press one of these accidentally, you may not be so happy. Here’s one of my favorites: Shift-X swaps the fill and stroke colors of selected objects.
Import Multiple Images and Text Files
Do you want to place a whole bunch of files at the same time? Just select them in a Macintosh Finder or Windows Explorer window and drag them on top of your InDesign document. You can import both pictures and text this way (even both at the same time), and InDesign creates frames for each one automatically. Note that if you drag just one image or text file on top of your InDesign document and you let go of the mouse button while the cursor is over an empty frame, that file will be placed into the frame.
Switch Text Mode
If you’re editing text and you want to change to a different tool, you can’t press the tool’s keyboard shortcut (because you’ll just type that letter in the text). Instead, Command-click/Ctrl-click on the text frame, then press the shortcut.
Style Editing
You can double-click on a style in the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles palettes to edit that style. However, if you have text selected, you’ll automatically apply that style to the text! If you want to edit the style but not apply it to the current selection, hold down Command-Option-Shift/Ctrl-Alt-Shift when double-clicking on the style.
Fractions in Arithmetic
You can type fractions in palettes or dialog boxes instead of decimals. To get 1/5 inch, type 1/5″. To place a text box 3 7/8 inches from the left side of the page, type 7/8in in the X field of the Transform palette, then press Shift-Return (to perform the calculation but leave cursor in the field. Then press the right arrow key and type +3in.
Lock First Line to Baseline Grid
Often, sidebars in magazines or newsletters are set in a different font and leading than the main body text. You can make the first baseline of that sidebar lock to the leading grid by first turning on Align to Baseline Grid for the whole paragraph, and then selecting Only Align First Line to Grid from the Paragraph or the Control palette menu.
Redefine Styles
Need to change the definition of a paragraph style? Instead of using a dialog box, just select a paragraph that has the style applied to it, and change its formatting. Then, to update the paragraph style based on the changes you’ve made to the text, choose Redefine Paragraph Style from the Paragraph Styles palette menu (or press Command-Option-Shift-R/Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R).
Viewing Without Bleeds
If objects bleed off the sides of your pages, you can view your document without bleeds (that is, as it will look in its final printed form) by clicking the Preview button at the bottom of the Tool palette — or by pressing W while no text is selected. The Preview mode hides all non-printing objects, including guides and objects for which Non-printing is turned on in the Attributes palette.
Jump to a Page
The fastest way to jump to a specific page is to press Command-J/Ctrl-J, then type the page number, then press Return or Enter. You can even jump to a master page: instead of typing a page number, type the prefix of the master page (like “A” for A-Master Page).
Highlighted Text
Sometimes you’ll open a document and find some text highlighted in pink, yellow, or green. Pink highlight means the font is missing or wrong. Yellow highlight means the H&J Violations is turned on in the Composition panel of the Preferences dialog box (the more saturated the yellow, the more egregious the violation of the hyphenation or justification settings). Green highlights show up wherever you have applied manual kerning or tracking when the Custom Tracking/Kerning feature is turned on in the same preferences panel.
Export JPEG
Need to get a quick comp of a page to a client who may or may not have Acrobat? Try exporting the page as a JPEG graphic (File>Export), which can be opened in any Web browser or graphics program. Similarly, if you want a thumbnail-sized reproduction of a graphics-rich page (like reprinting the cover of a magazine but only a couple inches tall), export that page as a JPEG instead of a huge PDF or EPS file. The JPEG file is always 72 dpi, but that’s usually good enough for a quick comp or for a thumbnail image.
Scroll Wheels are Your Friend
That scroll wheel on your mouse is pretty cool for scrolling up and down. But did you know that if you hold down the Shift key while you turn the wheel you scroll to the left or right? And if you hold down the Command/Ctrl key, InDesign zooms in and out on your page.
Redefine Styles
Need to change the definition of a paragraph style? Instead of using a dialog box, just select a paragraph that has the style applied to it, and change its formatting. Then, to update the paragraph style based on the changes you’ve made to the text, choose Redefine Paragraph Style from the Paragraph Styles palette menu (or press Command-Option-Shift-R/Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R).
We just recorded our 150th InDesignSecrets podcast, and to celebrate this sesquicentennial event, we offer you 150 links we think you ought to know about. Some of these are pages here at InDesignSecrets.com, but most point elsewhere. It is a big InDesign world, after all.
Note that these are not in any particular order! And it’s not the ultimate comprehensive list. To all the many great sites and links that we forgot, we apologize!
Social Media:
- twitter.com/indesignsecrets
- twitter.com/indesign
- twitter.com/indesignmag
- twitter.com/mninness
- facebook.com/indesignsecrets
- facebook.com/indesign
- twitter.com/amarie
- twitter.com/dblatner
- twitter.com/rufusd
- twitter.com/carijansen
- twitter.com/#!/jamesfritz
- twitter.com/adobe_care
- twitter.com/#!/amarie/idugs
- twitter.com/#!/indesignblog
Sites:
- indesignsecrets.com
- www.adobe.com/products/indesign.html
- Automation (IDML and Scripting): www.adobe.com/products/indesign/extend.displayTab2.html
- theindesigner.com
- theindesignguy.com
- blog.gilbertconsulting.com
- creativepro.com
- indesignusergroup.com
- indesignmag.com
- Wishlist/bugs can be reported to: www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=68
- carijansen.com
- blogs.adobe.com/indesignpost
- russellviers.com
- rufus.deuchler.net
- Anne-marie’s site: www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/indesign.html
- layersmagazine.com/category/indesign
- fridays.mordy.com
- www.askbrianwood.com
- blogs.adobe.com/adobe-com-blogs
- blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing
- blogs.adobe.com/indesigndocs
- whattheythink.com
- creativebits.org
- www.ampersandvirgule.com
- Adobe Forums: https://forums.adobe.com
- Adobe Events page: https://www.adobe.com/events
- Adobe Ondemand Seminars: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=list&type=ondemand_seminar&loc=en_us
- Accessibility links: https://creativepro.com/accessibility
- www.instantindesign.com
- www.creativesweettv.com
- creativesuitepodcast.com
- www.creativeedge.com
- Mike Rankin’s old site still has fun stuff on it: publicious.net
- desktoppub.about.com/od/indesigntutorials/Adobe_InDesign_Tutorials.htm
Tips:
Plug-ins and Scripts
- List of plug-ins: www.adobe.com/products/indesign/extend.displayTab3.html
- indisnip.wordpress.com
- indiscripts.com
- in-tools.com/products/scripts/
- www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/task-tools-for-adobe-indesign/
- free version of patternmaker plug-in: teacupsoftware.com/products/patternmaker1_0.html
- automatication.com
- CalendarWizard: sourceforge.net/projects/calendarwizard/
- Tetris inside InDesign, Blatner Tools, and many other plug-ins! www.dtptools.com
- indesignsecrets.com/bringing-animation-from-indesign-cs5-into-a-pdf-with-the-help-of-a-little-script.php
- www.danrodney.com
- creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesignscripts.html
- indesignsecrets.com/free
- emsoftware.com
- recosoft.com
PDFs, Articles, and Videos
- blip.tv/indesign-secrets-videocasts
- InDesign CS5 Essential Training: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/essential-training/59967-2.html
- Dynamic Publishing Workflows in XML: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/dynamic-publishing-workflows-in-xml/53705-2.html
- QuarkXPress to InDesign Conversion Guide: wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/indesign/pdfs/ID_interactivemigrationguide.pdf
- tv.adobe.com/product/indesign/
- www.creativepro.com/article/drop-20-pounds-indesign
- Interactive Documents and Presentations: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/interactive-documents-and-presentations/65721-2.html
- 10 Tips for Troubleshooting Files: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS4-tutorials/10-tips-for-troubleshooting-files/47762-2.html
- Beyond the Basics (for CS4, but most movies still relevant): www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS4-tutorials/beyond-the-basics/656-2.html
- www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/17/indesign-tips-i-wish-i-d-known-when-starting-out/
- Free PDF Guide to Hidden Characters: indesignsecrets.com/free-guide-to-indesign-special-characters.php
- Font Management in OS X: www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html
- Our guided to OpenType fractions: indesignsecrets.com/download-our-guide-to-opentype-fractions.php
- Anatomy of an IDML file: www.indesignsecrets.com/downloads/Anatomy_of_IDML.pdf
- Understanding Frame Grids: www.indesignsecrets.com/downloads/framegrids.pdf
- Branislav’s Cool Transparency Tricks: indesignsecrets.com/downloads/milic-id-transparencycooleffects.pdf
- Rotating Text Inside a Frame: indesignsecrets.com/rotate-text-inside-a-frame.php
- InDesign videos on youtube: www.youtube.com/results?search_query=indesign&aq=f
- InDesignSecrets podcast: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/indesign-secrets/id101102043
InCopy
- InDesign CS5 and InCopy CS5 Collaborative Workflows whitepaper (PDF)
- Video: Collaborative Workflows with InCopy: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/collaborative-workflows-with-incopy-cs5/62220-2.html
- InCopySecrets.com
Books:
- Real World InDesign: www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321713052
- Adobe InDesign CS4 Styles: How to Create Better, Faster Text and Layouts by Michael Murphy: www.amazon.com/Adobe-InDesign-CS4-Styles-Layouts/dp/032160606X
- Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques, by Scott Citron and Michael Murphy: www.amazon.com/Adobe-Creative-Design-Premium-How-Tos/dp/0321719859
- InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign (2nd Edition), by Nigel French: www.amazon.com/InDesign-Type-Professional-Typography-Adobe/dp/0321685369
- Interactive InDesign CS5: Take your Print Skills to the Web and Beyond, by Mira Rubin: www.amazon.com/Interactive-InDesign-CS5-Skills-Beyond/dp/0240815114
- Fearless Flash: Use Adobe InDesign CS5 and the Tools You Already Know to Create Engaging Web Documents, by Claudia McCue: www.amazon.com/Fearless-Flash-InDesign-Engaging-Documents/dp/0321734823
- Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications, by Claudia McCue: www.amazon.com/World-Print-Production-Creative-Applications/dp/032163683X
- InDesign CS5 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide: www.amazon.com/InDesign-CS5-Macintosh-Windows-QuickStart/dp/0321705203
- InDesign CS5 Automation Using XML & JavaScript : www.amazon.com/InDesign-CS5-Automation-Using-JavaScript/dp/1460915380
- A Designer’s Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML: www.amazon.com/Designers-Guide-Adobe-InDesign-XML/dp/0321503554
- Create Interactive Documents using Adobe InDesign CS5, by Chris Converse: www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321733924
- Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout, by Gabriel Powell: www.amazon.com/Instant-InDesign-Designing-Templates-Efficient/dp/0321495713
- EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders, by Liz Castro: www.amazon.com/EPUB-Straight-Point-Creating-ereaders/dp/0321734688
Events
Design in General
- www.fonts.com
- www.veer.com
- designgeek.com
- design-tools.com
- rookiedesigner.com
- www.istockphoto.com/indesignsecrets.php
What To Do After You Export/Print
Resources for making iPad Apps
- www.adobe.com/products/digitalpublishingsuite
- pressrun.com
- twixlmedia.com
- www.woodwing.com/en/digital-magazine/ipad-now
- www.aquafadas.com/en/publishing/
- pixelmags.com
- www.zinio.com/ipad
- bakerframework.com/books
- blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/
- blog.padman.io
EPUB and eBook Resources
- InDesign CS5 to EPUB, Kindle, and iPad: www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS5-tutorials/to-EPUB-Kindle-and-iPad/75445-2.html
- Adobe’s Kindle white paper: www.adobe.com/products/indesign/pdfs/indesigntokindle_wp_ue.pdf
- threepress.org/document/epub-validate
- code.google.com/p/epubcheck
- www.teusdejong.nl/thome/ho_body5.html
- www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com
- Kindle Direct Publishing Portal: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help
- Kindle plug-in: www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000234621
- Monocle – Books in the browser: monocle.inventivelabs.com.au/”
- Ibis Reader : ibisreader.com/
- Feedbooks: www.feedbooks.com/
- The application for an iTunes Connect account is available at https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/apply
- BiblioCore: www.bibliocore.com
- BookBaby: www.bookbaby.com
- Constellation: www.perseusdigital.com
- INgrooves: www.ingrooves.com/digital-publishing
- Ingram: www.ingramcontent.com/apple
- Lulu: www.lulu.com/apple-ipad-publishing
- Smashwords: www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_ipad_ebooks
- EPUB 3.0 Overview: idpf.org/epub/30
- EPUB 2.01 Overview: idpf.org/epub/201
- Apple: Sell Your eBooks: itunes.com/sellyourbooks
- Google Books (eBooks) Overview: books.google.com/help/ebooks/content.html
- Barnes & Noble PubIt! Portal: pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=pi_reg_home
Adobe Live Help Files
- Creative Suite 5: help.adobe.com/en_US/CreativeSuite/CS5/Using/index.html
- CS Review: help.adobe.com/en_US/CreativeSuite/CS5/Using/WS9293e1fb3b977c5c58036661123f3265d63-8000.html
- CS5 InDesign: help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/index.html
- CS5 InCopy: help.adobe.com/en_US/incopy/cs/using/index.html
- Acrobat X: help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/index.html
What do you think is “required reading” for InDesign users? Tell us below!
Erica Gamet brings together a collection of some of the coolest and most useful InDesign scripts.
If you spend any time reading InDesign Magazine, visiting InDesignSecrets, or attending live events like The InDesign Conference, you’ll quickly notice how many folks consider scripts to be indispensable tools in their workflows. But if you’ve never actually used scripts, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Can scripts really make that much of a difference? Can you use scripts without knowing how to script? Can you actually find scripts for the specific tasks that you need to accomplish? My short answer: yes, yes, and yes! But if you still think, “Meh, scripts aren’t for me,” consider the following:
- If you find yourself repeatedly choosing the same menu functions in InDesign over and over…you might need a script.
- If you constantly enter the same values in a dialog box…you might need a script.
- If you need to access some obscure functionality in InDesign…you might need a script.
- If you just want to get your work done faster…you really ought to use a script.
Truly, any time you need to automate some task in InDesign (or if InDesign doesn’t natively offer a function you need) someone might have already written a script that will get the job done for you.
But where do you go to find InDesign scripts? Of course, you can Google the phrase of whatever you’re hoping to accomplish plus the words “InDesign script,” and you might get lucky. Or you might end up spending a lot of time poking around various sites before you find what you’re looking for. But the whole idea of using scripts is to stop you from fumbling around and wasting time. That’s why the editors of this magazine came up with the idea to create an amazing new resource: the most complete and up-to-date reference guide to InDesign scripts in the world! They call it The InDesign Script-o-pedia, and this eponymous article is the first step in the effort to build out that amazing resource, which will be available at InDesignSecrets.
While this list of scripts (organized into nine categories) barely scratches the surface of what The InDesign Script-o-pedia will ultimately become, it’s a solid foundation, as well as an eye-opening testament to what you can achieve when you harness the power of scripts in InDesign.
Scripts for fees and scripts for free
Most scripts listed in this article are free to download, but please consider using the Donate buttons on the developers’ websites if you find their scripts useful. It’s not only good karma, it also encourages those folks to continue cranking out great tools for us all. Commercial scripts are marked with $. Scripts marked with Id come with InDesign.
Text and Styles
The following scripts will help you be more efficient when editing and formatting text.
- The SetVisualCharStyle script lets you set your type to an exact size based on a specific character. For example, if you know the x-height needs to be exactly 1/2 inch, you need only to enter
the “x” character and .5 in. to make that happen. - If you need to change numerical data across the board in your document—for example, increasing all prices in an ad or catalog by 10%—check out Number Adjuster. You can apply the mathematical function to numbers within a selection, story, or across an entire document.
NumberAdjuster
- Word stacks—identical words that sit on top of each other in a paragraph—can be visually distracting. The SmokeWordStacks script finds those annoying word stacks. When the script finds a stacked word, it applies a character style with a red underline. Either use the styling to visually spot the words, or use the Find/Change dialog box, and then manually adjust the location.
- Ever need to make type look a bit less flawless and more of the “touched by human hands” variety? The HumaneType script delivers with uneven baselines and even allows for text along a curved path.
HumaneType
- To change numbers expressed by digits into their written word counterparts, you can use InDesign’s built-in Find/ChangeByList script. You’ll need to make some adjustments to the supporting text file, which you can read all about here. Id
- The PerfectPrepText script assigns character styles to locally formatted text, even if paragraph styles have been applied to the text. There are three scripts that come with the PerfectPrep set, but using the PerfectPrepText_Do is the safest route. (Read more about the scripts and their history here).
- The Search in Styles script lets you perform searches across all styles—or selected ones—at once. Putting style attribute criteria into the Find/Change dialog box allows the script to find styles that have those attributes applied. You can then make changes to any of the styles as needed. $
- Sometimes you’ve manually styled a lot of text before you think to use styles. The Auto Create Paragraph and Character Styles script builds styles based on already-formatted text. Each time the script is run, it compares styled text to existing styles and assigns them, or creates a new style.
- Entering characters with diacritics—especially for a language that your keyboard is not set to—is made somewhat simpler by Peter Kahrel’s Compose script. To get the proper glyph, either enter one of the pre-assigned mnemonic codes or the unicode, if applicable. If there is no actual glyph in your chosen font, the script will even attempt to build one out of the base character and diacritic.
- If you need line numbering—as opposed to paragraph numbering—InDesign’s built-in tools will leave you out in the cold. The Number Lines by Style script from In-Tools closes this gap by creating numbers that sit in anchored text frames next to each line. Object styles are assigned, so updating the individual line numbers is a snap.
NumberByLine
- Introduced at PePcon 2014, the oddly-named Swimmer script swaps out words with inline graphics and vice versa. Just set the keywords to search for and the necessary graphics, and the Swimmer script does the rest.
- Anyone who works with footnotes in InDesign knows how woefully inadequate they are. Lucky for those folks, Peter Kahrel knows, too, and has created a collection of scripts to deal with the native shortcomings. The scripts include solutions for converting footnotes to endnotes or margin notes, converting static endnotes to dynamic ones, adjusting the footnote spacing, and setting multiple notes on one line.
- StyleLighter allows you to view text styles and overrides in your document. Each style is displayed in a unique color, giving immediate feedback as to which text has and hasn’t been styled.
- The ShowFonts script restores functionality that has been stripped from the Find Font dialog box in more recent versions of InDesign. The script displays information for each font, including font name, type, style, and status.
- When a table of contents is updated, any manual text formatted is lost. The LiveTOC script holds on to that formatting, even as the TOC is revised. $
- If your favorite typeface is lacking the euro symbol or you wish you could replace its ampersand, there’s a script for that! FontMixer lets you borrow characters from one typeface and place them into another, creating a hybrid font containing the best (at least in your opinion!) of each typeface.
FontMixer
- WidowFixer is a one-trick wonder with its simple-yet-powerful function. The script adds a specific GREP expression to select paragraph styles that prevents single-word lines at the end of paragraphs from ever happening. $
- The Smart Title Case script very simply converts selected text—frames or a text selection—to title case. The script rightfully ignores words like “a” and “the,” but delivers uneven results depending on if a frame or specific text is first selected.
- Fractions (especially uncommon ones) can be tricky to craft at times, even when using OpenType fonts. The Proper Fractions scripts format all fractions, and can even ignore number sets (like dates) it sees as “non-fractions.” $
- The SortParagraphs script—which ships with InDesign—can sort selected paragraphs alphabetically. Looks like laying out that membership directory just got a whole lot easier, thanks to this timesaver. Id
- The GREP window in the Find/Change dialog box and within GREP styles is painfully small. The GREP Editor script offers a larger window to work with these complex—and often quite long—expressions. You can also load existing GREP queries from and send new expressions back to the Find/Change dialog box.
GREP Editor
- Issues with double spaces, em and en dashes, and justification are easily fixed with the Detail Typesetting script. This script is part of the larger InDesign Toolbox, which includes scripts for layout and text handling.
Just a Bunch of Text?
Sometimes you have to take a couple of extra steps to get a script ready to use. If you’ve clicked on a link and see a screen full of text—or someone has provided only the raw text in a forum post—you’ll need to put that text into a wrapper that InDesign can understand.
If the script has been written in JavaScript (a majority of scripts are, since it’s cross-platform), simply copy the text and paste it into a text editor. Make sure the text is in plain text format, and then save that file with the .jsx extension. Also, you may encounter files that have both .jsx and .txt extensions. In that case, just remove the .txt extension before attempting to use the script.
Layout
These scripts ease problems and speed the process of crafting page layouts.
- The Columns2Frames script does just what you might think. It takes a multi-column text frame and splits it into individual, threaded text frames.
- When you use the Duplicate Spread option from the Pages panel menu, the duplicated spread is placed at the end of the document. This script lets you place the duplicate immediately after the original page (or spread). You can make quick work of this task on many spreads by using Page Up and Page Down to navigate through the pages, and assigning the script a keyboard shortcut.
- Dave Saunders’ WrapNudger picks up where InDesign’s imperfect text wrap leaves off. The script can move the wrapped object while leaving the text as is or adjust where the text wraps, leaving the object in place.
- The SplitStory script breaks all links between frames in the selected story, leaving all text in position within each frame. BreakFrame removes only the selected text frame from a text thread, without affecting the contents—or flow—of the frames. Both of these scripts come with InDesign. Id
WrapNudger
- Layout Zone is a startup script that creates a separate InDesign file from selected objects in a current document. The newly-created file can then be inserted into another InDesign file or back into the original file. That incoming file can even replace the separate page elements that were used to create it(self).
- InDesign’s built-in data merge accommodates only one data record per frame. The Inline Merge script allows multiple records to be combined into a single text frame, making it perfect for creating directories and other long lists of records from a data file.
- Merge Text Frames combines multiple text frames into one all-encompassing frame. The script’s options let you choose in what order the frames are merged, if the text is separated by paragraph returns or tabs, and what size the final merged text frame should be.
- InGutter places vertical rules between columns within a text frame. Those rules extend or shrink as the text frame is resized. The script gives you control over changing the number of columns, background color, and attributes of the rules themselves.
InGutter
- Selecting any frame in InDesign and running the built-in Make Grid script splits the frame into the chosen number of rows and columns. Options include whether or not to retain the original frame and if the frame’s content remains. Id
- The Adjust Layout script moves objects on a page—or range of pages—a defined amount. Set the vertical and/or horizontal values to move the items, and indicate for the changes to occur on odd and/or even pages.
Installing and Using Scripts
Installing InDesign scripts is super easy. Once you’ve downloaded—or created—the script file, it’s a matter of drag and drop. Most scripts live in the Scripts panel within the InDesign application folder (Adobe InDesign > Scripts > Scripts Panel), though some need to be placed in the Startup Scripts panel in that same Scripts folder.
Once installed, scripts are accessible right away; no need to restart InDesign (though startup scripts will require a restart). The scripts are then accessed by double-clicking them in the Scripts panel (Window > Utilities > Scripts). Depending on the script, you may have to have selected a frame or text for it to run properly. InDesign comes with several scripts already set up, which are inside the Samples folder in the Scripts panel. You can further organize the scripts by creating subfolders in the Scripts Panel folder in the Finder/Explorer and arranging them as necessary.
Tables
These scripts can take the time and torment out of working with tables.
- This clever table cell script is totally worth it, but you have to enter info into the text file each time you change parameters. It assigns a cell style to any table cells containing specific text. In a text editor, you’ll have to assign what that text is and what style to apply. Create and name a new version of the script for each search you might want to re-use, and assign a keyboard shortcut for fast implementation.
- This script is similar to the previous one, but it assigns a table style instead of a cell style. Again, you’ll have to enter the style you want to apply and set the parameters for each search you need the script to perform.
- Table styles in InDesign are a great way to format table content, but they are lacking in the table structure department. The Tables Sized to Frame script picks up that slack by automatically adjusting the table width to the width of the enclosing text frame. You can also assign an amount for row setting (Exactly or At Least) and row height.
Before using Tables Sized to Frame
After using Tables Sized to Frame
- When information is copied and pasted from one table to another in InDesign, the formatting is stripped out. PopTabUnleashed retains the text formatting upon paste and even includes an undo feature.
- The TableSort script brings the ability to sort table columns to InDesign. The sorting is limited to only three columns, but you can sort across an entire table, or sort only selected rows.
- InDesign’s Table Merge feature merges all selected cells without regard to columns and rows. Smart Cell Merge lets you select multiple cells and merge across columns or rows separately.
Documents
The following scripts can supercharge your abilities to manipulate documents, pages, and layers.
- Extract Pages brings some Acrobat-like page manipulation to InDesign. The script lets you select and extract individual pages from an InDesign document—as single pages or as a group—and can even create a new InDesign document from the extracted pages.
- Calendar Wizard automatically creates calendars in InDesign. The script lets you customize the starting day of the week, number of months to display, page orientation, and language. Each element is further customizable via text styles, and resizing the calendars is a snap. The newest version introduces customizable holidays, savable presets, and three different styles of calendars. $
Calendar Wizard
- The aptly-named PasteboardExpander script expands your pasteboard. If your off-page items are falling off into the void, this script dynamically increases the pasteboard size to accommodate those wayward items. The pasteboard is only expanded—to precisely fit the pasteboard items—on spreads that need to be.
- When exporting an InDesign book (.indb) file to PDF, one file is created comprising all the selected document files. The PDF to Individual Pages script lets you create separate PDF files for each book document. Further options include creating separate PDFs for each individual page or section.
- MasterMatic is a script that automatically assigns a specific master page to your document, based on styles. Create pairs of paragraph or object styles and the masters that should be assigned to the pages that contain those styles. If content moves to a new page, the masters are automatically assigned to that new page. $
- The History scripts from In-Tools gives InDesign the same functionality that the History panel does in Photoshop. The scripts let you undo or redo actions directly, instead of having to step through each action successively (using the built-in Undo and Redo actions).
Images
A picture’s worth a thousand words, and these scripts can save a thousand clicks when working with placed images.
- If you placed an image in InDesign without having the Show Import Options turned on, you’re out of luck if you realize you wanted to control the incoming crop or which pages of a PDF to import. Your choices at this point are to re-import the image (with the Show Import Options checked) or use the rePlace script, which gives you access to the import options without having to go through the process of re-importing the image.
- The PDF Options Editor script does basically the same thing as the rePlace script, but deals strictly with the import options pertaining to PDF files. The linked page is in French, but the red download button is obvious, and then you choose Extract PDFOptions Editor in the resulting PDF’s Bookmarks panel.
- The CaptionsAlt script from Peter Kahrel performs a simple task that could be quite time-consuming in a file with many images. It simply applies any text from an image’s caption—select the text frame and image so it pairs up the right caption—to the Alt Text section of the Object Export Options dialog box.
- Keith Gilbert’s Export to JPEG set of scripts lets you export from InDesign to exact pixel dimensions, as opposed to a set resolution. There are three scripts in the bundle: one each for exporting the current selection, the entire document, or a range of pages or spreads.
Export to JPEG
- The Folder2CSV script creates a .csv file listing all images in a specified folder. Even though the script is run from InDesign, the images don’t have to be in any InDesign document. Where InDesign comes back into play is if you use the Data Merge feature along with that .csv file to lay out those images quickly in your document. This process makes it easy to create a contact sheet or place a single image per page automatically.
- The DeleteAllImages script will delete the image content of frames, leaving each frame itself in place. Select one or more frames and run the script to delete those images, or select nothing to have it delete all images in your document.
- The ImageCatalog script—which comes with InDesign—arranges all images from a specified folder into a contact sheet layout on the page. When creating the layout, choose whether or not to use the images’ metadata to generate static captions. Id
- Releasing an anchored object is easy, but not so much with an inline object. The ReleaseAnyAnchor script fixes that problem by detaching an inline object from its text frame while leaving the object sitting in the same position on the page.
Colors and Swatches
RGB? CMYK? LAB? You can handle them all PDQ with the help of these scripts.
- This simple script removes an image frame’s fill color while leaving the image intact. It works on any shape of image frame and only removes the fill from shapes that actually contain an image.
- A user-submitted script does the grunt work in tidying up an InDesign document’s swatches. Scroll to the end of the forum thread to get the script that removes all unused swatches, adds any used—but unnamed—colors to the Swatches panel, and converts the swatches to CMYK process.
- SwatchWatch is a script that creates sample swatches for each color in your Swatches panel. It places those swatches at the end of your document and indicates the swatch name and color values. The script will even create swatches for spot colors in placed images, and can be rerun as colors are altered, added to, or deleted from your document.
SwatchWatch
Interactive
These scripts can help you make quick work of hyperlinks, multi-state objects, forms, and more.
- If you work with a lot of hyperlinks in your InDesign documents, you probably spend a lot of time cleaning up and shortening the visible URLs. While it’s a good idea to use the full URL in the Hyperlinks panel, you may want your reader to see a considerably smaller one (perhaps even leaving off the www). The Paste and Format URL script automates the process, leaving the hyperlink intact while displaying only the part of the URL you need to see.
- Entering information into a combo box or list box when working with interactive forms in InDesign involves listing each item separately. However, the free ComboMambo script lets you import the contents of an existing plain text (TXT) file to populate the list field.
- Creating a cross-reference involves referencing either a target text anchor—which you first have to insert—or a specified paragraph style, and then creating the cross-ref. The QuickReference script lets you work in reverse! First select the text for your cross-ref, and then run the script, which will find all the occurrences of that same text.
- The Digital Publishing Pack contains seven scripts that make working with multi-state objects (MSOs) in InDesign easier. The scripts automate adding an item to all object states, automatically creating hide and reveal buttons, and quickly creating the MSO with a visible and hidden state upon creation. $
Output
PDF, PSD, PNG, and a plethora of other outputs will be easy as peach pie with the help of these scripts.
- Colin Flashman’s Data Merge to Unique Names script lets you export directly to PDF files (and to individual InDesign files) from a data merge operation. Those individual files can also be uniquely named, automatically, from within the script’s interface. Bonus deal: You can convert any generated InDesign files to other formats using the Batch Convert script below.
- The Batch Convert script lets you, well, batch convert multiple InDesign files (within a given folder) to a variety of file formats. Choose from PDF, IDML, PNG, JPG, XML, and more as the final output file type. There is also an option to choose a preset, depending on the chosen output file type.
- Use the PageToPSLayers script to effectively export a layered InDesign file to a layered Photoshop file. All layers—including hidden, locked, and empty ones—get exported, and layer names are maintained. On export, choose whether to import the layers as smart objects or as rasterized images.
Fun
With these scripts, you can add fun to your work with cool design effects; there’s even a game you can play in InDesign!
- SiliconPublishing has a collection of fun drawing scripts as part of their publishing scripts collection. Fractalize creates fractal patterns from a shape, while Explode breaks out individual paths from a shape. MysticRose and NINA create shapes that mimic string art and spirographs, respectively.
- The Wordalizer script generates a word cloud from text in a frame, book, document, or clipboard contents. You can choose from the included themes or create and save custom settings. Wordalizer also gives you control over the size and positioning of each word in the finished word cloud. $
Wordalizer
- The built-in PathEffects script gives you object effect options similar to Illustrator’s Distort & Transform. Options include punk, bloat, and twirl, and all effects are completely editable. Id
- Sometimes you need a break from actual work in InDesign. InTetris puts the classic arcade game right inside InDesign for those times when you need a moment away from work. While not as robust as the full arcade version (why is there no “next object” preview?), InTetris is a fun diversion.
InTetris
- The Scribbler script randomly shifts text off the baseline to give it a bit of an uneven feel. While I wouldn’t recommend using it on the text of your next novel, it can be used effectively on informal or lighthearted text and content designed for children.
- Using the Speeech (not a typo) script is the easiest way to create a cartoonish speech bubble. Simply create a frame with a connector line, and the script does the rest.
Stick to the Scripts
So there you have it: a wide-ranging, inspiration-bringing sample of the most essential, useful, and cool InDesign scripts. Just remember, any time you’re struggling with a repetitive, time-consuming task in InDesign, there’s probably a script that can help, and The InDesign Script-o-pedia will be the place to find it.
Resources
There are hundreds of other InDesign scripts available on the Web. Until we can get our own InDesignSecrets online database of scripts fully up and running, here are some web sites that you should definitely check out for more scripting goodness.
InDesignSecrets (hey, that’s us!)
This article appeared in Issue 150 of InDesign Magazine.It’s time to fire up the bright lights and roll out the red carpet! To celebrate the legacy of InDesign Magazine, we invited a galaxy of InDesign superstars to share their favorite tips and tricks. Some of the tips are beloved classics; others are having their world premieres. So, grab some popcorn, elbow your way past the paparazzi, and grab a front row seat. On with the show!
How to Master InDesign
David Blatner
If you want to learn InDesign better, there are three things you have to do:
- First, set aside 15 minutes each week, find some feature in InDesign that you don’t know, and force yourself to play with it. The word play is important: The best way to learn anything is to get playful!
- Second, find layouts that you think look good (book spreads, magazine ads, etc.) and practice recreating them in InDesign. This kind of practice is sure to make you a better InDesign user.
- Third, teach InDesign to someone else; it’s the very best way to learn InDesign yourself. Every time I teach something, I learn it better. Plus, teaching someone else is like paying it forward!
Find Free Templates
Anne-Marie Concepción
When the pressure is on to quickly create a high-quality publication, beginning with a solid InDesign template can save you hours of time. It’s easy to edit the template elements— styles, master pages, images—to customize it for your project.
CreativePro.com has a good number of free and subscriber-only templates, as do other sites, but don’t overlook the templates that come with your Creative Cloud subscription. As I write this, Adobe Stock offers thousands of InDesign templates, and almost 800 of those are free!
To find the free InDesign templates:
- Go to stock.adobe.com.
- If necessary, click the Sign In link (upper right) and sign in with your Adobe ID. You don’t need to sign in to view or search, but you will need to have done so before you can download anything.
- To the left of the Search field, change the scope from All to Free, and press Return/Enter.
- Now you can use the sidebar on the left to filter the results. Choose Asset Type: Templates and App: InDesign (Figure 1) to see all the free layout templates!
- Click any template preview to see more details, and then click either the License for Free button to download it or the Save to Library link to stash it in your CC Library and open it in InDesign from there.
FIGURE 1. You can add keywords (like brochure above) in Adobe Stock Search field to further winnow down the list of free InDesign templates.
Tips for Scripts
Mike Rankin
Using scripts is an essential part of being productive in InDesign. But the more scripts you collect, the more time you might waste trying to find the right one in your Scripts panel.
One way to deal with a large script collection is to organize it. Open your User scripts folder by right-clicking it and choosing Reveal in Finder/Explorer. Then, create subfolders for each category of scripts you have. I use folder names like Book Scripts, Image Scripts, Table Scripts, and so on. By default, scripts will be listed in alphabetical order, but you can rearrange them in any order you like with a naming trick. Add 00) to the start of the file name of the script you want to appear first in the panel list. Add 01), 02), 03), and so on to the file names of other scripts. The numbering won’t appear in the panel but it will control the order in which the scripts are listed there (Figure 2).
An even faster way to run scripts is to not bother with the Scripts panel at all and just use Quick Apply. Open the Quick Apply panel by pressing Command+Return/Ctrl+Enter. Click the triangle near the top of the panel to reveal its options and turn on Include Scripts. Now you can just start typing the name of the script you want to run and when it appears highlighted in the list, press Return or Enter to run it.
FIGURE 2. You can organize your collection of scripts by putting them into folders in the panel and adding numbered prefixes to the script files.
Auto-Format Email Addresses
Bart Van de Wiele
You can use GREP in InDesign to easily find and format email addresses in your document. Here’s how:
- Choose Edit > Find/Change.
- Click the GREP tab.
- In the Find What field, type S+@S+ (Figure 3).
- In the Change Format field, add your formatting.
- Click the Change All button to execute the command.
Find/Change Shortcuts
Chad Chelius
Even your dog knows that Command/Ctrl+F opens Find/Change. But I bet Spot didn’t know that Command/Ctrl+1 through 5 toggles between the various Find/Change areas in the dialog box (Text, GREP, Glyph, Object, Color).
Even cooler: With Find/Change open, you can select some text and press Command/Ctrl+F1 to copy the selected text into the Find What field. Likewise, press Command/Ctrl+F2 to copy selected text into the Change To field.
Here’s one more: Press Command+Option+Return/Ctrl+Alt+Enter to toggle the Direction of a search Forward or Backward.
InDesign GREP search window showing code S+@S+
Custom Image Frames
Claudia McCue
Want to spread an image across multiple frames for visual interest? It’s easy!
- Create multiple frames, and select them all.
- Go to Window > Object & Layout > Pathfinder.
- Select the Add option, which combines the selected frames into one object (Note that this is not the same as creating a group. Add results in a single object.)
- With the new compound object selected, place the desired image. You can move and transform the image as you would with any normal frame (Figure 4).
FIGURE 4. Use the Pathfinder to create the purr-fect frames for your images.
Automate Alt-text
Colleen Gratzer
Setting and reviewing alt-text usually means checking each image individually, which can be tedious and time consuming. To make it easy, use the Alt-text Extractor script to export the alt-text for all of the images in the document to a single file.
When you run the script, you’ll get a TXT file with listings for all the images and accompanying alt-text, if any. You can then add to, modify, or spell check the alt-text. When it’s time to put the alt-text back into InDesign, you can either copy and paste it for one image at a time or import it all at once by using the companion Alt-text Automator script. These scripts aren’t free; both currently cost $49. But the time they save will repay that investment many times over if you need to produce accessible documents from InDesign.
Position Chapter Titles Automatically
Alan Gilbertson
Laying out the opening pages of book chapters can be complex, with consecutive paragraph styles for title, opening paragraph, and body text. Here is a way to speed things up in InDesign and be certain that everything is consistent throughout the book.
Use the “invisible rule above” trick to put your chapter title where you want it: Define a Rule Above in the paragraph style, give it enough offset to push it down to where you want, and turn on Keep in Frame.
Give your text frame a custom baseline grid that starts far enough down the page that the opening paragraph can always appear at that height whether the title is one, two, or even three lines long (Figure 5). Set your chapter opening paragraph style to use the baseline grid (Figure 6), make its Next Style your body text, and make that the Next Style in your title style.
Now your title and opening paragraph will always be in the right place and properly dressed for the occasion.
FIGURE 5. The custom baseline grid matches the document baseline but starts where I want the opening paragraph to fall.
FIGURE 6. The Chapter Lead paragraph style must have Align to Grid set to All Lines or First Line Only for this to work.
Make a Corners-Only Stroke Style
Rufus Deuchler
Here’s how to make a stroke that appears only at the corners of a frame:
- Create a new dashed stroke style by choosing Stroke Styles from the Stroke panel menu. Call it something like Corners.
- Apply the stroke to a text or graphic frame, and give it an adequate stroke width.
- Return to the Stroke Styles dialog box, and edit the Corners style.
- For Pattern Length, insert a value that’s much larger than your frame.
- For Corners, choose Adjust Gaps (which will keep the length of the dash fixed).
- Choose Preview for real-time fine-tuning.
- Move the little ruler arrow until you achieve the desired result, or enter a value for Length (Figure 7).
FIGURE 7. A custom stroke style can achieve a corners-only stroke effect.
Recolor Graphics with Blend Modes
Conrad Chavez
Want to jazz up a photo on your layout without opening Photoshop? Simply draw a rectangle over the image, fill it with a color, and change the blend mode and opacity. This can be handy if you don’t want to modify the original file and you don’t have (or are unfamiliar with) an application that can edit the original graphic.
If you want to lighten or darken an image, select it, choose Edit > Copy, choose Edit > Paste in Place, and then apply a blend mode such as Screen or Multiply, respectively.
Other blend modes can create a range of visual effects. You can adjust the amount of the effect by changing the Opacity value for the object in front (Figure 8).
A great time to try this technique is when you have a design where you want to repeat one image multiple times on a layout but give each instance a different visual style. You can place a single image and make 10 instances of it look different, instead of having to manage 10 separate Photoshop files.
FIGURE 8. Top Row: Original placed image; Lightened by pasting a copy in front using Screen; Darkened by pasting a copy in front using Multiply • Bottom Row: Graphic drawn in InDesign; Graphic layered over image with Hard Light; Graphic layered over image with Darken
Arranging Animations
Diane Burns
You may know you can easily apply multiple animation effects to an object and have them all play at the same time. You can apply a motion path and a scaling percentage to an object, for example, and the object will move and scale simultaneously. But what if you want to apply sequential animations to the same object? Let’s say you want an object to move, stop, and then scale. Or maybe you want an object to fade in, and then fade out.
Applying sequential animations to the same object requires a little trick. After you apply the initial animation to an object, group the animated object to another object, like a small rectangle with no fill or stroke. InDesign treats grouped objects as a unique object, so you can now apply a new animation to the group (Figure 9).
FIGURE 9. After applying a Fade In animation to this image you can make it fade out by grouping it with an empty frame and applying the second animation to the group.
Bookmark This Tip
Erica Gamet
When creating an automatic table of contents, you can make the individual entries into navigation bookmarks when the document is exported to PDF. Just select Create PDF Bookmarks in the Table of Contents dialog box, and then select Include Bookmarks in the Export PDF dialog box.
You can even create a hidden TOC that doesn’t show in the final PDF but still allows navigation via bookmarks. To do this, simply put the table of contents out of sight anywhere on the pasteboard.
A document isn’t limited to only one table of contents, either. You could create one TOC for bookmark navigation with page listings, another with an alphabetical listing of contributors, and still another with photo credits—all in the same document!
The Page Tool Has It Covered
James Wamser
The Page tool is great for creating perfect-bound covers, letter-fold brochures, and other documents that have various page sizes.
When creating a perfect-bound cover, start by creating three pages built to final trim size. For example, if your document’s final trim size is 8.375 × 10.875, then initially, all three pages would be that size.
Using the Page tool, select page 2; which will be the spine. Choose Layout > Margins and Columns, and change the Margins to 0. Then with page 2 still selected, change the width to your desired spine width. This number is based on the paper and number of pages and should be obtained from your print service provider.
Next, from the Pages panel menu, choose Allow Document Pages to Shuffle. You will now be able to drag page 2 next to page 1 and move page 3 next to page 2 (Figure 10).
If you need to adjust the spine, select page 2 with the Page tool and adjust the width in the Control panel (Width field). Then use the Align panel to make sure all three pages are aligned correctly. Select each page with the Page tool using the Shift key to select multiple pages, then use the Align panel to align all three pages with a Space of 0.
When it comes time to export the cover to PDF, be sure you export as spreads so pages 1–3 are all next to each other on a single spread. Page 1 is the back cover, page 2 is the spine, and page 3 is the front cover. Perfect!
FIGURE 10. Turning on Allow Document Pages to Shuffle in the Pages panel menu enables you to set up a three-page spread for a book cover.
Easier Image Extraction
Jamie McKee
Way too often, I’ll open a Word file destined for my InDesign layout, only to discover the file contains embedded images. There are a couple of different ways to extract embedded images from Word files, but the easiest way, with the file open, comes from Word itself: Save As Web Page. Save your file, choosing the Save As Web Page option from the File Format menu. Word will save the document as an HTML file with a folder containing the HTML/XML code and include the embedded images as separate files. Just look for the images in the folder, and you can place them in InDesign wherever you like (Figure 11).
FIGURE 11. Use the Save As Web Page option to separate embedded images from text in Word documents.
Noticeable Notes
Jeff Potter
Do you want to create a note to yourself in your file but are concerned that you’ll forget to delete it? Fear not, here’s how to make your notes unforgettable.
- Create a color swatch using a color space that you won’t be using in your document. Most of us won’t be using LAB or HSB.
- Apply this color to text that you want to revisit, or as a background for a text frame for a note.
- Create a preflight profile that will flag this color space.
Now, when you preflight your document, every instance of this color use will show up in the Preflight panel (Figure 12). If you double-click, you will be taken directly to the location in your document. Once you apply the correct color or delete your note, the error will go away.
FIGURE 12. Behold! A dynamic to-do list that automatically links to the locations in your document that need attention.
Temporarily Tabled
Jeff Witchel
Recently, I was making changes to a wine and spirits catalog that contained a lot of information about the products arranged in rows and columns. Tabs were used so that columns lined up across the page. I was moving through the changes very quickly and figured that I’d have the project done and back to the client in no time for final approval.
Then Murphy’s Law struck. I turned to the next page in the client’s printout of corrections and was greeted by a nightmare. He wanted an entire column deleted in a product chart that went on and on for many pages. As tabbed text, the text in each row would have to be selected and deleted manually.
“Too bad it’s not a table,” I thought. “This change would take seconds.”
“Wait a minute,” I said aloud. “Why not?” I selected the chart copy that went on and on for pages in threaded frames. Then, in the Table menu, I chose Convert Text to Table and clicked OK.
I placed my cursor above each column that needed to be deleted until I saw a heavy, black, down-facing arrow. I clicked to select the entire column throughout all the Linked Frames and chose Table > Delete > Column (Figure 13). I finished up by choosing Table > Convert Table to Text and clicking OK. After readjusting my tabs, I thought, “I just tabled Murphy’s Law.” (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.)
FIGURE 13. Converting tabbed text into to a table to delete unneeded text can save you hours of work.
Easy Icons
Julie Shaffer
FIGURE 14. The Glyphs panel has all of the glyph characters for each font used in your document.
Ubiquitous in graphic design, icons can provide eye-catching visuals to complement your text content. Sure, you can download stock icons from hundreds of online resources, but why not hack into your font glyph sets to easily create your own, right in InDesign?
Choose Type > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. The panel will display the glyph set of your active font, but you can select a different font from the menu at the bottom of the panel. For this example, I chose a water drop available in Wingdings (Figure 14).
FIGURE 15. Create Outlines to convert your glyph to a vector graphic. Then you can stylize your icon as you would any other vector graphic.
With your cursor in a text frame, double-click on the glyph that you want to use as the starting point for your icon.
Next, choose Type > Create Outlines to turn your glyph into a vector graphic. Now, you can add color, effects, and so on to customize your icon (Figure 15).
Name Your Objects
Keith Gilbert
When working on a complex layout, with lots of frames, placed graphics, groups, and locked objects, it can be difficult to find or select the specific item that you need. The challenge becomes amplified when creating complex interactive objects. One thing that really helps is to name as many items as you can in the Layers panel. This makes the items easier to locate and select later on. It can also make your designs much easier for others to understand and edit.
If you look in the Layers panel, you’ll see that each object on the page being viewed is listed, with such default names as <square>, <path>, <group>, or <text frame>. The <> brackets indicate that the item has a default name automatically assigned by InDesign. You can replace these default names with whatever is helpful for you to keep things organized. Just click the text, wait a beat, click again, and the text will be highlighted, ready for you to type a new name.
Later, you can simply locate an object in the Layers panel, right-click, and choose Select (or click the small square to the right of the object name) (Figure 16). Easy-peasy!
![Layers panel expanded to show all objects with contextual menu highlighted on Select Item[s]](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig16-e1634237956583.jpg)
FIGURE 16. Naming objects in the Layers panel makes it easy to locate and select those objects later on.
Paste Instead of Place
Khara Plicanic
When working with simple vector graphics in InDesign, it’s sometimes helpful to retain some editability for making color adjustments and other small changes. However, if you bring the file in via the Place command, InDesign will treat it as any other graphic, putting it in a graphics frame and thereby making the vectors themselves inaccessible. Instead, open the file in Illustrator first, then copy and paste it into InDesign. Then, use the Direct Selection tool to select and edit specific elements without having to bounce back and forth to Illustrator each time you need to make a minor change (Figure 17).
FIGURE 17. Opening the file in Illustrator first, then copying and pasting it into InDesign makes it possible to edit individual components within InDesign using the Direct Selection tool.
Be Careful Where You Drop Anchor
Laurie Ruhlin
The first time I made a catalog, I didn’t think it really mattered exactly where I anchored the objects, as long as they ended up in the right position on the page. So, I anchored all of the product photos in the middle of the product name! But I soon ran into major problems.
One day, my client asked me to find a product named Metal Hook. I chose Edit > Find/Change and typed Metal Hook. No results. I typed Metal. No results. Horrible thoughts ran through my head. Did that product get deleted accidentally? Fortunately, I finally found the “missing” product. Why didn’t Find/Change find Metal Hook?
FIGURE 18. Avoid dragging the anchor into the middle of a word, which will mess with spell check and find/change.
I saw the answer when I turned on Type > Show Hidden Characters. I had dragged the anchor marker (¥) right in the middle of the word Metal (Figure 18).
To find that, I would’ve had to search for Me^atal (^a is the metacharacter for an anchored object marker). So, I edited the catalog and moved all the anchors to the end of the name of the product. Why to the end and not the beginning? Because the client was always asking me to re-order the products, so I had to make sure that my selection included the ¥ symbol. If I had put it before the name, there was a chance that I would miss it when I cut and pasted the rest of the text.
Color-Coded Styles
Matt Mayerchak
When composing type for long documents, you can set up “loose” and “tight” variations of your most used body text styles by simply editing the justification settings.
Changing the justification settings gives you more precise control than tracking, since you can set the values for word and letter spacing separately and use glyph scaling if you wish. Applying the modified paragraph styles will keep your text from having local overrides.
In Figure 19, I have two levels of tight settings, and one loose setting. You’ll probably need to tighten text more often than loosen it.
Adding temporary color swatches for these styles allows you to see which paragraphs you have modified. When you make text edits, it’s easier to see where you can gain or lose a line. Once your text is final, you simply delete the swatches and replace them with black.
The Typefitter plug-in from Typefi makes this process easier and more intuitive with many levels of loose and tight hyphenation and justification settings. If you have Typefitter but are sharing files with other designers who do not, you can use it to modify the justification settings, and then create paragraph styles with those settings. It’s not as easy as using the plug-in, but still gives your colleagues access to your settings.
Similarly, when you have different paragraph styles that look similar, use temporary text colors to make it easier to distinguish between them while working. This is great for text with multi-level headings, such as a bibliography or index, where the text looks similar but may have slightly different white space above or below.
You can also add color to a character style to see where bold or italic has been applied to punctuation. When you’re done, simply delete the temporary swatch and replace it with black.
FIGURE 19. Temporary colors applied using paragraph styles
Keep Things in Perspective
Maya P. Lim
FIGURE 20. The Split Layout icon resides in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
If repeatedly zooming in and out to check how a design element looks in the bigger context of the layout gives you vertigo, try Split Layout view. Click the double rectangle icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen (it looks like the outline of two side-by-side panels) (Figure 20). A second panel will open on your screen. Navigate to the area of the design where you need to do detailed work. Keep the other panel open to a more zoomed-out view of the layout. Drag the divider between the views to resize them (Figure 21). Click the Split Layout View icon again (it will be a single rectangle) to return to the single panel view.
FIGURE 21. So near, yet so far away…
Go Bigger
Nigel French
InDesign has a maximum type size of 1296 points. But you can fool InDesign into setting type up to twice that size-without having to resort to converting the type to outlines. You can increase the horizontal and vertical scale up to 200% for an effective type size of 2592 points (Figure 22). So long as the horizontal and vertical scales are the same, the type remains proportional. By the way, this also works in Illustrator and Photoshop.
![Document with text "BIGGER [1296 X 2]" and "BIG [1296]" with Character menu showing size as 1296 pt., vertical scale and horizontal scale both 200 percent](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig22-e1634238401966.png)
FIGURE 22. The page size is set to a massive 84 × 60 inches (7 × 5 feet). To exceed the maximum type size and keep the type editable, increase the horizontal and vertical scales.
Explore the Keyboard Shortcuts
Peter Kahrel
InDesign menu items show the shortcuts associated with them. But what you see in the menus isn’t all you can do. Many actions aren’t present in the menus but can be triggered with a shortcut.
The best place to look for some of these “hidden” actions is in the Views and Navigation section of the keyboard shortcut editor.
Open the keyboard shortcut editor by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. Then in the Product menu, select Views, Navigation. In that section you’ll see a lot of familiar menu commands, but also some very useful things that you’ll wish you had discovered earlier. I’ll list a couple of my favorites:
- Activate last-used field in panel. I use this one all the time. After you enter a value in a field and press Return/Enter to commit it, just press the shortcut key to return to that same field a later.
- Toggle Measurement System. Another useful one. If you work in picas and want to know the width of a frame in millimeters, select the frame and press the shortcut until millimeters are displayed. The default is Command+Shift+Option+U/ Ctrl+Shift+Alt+U.
- Save All. Pressing Command+Shift+Option+S/ Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S saves all open documents.
- Close All. Pressing Command+Shift+Option+W/ Ctrl+Shift+Alt+W closes all open documents. What is missing is an action “close all documents without saving,” but there’s a simple script for that.
Many of the shortcuts in this section involve three or more keys. If you use one of these shortcuts often, simply redefine it. For example, I use the “Activate last-used field in panel” key so often that I redefined it to Command/Ctrl+`, which is much easier than the original.
Do the Application Frame Double-Click
Scott Citron
If like me you’re a fan of InDesign’s Application Frame, (Window > Application Frame), double-clicking anywhere on the Frame with no document open is the same as File > Open or Command/Ctrl+O.
Yes, it’s a small thing, but it never fails to delight me every time I use it. By the way, this shortcut works in Photoshop and Illustrator, too.
Preserve Hyperlinks in Publish Online Downloads
Steve Werner
If you upload an InDesign document to Publish Online, hyperlinks will work fine in the published document. But if you permit viewers to download a PDF, it takes extra work for the hyperlinks to be included.
Default Print PDF presets don’t include hyperlinks, so you need to create and save a Print PDF preset where hyperlinks are turned on.
When uploading to Publish Online, in the General tab of the Publish Your Document Online dialog box, turn on Allow Viewers to Download the Document as a PDF (Print). In the Advanced tab of the same dialog box, select Download PDF Settings > Select PDF Preset and select your custom preset (Figure 23).
FIGURE 23. Save a preset that includes hyperlinks and then choose it in the Download PDF Settings.
Apply Object Styles to Groups (Without Tears)
Steve Laskevitch
You’ve got a group of objects, each (or most) of which have different object styles applied to them.
You’ve also got an object style called “figure upper-right” that sets the position on the page and text wrap. But, when you apply that style to the group, Very Bad Things happen.
That’s because InDesign applied the “figure upper-right” object style to each object in the group, removing any previous styles each object had. This behavior is especially terrible if you ever want those objects to change when their styles are edited. Here’s the solution to this dilemma. Make sure the objects are indeed grouped.
- Cut the group.
- Select an empty frame.
- Choose Edit > Paste Into or use the shortcut Command+Option+V/ Ctrl+Alt+V.
- Choose Object > Fitting > Fit Frame to Content, or press Command+Option+C/ Ctrl+Alt+C.
- Apply the object style to this container frame. The objects inside will retain their styles and the whole figure will do what you like (Figure 24).
FIGURE 24. A frame containing a group with the “figure upper-right” style applied to it. Each object in the group retains its own style.
Scale Objects from the Keyboard
Mike Rankin
Want to tweak the size of a selected object or group? You don’t need to go to the Control panel or Properties panel. You don’t even have to take your hands off the keyboard. Just press Command/Ctrl+, to decrease the scale by 1%, or Command/Ctrl+. to increase it by 1%. Want to scale in bigger increments? Add the Option/Alt key to scale in 5% increments.
Create a New Table Instantly
Michael Ninness
When most folks need a table, they create a text frame, and then choose Table > Insert Table. I’m here to tell you there’s a quicker way. Don’t bother with making a text frame. Simply press Command+Shift+Option+T (MacOS) or Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T (Windows). This opens the Create Table dialog box, where you can choose the number of columns and rows you want. After you click OK, simply drag out the new table to the size you want it to be.
Align a Tab on Any Character
Michael Murphy
Any character you can type can be designated as the alignment point for a decimal tab. If you want several lines of text to line up on the first letter e in the line, simply type e in the Align On field when a decimal tab is selected in the tab ruler. The first e following a tab will act as the alignment point (Figure 25).
FIGURE 25. If you can type a character, you can align on it with a decimal tab.
Well-Placed Windows
Kelly Vaughn
Have you ever chosen Window > Arrange and been unsatisfied with the results?
What’s not readily apparent is that InDesign uses the order of the document tabs when arranging your files. In most of the examples shown in Figure 26, all of the documents were consolidated into a single tab, and in order from left to right: Window 1.indd to Window 6.indd. Window 1.indd was the active document.
The terms vertical and horizontal refer to the dividing lines in between the documents.
When choosing one of the “Stacked” options, the active document will be the one made larger and placed on the left side.
FIGURE 26
Create a New Color Swatch for a Text Style
Bob Levine
If you’re creating a new paragraph style or character style and you realize you don’t have the color you need in your Swatches panel, just double-click the color proxy to open the New Color Swatch dialog box.
Convert InDesign Files to Other Formats
James Fritz
Have you ever had to create a bunch of PDFs from a bunch of InDesign files? Or maybe you needed to down-save a series of InDesign projects to an earlier version by exporting to IDML. These common situations can become tedious if you have more than a few files, because you need to manually go through the export process for each file. Thankfully, there is a fantastic free script called Batch Convert by Peter Kahrel, which you can download from CreativePro. You’ll need to put all the InDesign files into one folder. When you run the script, choose that folder as the input folder, and then choose where you want the converted files to be saved to (Figure 27).
FIGURE 27. The dialog box for Peter Kahrel’s Batch Process script is loaded with useful options.
Don’t Resize Frames, Change Indents
Russell Viers
To be efficient in working with long documents you need to learn how to use indents to position text in frames instead of moving the frames around. For example, if you have a catalog with a bunch of products all lined up and the client requests that you move the copy under the photos to be more centered, don’t move or resize the frames one by one. Instead, edit the paragraph style to indent the left side of the text and move it over. That way, if the client changes their mind, you simply remove the indent and things are back the way they were. In terms of time invested it will take you minutes instead of hours.
Add New Colors and Gradients to Swatches
Jean-Claude Tremblay
The Gradient and Color panels offer great ways to work on the fly. But to preserve your work, saving it so you can use it on another object, right-click the preview thumbnail in those panels and choose Add to Swatches. You don’t have to do this right when you’re first mixing the color or gradient, either. Just select an object with the color or gradient at any time and right-click the thumbnail (Figure 28).
FIGURE 28. Always add newly mixed colors and gradients to your Swatches panel.
Rounded Corners, Straight Margins
Sandee Cohen
If you work with text frames that have rounded corners you might have noticed a common problem: The first and last lines appear slightly indented when they should align with the rest of the paragraph (Figure 29). The best way to avoid this problem is to make the size of the text inset at least the same size as the rounded corner.
FIGURE 29. It’s very slight, but the first and last lines of text are indented from the rest of the paragraph.
Don’t Touch That Mouse! (or Trackpad)
David Blatner
The only way to truly be efficient in InDesign is to keep your hands on the keyboard as much as possible. I’m not going to tell you which keyboard shortcuts to learn, but I will share a rule that will make you a more efficient InDesign user: If you find yourself choosing a menu item or tool more than three times in an hour, you should learn the shortcut for it. (And, if there is no shortcut, then you should make one, with Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.) You have to learn it, and then force yourself to use it every time you’re tempted to choose the feature from the menu or Tool panel! Every tool has a shortcut… V or Esc for the Selection tool, T for the Type tool, and so on. You just have to get your fingers to learn these, or you’ll forever be inefficient.
As a subscriber, you have access to the PDF versions of the InDesignSecrets keyboard shortcuts posters for Mac and Windows. Just log in at CreativePro.com, and visit this page to download them.
Sharp Vector Art for Publish Online
Anne-Marie Concepción
Publish Online does marvelous work in creating a digital, interactive version of an InDesign document. Type is converted to SVG to maintain crisp outlines, and images are rasterized to 96 ppi (or 144 ppi if you choose that in the File > Publish Online > Advanced panel).
Wait… what? Images are rasterized to 96 or 144 ppi? That’s okay for raster artwork, but it decimates the fine lines and the type in vector artwork from Adobe Illustrator.
The solution is to swap out your AI files for SVG files before you upload. Publish Online passes the SVG code right through, and Illustrator artwork appears as pristine on the web as it does in a PDF. (Figure 30).
Replacing your placed AI files with SVG ones is straightforward. Open an AI file in Illustrator, and choose File > Export As > Format: SVG. Accept the default settings for the SVG format. In InDesign, use the Links panel to relink your AI file(s) to the SVG version(s). You cannot detect any change in the layout, and it will print and export to PDF just fine. The Edit Original command opens the linked SVG artwork in Illustrator, too.
FIGURE 30. In this Publish Online document, the Lorem Ipsum text set in InDesign (which the upload process converts to SVG) appears at the top. Illustrator artwork and text (left) is rasterized. Converting it to SVG format (right) prevents the rasterization. You can see the Publish Online document here.
Trouble-Free Tabs
Chad Chelius
If you work a lot with tabs, you’ve probably encountered this situation: You set a right-aligned tab that positions text all the way to the right side of a text frame. Then later on you need to make the frame narrower. Boom, all of your text breaks and you have to fiddle with the tab to fix things. Instead, try using a Right Indent Tab, which pushes any text to the right of it all the way to the right side of the frame, regardless of the frame’s width. You can insert a Right Indent Tab by pressing Shift+Tab or by choosing Type > Insert Special Character > Other > Right Indent Tab.
Need to apply a dot leader to your Right Indent Tab? The method is obscure but easy: Just add any tab stop within the paragraph and apply the leader character to it. The Right Indent Tab will pick up that character (Figure 31).
FIGURE 31. The Right Indent Tab picks up the leader of any tab in the paragraph.
Copy Effects to Other Objects
Bart Van de Wiele
You easily can duplicate existing effects onto other objects by following these steps:
- Choose Window > Effects.
- Select an object with the effects you want to use elsewhere.
- Click and drag the fx icon from the Effects panel onto the target objects to duplicate the effect (Figure 32).
FIGURE 32. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you can duplicate effects with a simple drag and drop.
Sidebar Styling Made Simple
Colleen Gratzer
You can style all the text inside a sidebar by simply applying an object style.
- Set up your paragraph styles for the sidebar head and text, as you normally would.
- In your sidebar head paragraph style, in the General options, select the Next Style, which is the paragraph style to be applied after this one, such as Sidebar Text.
- Create an object style for how you want the sidebar to look. Within that object style, go to Paragraph Styles. Select the first paragraph style for it to apply, such as Sidebar Title, and turn on Apply Next Style.
- Select the text frame of the sidebar and apply the object style.
Rotation Liberation
Keith Gilbert
FIGURE 33. The proxy lets you control the point of rotation, but it is limited to a point within the boundaries of the selected object(s).
You may already know how to rotate objects using the Selection tool, the Free Transform tool, or the Rotation Angle field in the Control panel. When you rotate with these methods, the selected object(s) will rotate around whatever point is selected in the proxy, which resides on the left end of the Control panel (Figure 33).
But what if you need to rotate an object around a point that isn’t located within the boundaries of the selection? In these cases, the proxy doesn’t help at all, but you can use the often-neglected Rotate tool, which works just like the Rotate tool in Illustrator. With this tool, you can choose a rotation point anywhere on the page. There are lots of ways to use the Rotate tool. Here is one common, easy-to-understand method:
- Select an object.
- Press R to switch to the Rotate tool.
- Hold down the Option/Alt key and click any point that you want the object to rotate around (Figure 34).
- Enter the desired rotation angle (positive values rotate counter-clockwise, negative values rotate clockwise), then click OK or Copy (Figure 35)
- Choose Object > Transform Again > Transform Again to rotate the copied object by the same amount. Repeat as many times as desired (Figure 36).
FIGURE 34. Option/Alt-click with the Rotate tool on the point you want the selected object to rotate around.
FIGURE 35. After previewing the rotation angle you’ve entered, you can click Copy to rotate a copy of the selected object(s).
FIGURE 36. The Transform Again command allows you to repeat a transformation again and again to create all kinds of step-and-repeat-style effects.
Copy Links
Khara Plicanic
Sometimes when you need to wrangle all your links as part of getting the file ready to pass to a colleague, saving the file to an archive, or just cleaning up a scattered collection of assets, InDesign’s Package command can be overkill. If you’re not worried about fonts and don’t want to fuss with managing another copy of your document, head to the Links panel instead. Select all your links and from the panel menu, choose Utilities > Copy Links(s) To. Navigate to the desired location, create a folder to store your links, then click Choose.
InDesign will gather your links from wherever they may roam, create copies (in the designated folder), and-here’s the kicker-redirect the file paths to link to the newly created copies so you can stop worrying about accidentally deleting a link when cleaning your system.
Drag and Drop Delight
Jeff Witchel
If you do a lot of text editing, once you try dragging text to a new location, you won’t be able to live without this feature. You need to enable the feature in your preferences first by choosing lnDesign > Preferences > Text (in the Edit menu on Windows) and clicking Enable in Layout View in the Drag and Drop Text Editing area of the Type section. Now just select some text, click and drag it to the desired position, and drop it when an insertion point appears. It’s easy and a lot faster than cut and paste. But wait, there’s more! You can click and drag text to an insertion point in a totally different text frame-even in a different document! ?If you want to duplicate the text instead of moving it, just hold Option/Alt as you drag and drop.
Camouflage the Grid
Nigel French
The document grid (Cmd/Ctrl+’) covers your page and your pasteboard-and that can be too many gridlines to look at. You can make it appear as if there’s no document grid on the pasteboard by making the grid the same color as the pasteboard. If you’re using a Medium Dark interface this is R94 G94 B94 (Figure 37).
FIGURE 37. Change the document grid color to the same color as the pasteboard so that the grid is only visible on the page itself. Note that Subdivisions need to be set to 1.
Cast a Long Shadow
Mike Rankin
Here’s a method for making simple cast shadows for native InDesign objects. Copy and paste the object in place. Set the fill (and stroke, if any) to Paper. Set the blending mode to Multiply. This makes the object fully transparent. Now add a drop shadow, and in the Effects dialog box, set the distance to zero (so the shadow is in the exact same location as the object). Select the option Shadow Honors Other Effects and deselect the option Object Knocks Out Shadow (Figure 38).
Now you can see the shadow of the copied object but not the object itself. Use the Control panel to scale and skew the shadow as desired to make a cast effect. Finally, press Shift+G to get the Gradient Feather tool, and drag over the shadow so it fades out as it gets farther away from the original object.
FIGURE 38. The key Drop Shadow settings for a cast shadow and an example of the effect.
Make Transparency Stick in CC Library Objects
Steve Werner
Using CC Libraries to store objects like logos can be very efficient. But sometimes when you drag-place a vector object from a CC Library (like an Illustrator logo), the artwork unexpectedly appears on a white background even though the same art will come in with no background when you place it directly (Figure 39).
Here’s the source of the problem: When the art is placed with File > Place from Illustrator, turning on the Show Import Options dialog box gives you the choice to enable transparency. But there is no such option in the CC Library (Figure 40).
The solution is to place an Illustrator file before you use the CC Library. Choose Show Import Options, and turn on the Transparency option. That setting is “sticky” and will be remembered when you subsequently drag-place Illustrator art from a CC Library.
FIGURE 39. Vector art drag-placed from CC Libraries can unexpectedly appear on a white background.
FIGURE 40. The solution is to turn on transparency in Show Import Options when placing another Illustrator file. That setting will be used later when you drag items from CC Libraries into your layout.
Clean Up Your CC Libraries
Anne-Marie Concepción
If you’re a fan of Creative Cloud Libraries like I am, your CC Libraries panel is probably stuffed with old Libraries that you don’t need anymore. While you can delete a Library from the panel by choosing Delete [name of library] from the panel menu, it only deletes the active Library. You can’t Shift-click multiple ones to delete them en masse-unless you delete them from the web view of your Libraries. To get to the web view, go to assets.adobe.com/libraries, or choose “View on website” from the CC Libraries panel menu (and then click the left arrow next to the name of the library at the top of the browser window to view the full list).
If you’re viewing your libraries as a list, you can hover your cursor over the left of a Library name so a checkbox appears. Click inside the checkbox and checkboxes for all the other Libraries appear. Now you can select multiple Libraries at once by clicking in their checkboxes (Figure 41).
As long as you only select the ones that you own-in the Sharing column it says Only You, Public Link, or Shared With and you’re the owner-you’ll see a Delete link (upper-right of the browser window). Click the Delete link to clear them out of your web view and your CC Libraries panel.
To remove yourself from Libraries that others have shared with you, select one or more that say Shared With, and the Delete link changes to Unfollow.
Now go back to InDesign and admire your slim and trim CC Libraries panel!
FIGURE 41. The CC Libraries panel won’t let you select multiple libraries, but you can in the web view.
Demystify Your Styles
Sandee Cohen
FIGURE 42. Look at the bottom of the Character Styles panel to find what character formatting has been applied to the text.
You might be confused one day when you click on some text that looks like it must be formatted with a character style, but nothing is selected in the Character Styles panel. What has happened is the paragraph style includes a nested style, line style, or GREP style. A character style is applied, but because it’s applied automatically via a paragraph style, it’s listed only at the bottom of the Character Styles panel, preceded by a paragraph symbol (Figure 42). Unfortunately, the listing doesn’t tell you if it’s a nested style, line style, or GREP style. But at least you have your first clue as to the source of this “hidden” character style.
Print from the Pages Panel
Bart Van de Wiele
If you need to print a nonlinear range of pages from your InDesign document, it’s often easier to use the Pages panel instead of the Print dialog box.
- Choose Window > Pages.
- Hold down Command (macOS) or Ctrl (Windows) to select all pages you wish to print.
- Right-click your selected pages and choose Print Pages.
- Notice InDesign automatically inserts your selected pages into the Range field (Figure 43).
- Print away!
FIGURE 43. The Pages panel makes it easy to select even the most complicated set of pages for printing.
Target Table Strokes
Chad Chelius
FIGURE 44. The stroke proxy makes it easy to target the table strokes you want to edit.
When you create a table, there’s initially a 1 pt black stroke around every cell. This is rarely the look you want nowadays, so you need to adjust and/or remove strokes in some parts of the table. To quickly target specific strokes for adjustment, use the table stroke proxy in the Control panel or Stroke panel (Figure 44). Single-click at the intersection of any two strokes to select or deselect them. Double-clicking an inner or outer stroke in the proxy toggles the selection of all the inner or outer strokes. Triple-clicking on any stroke in the proxy preview toggles the selection of all the strokes in the table.
Measure with the Gap Tool
Keith Gilbert
The Gap tool, ignored by many users, is often the quickest way to check the distance between two objects or the distance between an object and the edge of the page.
To measure with the Gap tool, select the tool by pressing the U key, and then hover over the space between two objects or between an object and the edge of the page. You should see a gray highlight containing an arrow. Click and hold to see the size of the gap (Figure 45).
For this to work as described, you must first choose Preferences > Interface > Show Transformation Values.
FIGURE 45. Hover over a gap between two objects, or a single object and a page edge, then click and hold to see the size of the gap displayed.
Line Numbers
Nigel French
Ever need to communicate the exact locations of a word or phrase on the page? Perhaps you have a client who likes to give you corrections over the phone (I know… but it happens). Rather than waste time with instructions like “left a bit,” “up a bit,” “down a bit,” include line numbers on your drafts in the outside margins. Put these on the master page(s) so that they show up on all your document pages, and on a separate layer that can be turned off when you make your final export to PDF. That way you and your client can easily identify the problem: “left page, line 6,” “right page, line 24,” and so on (Figure 46).
FIGURE 46. Add a nonprinting line scale to your master pages, for easy referencing of editorial problems. This is useful if communicating by phone with a client.
Find Keyboard Shortcuts
Steve Werner
InDesign comes with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts built in and offers you the ability to customize them. But many shortcuts are not shown in InDesign’s menus and how to find them isn’t obvious. The trick is to use Show Set.
- Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. In the dialog box, click Show Set.
- Show Set opens up a text window in the default text editor on your computer where you can browse or search for specific commands.
Get curious and scrutinize that massive list of commands, and I guarantee that you’ll learn lots of things that make you more productive (and happy) spending time in InDesign than the vast majority of users.
Make Images Conditional
Anne-Marie Concepción
Want to make an image appear and disappear along with conditional text? Paste it into the text flow as an anchored inline object. Select the object with the Type tool, and then assign a condition to it. Now when you hide the condition, the image winks out of existence. If the image was in its own paragraph, be sure you apply the condition to its paragraph marker too so that no telltale empty space is left behind when you toggle off the condition’s visibility. For custom anchored objects, show hidden characters (Type > Show Hidden Characters) and apply the condition to the anchor marker in the text.
Create Color Themes with Precision
Bart Van de Wiele
The Color Theme tool allows you to create themes from not just individual objects (by clicking them with the tool), but also from parts of images or the combination of multiple objects on your page.
- Select the Color Theme Tool.
- Press and hold Option (macOS) or Alt (Windows).
- Click and drag across multiple objects to create a combined color theme (Figure 47).
- Alternatively, click and drag across a small area of an element to limit the source of the color theme to only that section (Figure 48).
![Three graphics [InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop icons] with Color Theme tool showing range of colors in the three graphics](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig47-e1634224791185.png)
FIGURE 47. In this example, the Color Theme tool selected both placed images.
FIGURE 48. Here, the Color Theme Tool selected only the warm colors in the image.
Protect Master Page Elements
Chad Chelius
If you work with long documents, you’re probably used to overriding master page items to make local changes to them on document pages. As a shortcut, you might use the feature Override All Master Page Items in the Pages panel menu instead of overriding items one at a time.
But this can open the door for errors to creep in because some page elements you may never want to change, like running headers and footers. To protect those items, select them on the master, go to the Pages panel menu, and choose Master Pages > Allow Master Item Overrides on Selection (so it’s turned off). Now, you can now use the Override All Master Page Items command on your document page, and it will override only the elements that you actually want to be overridden.
Creative Cell Shapes
Diane Burns
Here’s a handy trick for using anchored objects to change the shape of your table cells.
Draw a shape that will appear at the intersection of cell strokes, as in Figure 49, next page. This example uses a shape that mimics a rounded corner, but you could also use circles, diamonds, or triangular shapes.
The key is to anchor the shape at the beginning of the text in a cell or its adjacent cell. The top and left insets must be the same for all cells in the table, so that you can set the horizontal position of the anchored shape relative to the anchor marker, and the vertical position relative to the baseline.
If the shape falls at the right edge of a cell, anchor to the cell to the right. That way, even if you change the column width, the shape will be in the correct position.
You don’t have to anchor a shape at the cell intersections. You can use shapes anywhere on the cell edge to create the illusion of a non-rectangular cell.
![Table with graphic to add rounded corner element shown as anchored object, with Anchored Object Options dialog showing upper left reference point, X relative to anchor marker with X offset 1p1, Y relative to Line [Baseline] with Y offset -1p8](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig49.png)
FIGURE 49. Anchor shapes at the beginning of the text in each cell or adjacent cell, horizontally relative to the anchor marker. This allows you to resize columns while the objects maintain their position relative to the appropriate cell edge. (Note: The final image above is a composite; you can’t select multiple anchored objects.)
Populate Custom Dictionaries with Word Lists
Anne-Marie Concepción
Tired of adding your company’s name or industry jargon to InDesign’s dictionary one by one as it flags those words during a spell check? Try adding them all at once instead.
First, compile your word list. You can use any file (such as a staff directory or product listing) that’s been exported or saved as Text Only (TXT), as long as every word or number is separated by the same delimiter: tabs, paragraph returns, commas, or even just spaces.
Then in InDesign’s Dictionary dialog box (Edit > Spelling > Dictionary), click Import to add your word list to your User dictionary (or to any custom dictionary you’ve added previously). It’s far faster than choosing Add to Dictionary one by one as InDesign flags each item during a spell check.
Think Negative
Erica Gamet
When it comes to values in InDesign, don’t be afraid to think negative. For an unusual effect, have your text overlap an object slightly by entering negative values in the Text Wrap panel. The effect looks best when wrapping around the object shape (Figure 50).
Another place where you can experiment with negative values is text indents. Use a negative value for your first-line indent to create hanging type. Set up your paragraph with a left indent value (e.g., 10 pts) then set the First Line Indent to the negative opposite (-10 pts).
Although you can’t enter them everywhere, try negative values where you can, such as in the Baseline Shift box to move type below the baseline.
FIGURE 50. Negative text wrap around a shape
Use Bookmarks to Navigate in InDesign
Keith Gilbert
FIGURE 51. The Bookmarks panel is a dead-simple way to add temporary navigation points to help you return to selected locations as you work on a long document.
The Bookmarks panel (Window > Interactive > Bookmarks) is typically used to create and manage bookmarks that you want to include in an exported PDF. But don’t overlook how useful they are for navigating while working on a long document in InDesign.
To create a bookmark, open the panel, turn to a page in your document, click the plus icon at the bottom of the panel, and give the bookmark a name. Now, as you get further along in the document, you can return to the bookmarked page by just double-clicking the bookmark name in the panel (Figure 51).
By default, bookmarks point to a specific page. But if you select text before you click the plus icon to create the bookmark, InDesign will create a text bookmark right before the selected text. If the text flows to another page, the bookmark flows with it to the new page! When you’re finished working in your document, just select all these “temporary” bookmarks in the panel and click the trash icon to ensure that they aren’t accidentally included in an exported PDF.
Stack Your Fractions
Nigel French
![Stacked [nut] fractions 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 3/4](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig52-e1634229532129.png)
FIGURE 52. OpenType stacked or “nut” fractions in the Nutso font
When it comes to fractions, the vast majority of designers use a diagonal slash or solidus to separate the numerator and denominator. But what if you want a horizontal fraction bar-known as nut fraction? Thankfully you don’t have to resort to making your own. Nutso is a free OpenType font for making nut fractions (Figure 52). You can download it at GitHub.
Duplicate Table Rows and Columns
Mike Rankin
Got a table row or column you want to duplicate? Don’t bother with copy and paste. In InDesign CC 2014 and later, you can select a table row or column (click just above a column or to the left of a row), and then hold Option/Alt and drag the copy where you want it in the table.
Guides Be Gone
Anne-Marie Concepción
Ruler guides tend to clutter up documents, so it’s nice to clear those out from time to time. A quick way is to press Ctrl/Command+Shift+G, which selects all the ruler guides on the active spread, and then press the Backspace/Delete key to get rid of them. You have to do this spread by spread, but if you’ve already deleted most of the document pages, it only takes a moment or two.
Shifting Values
Erica Gamet
When you’re trying different values in a panel or dialog box field (e.g., changing fonts or scaling), press Shift+Return/Enter to apply the change and instantly re-highlight the value to make another choice.
And speaking of selecting values, here’s a trick to do that quickly. Instead of double-clicking the existing value and hoping you select it all, click the field’s name or icon to highlight the whole value in the field.
Create a Jumbo Page Review Workspace
Julie Shaffer
One of the things that I love about Acrobat is the ability to see large page icons so I can shuffle them easily. Let’s do the same thing in InDesign by modifying the Pages panel and creating a new workspace.
Go to the Pages panel menu and choose View Pages > Horizontally. Also from the Pages panel menu, choose Panel Options. In the Panel Options dialog box, choose Jumbo from the Size options. Click OK. Now, drag the left side of your panel to make it wider to see more of your pages (Figure 53).
To save this workspace, go to Window > Workspace > New Workspace. Name your workspace Jumbo Page Review and make sure Panel Locations and Menu Customization are selected. Now, whenever you need to see jumbo pages, you can choose your new workspace.
FIGURE 53. Make your Pages panel wider with pages shown horizontally as jumbo icons to easily see your content.
Maintain Proportions While Scaling
Keith Gilbert
If you select an object, enter a new value in any one of the Width, Height, Scale X, or Scale Y fields in the Control panel (Figure 54), and then press Command+Shift+Return/ Ctrl+Shift+Enter, the corresponding value will be calculated so that the proportions of the object are maintained.
In other words, if you enter a new width, the proper height will be calculated to keep the object proportional. Learn to do this, and you’ll never have to check to see if the little Constrain icon next to the Width, Height, Scale X, and Scale Y fields is selected or deselected.
This tip is particularly useful when using the Page tool to resize a page using the Width and Height fields, since there is no Constrain icon in the Control panel for resizing pages.
FIGURE 54. Enter a new value in any one of these fields, and then hold down Command/Ctrl+Shift while pressing Return or Enter to maintain proportions while scaling objects.
Override-o-rama
Mike Rankin
I bet you already know that to override a single master page item you need to Command/Ctrl+Shift-click it. But have you ever Command/Ctrl+Shift-dragged over several items to override them all at once? Furthermore, you can override all master page items on a range of pages by selecting those pages in the Pages panel and then pressing Command+Option+Shift+L/Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L, or by choosing Override All Master Page Items from the Pages panel menu. If you change your mind, you can set any of those objects back to their original master page state by selecting them and choosing Remove Selected Local Overrides from the Pages panel menu.
FIGURE 55. At display sizes, using a dotless i in place of an fi ligature makes it easier to equalize the spacing between the characters.
Don’t Dot Your “i”s
Nigel French
As designers we like to dot our “i”s and cross our “t”s. But maybe sometimes you don’t want to dot your “i”s. The dotless i is a character in its own right (Shift+Option+B/Shift+Alt+B)-you can also type a dotless i into the Find field of InDesign’s Glyphs panel to find it. Every once in a while it might be just the subtle twist that your design needs (Figure 55).
Feed and Water Your Templates and Starter Files
Anne-Marie Concepción
Do you know why designers abandon the beautiful templates and starter files they created once upon a time? Because they let them die on the vine. You may have created the first issue or three of your newsletter from a template, but soon, that old INDT was out of date.
Here’s the reality: When you’re laying out an actual publication, you tend to tweak, iterate, and revise. Soon enough, the starter file you created earlier in the year doesn’t have all the goodies the most recent issues carry, like that new sidebar treatment you came up with, the updated style you’re using for pull quotes, or the hyphenation tweaks you added to some paragraph styles.
To keep your starter file healthy, periodically open it and update its styles, swatches, and master pages to sync with the latest version of your publication. One way to update the text styles is to open the template and import the styles (Paragraph Styles panel menu > Load All Text Styles) from the publication into the template. The default behavior is for the incoming style definition (the publication’s) to replace the destination, which is exactly what you want.
Use A More Granular Grid
Nigel French
Do you like to use a baseline grid but sometimes find it too constricting? Let’s say you have a grid increment of 12 points. This is going to mean that spacing before paragraphs will need to at least 12 points, which can look clunky. What if you want only a half line space? The solution is to subdivide the grid. Keep your leading at 12, but make your grid half that-allowing you to add 6 points of space above a subhead (Figure 56). Depending on how granular you want to get you could subdivide further, to 3 points.
FIGURE 56. Halving the baseline grid increment gives you the option of adding half-line spaces above subheads. Baselines will be out of register in adjacent columns (as indicated by the blue shading) until a corresponding subhead is introduced in the adjacent column.
Clear All Transformations
Keith Gilbert
An easy way to clear all the transformations (rotation, scaling, shearing, or reflecting) from selected objects is to right-click the Transformation Indicator icon next to the rotation icons in the Control panel and select Clear Transformations (Figure 57).
FIGURE 57. Right-click the small P icon in the Control panel to clear transformations from the selected objects.
Score a Knockout
Erica Gamet
Make an overlay from an image by “punching out” shapes from it. Place the image you want to use as the overlay-you can even use just a shape filled with color-and position it on the page. Next, create the shapes that will become the “windows” you’ll use to see through the image. Make as many as you need; you can change the size, shape, and position at any time. These shapes must have a fill color, though it doesn’t matter what color it is. Select these shapes and set their Opacity sliders to 0%. Next, select all the shapes and the main image, and choose Object > Group. With the group selected, head up to the fx menu in the Control panel, choose Transparency (or go to Window > Effects), and turn on Knockout Group. Make changes to the main image or the “window” shapes by double-clicking and editing. You can even add or change out the image in the main shape whenever you need!
Never Type Anything Twice
Julie Shaffer
FIGURE 58. Use custom text variables to automate repetitive content throughout your documents to save time and ensure consistency.
“That which has been typed shall not be typed again” is my mantra. Rather than type the same text repeatedly, like a critical date, client name, or project number (and risk mistyping it or putting it in the wrong format), I use custom text variables.
To create one, choose Type > Text Variables > Define. Click New and give your variable a name. In the Type menu, choose Custom Text. In the text field, type the text you never want to type again. Click OK (Figure 58).
To insert your new text variable in a flash, use Quick Apply. Press Command+Return/Ctrl+Enter to open the Quick Apply panel. Start typing the name of your variable and when it appears highlighted, press Return/Enter, and marvel at your new InDesign superpowers!
Put Hyphens on Hold
Nigel French
If you’ve ever wanted to size type to recreate run-on words that don’t hyphenate and don’t become overset, then you need a zero-width space. This Unicode character is conspicuously absent from InDesign’s Type > Insert White Space menu, but you can insert it through Find/Change (Figure 59).
![Screen comparisons of midword breaks with and without hyphens of "YESTE/RDAY[ampersand]/TODAY" with screen shot of Find/Change dialog, GREP tab, Find what "." and Change to "$0x{200B}"](https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AllStarTips-fig59-e1634231034851.png)
FIGURE 59. When you size display type to create the effect in this example, the type will either become hyphenated or overset. Add a zero-width space between characters to let the type break as needed. Note, the example combines the zero-width space with full justification and vertical justification to fill out the type area.
The All-Stars
David Blatner is co-founder of InDesign Magazine, the author of many video courses at LinkedIn Learning, including InDesign Essential Training, and the co-author of Real World InDesign.
Diane Burns is an author, trainer, consultant, LinkedIn Learning Instructor, and the founder of TransPacificDigital.
Conrad Chavez is a Seattle-based writer and photographer, and is a frequent contributor to CreativePro.com and InDesign Magazine. You can find out more about Conrad at his website, conradchavez.com.
Chad Chelius is an Adobe Certified Instructor, author, speaker, and the ?VP of Training at AbleDocs. He has authored several titles for LinkedIn Learning and Peachpit Press. Follow him on Twitter @chadchelius, and contact him at chad@cheliusgraphicservices.com.
Scott Citron is the original designer of InDesign Magazine. He is a designer, trainer, and Adobe Certified Instructor based in New York. He offers hourly and customized training over Zoom in InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator at his website, adobepowerhour.com.
Sandee Cohen has been writing about and teaching computer graphics since 1988. She is a co-author, along with Diane Burns, of Digital Publishing with Adobe InDesign CC.
Anne-Marie Concepción is the co-founder of the CreativePro Network, an Adobe Certified Instructor, and the author of dozens of LinkedIn Learning video courses, including the weekly InDesign Tips for Design Geeks series. Contact her at amarie@senecadesign.com.
Rufus Deuchler is the Director for Worldwide Creative Cloud Evangelism at Adobe.
Nigel French is a graphic designer, photographer, author, and teacher living in Lewes, UK. He is the author of InDesign Type, 4th Edition (Adobe Press) and more than 50 titles in the LinkedIn Learning online training library, including InDesign Typography.
James Fritz is a Senior Manager at LinkedIn Learning Solutions.
Erica Gamet is the Content Diva for CreativePro Network, and a frequent contributor to InDesign Magazine.
Keith Gilbert is a Minnesota-based consultant specializing in InDesign and mobile and multi-channel publishing. He is also the author of several popular titles at LinkedIn Learning. Learn more at Gilbertconsulting.com.
Alan Gilbertson is a freelance designer and design coach living in Los Angeles, California. He writes about design topics for InDesign Magazine and CreativePro.
Colleen Gratzer is an award-winning designer with 25 years’ experience. Through Creative Boost, she teaches accessibility courses and hosts the Design Domination podcast. Her consulting business, Gratzer Graphics, provides design and accessibility services.
Peter Kahrel is a script developer at Typefi. You can find his incredible collection of free InDesign scripts at CreativePro.
Steve Laskevitch is the founder of Luminous Works Training in Seattle and an Adobe Certified Instructor for Creative Cloud Design & Layout Solutions. He’s the author of many books and the creator of the Course & Compendium book series.
Bob Levine is a Southern New Jersey–based graphic designer and consultant. For more info, check out boblevinedesign.com.
Maya P. Lim is a graphic designer, writer, and creative strategist. Her work has appeared in Adobe Create, Communication Arts, CreativePro, InDesign Magazine, PRINT, and HOW, among other publications. Learn more at MayaPLim.com.
Matt Mayerchak is the principal of Mayerchak & Company. He has over 30 years’ experience providing production support to graphic designers, publishers, and organizations.
Claudia McCue is now retired after more than 30 years working in print production and software training, but still occasionally teaches software classes and writes about printing topics.
Jamie McKee is a book designer and typesetter for university presses and publishing companies throughout the US. More information about him can be found at mackeycomposition.com.
Michael Murphy is a Senior Solutions Consultant at Adobe and the founder of The InDesigner video podcast.
Michael Ninness has spent the past 20+ years leading product management, user experience, and content strategy for creativity software and services, at Adobe, Microsoft, Lynda.com, and now Squarespace.
Khara Plicanic is a natural-born teacher who’s been sharing inspiration and know-how with fellow creatives for more than 15 years. Find her at KharaPlicanic.com.
Jeff Potter is an editor at CreativePro. He also edits and designs The Commons, a nonprofit weekly community newspaper in southern Vermont.
Mike Rankin is the Editor in Chief of CreativePro.com and InDesign Magazine. He is an instructor for LinkedInLearning with video courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher.
Laurie Ruhlin is an Adobe Certified Instructor and author of several courses for Pluralsight. She provides classroom and custom training both live and online as a consultant in the Chicagoland area and beyond. Learn more at laurieruhlin.com.
Julie Shaffer is an Adobe Certified Instructor for Creative Cloud Design & Layout Solutions and Certified Professional Services Marketer. In 2012, she founded Shaffer Creative.
Jean-Claude Tremblay is a trainer/consultant for creatives in the graphic arts industry based in the Greater Montreal area.
Bart Van de Wiele is a Principal Solutions Consultant for Adobe by day and LinkedIn Learning author by night, specializing in Adobe’s print and design solutions Find out more at his website, bartvdw.com.
Kelly Vaughn (Document Geek) is an author who also operates a niche technical publishing company serving the marine industry. In 2020, she launched KnitSwag, where she uses Illustrator and InDesign to make personalized knitting gifts.
Russell Viers has taught many major publications and designers to work faster and improve quality. He has also authored several videos from lynda.com, Peachpit Press, and Total Training. Find more at russellviers.com.
James Wamser is a member of the Customer Education team at Walsworth. An Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Expert, he teaches InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) and chairs the Milwaukee InDesign User Group.
Steve Werner is a San Francisco-based educator, writer, and publishing consultant.
Jeff Witchel is an Adobe Certified Instructor for Creative Cloud Design & Layout Solutions. He also is an Adjunct Professor at Robert Busch School of Design, Kean University in New Jersey and is co-manager of the lnDesign User Group of NJ. Learn more at jeffwitchel.net.
- In the news:
- Article Hunt contest winners
- Adobe MAX 2023, David and Anne-Marie are doing live sessions
- InDesign 18.3 is slowly being rolled out
- CreativePro Week, June 5-9 in Phoenix (and online)
- IGNITE CreativePro is back!
- Movie Night
- Design + Marketing Summit, July 27-28, online event
- CreativePro Magazine May 2023, issue 19: Virtual Photography, and lots of InDesign content
- Fonts in InDesign: Best practices and best tips
- Obscure Feature of the Week: Ornaments
Links mentioned in this podcast
Adobe MAX 2023 speakers
Including …
- Anne-Marie and David
- Angelo Montilla, who we interviewed in podcast episode 290
- Dax Castro, interviewed (with Chad Chelius) in podcast episode 292
- Erica Gamet, interviewed in podcast episode 226
Fonts:
- Great Fonts To Use:
- CreativePro Font Collection #1: https://creativepro.com/creativepro-font-collection-vol-1/
- Font Collection #2: https://creativepro.com/creativepro-font-collection-vol-2/
- Our awesome “InDesignSecrets Font Collection” on Adobe Fonts: https://fonts.adobe.com/collections/indesign-20
- Google Fonts: https://creativepro.com/using-google-fonts-indesign/
- Adobe Fonts: https://creativepro.com/using-adobe-fonts/
- Font Tools
- Astute Graphics Vector First Aid: https://astutegraphics.com/plugins/vectorfirstaid
- Justin’s “Copy InDesign Fonts to Folder” script: https://ajarproductions.com/blog/2013/04/16/copy-indesign-fonts-to-folder/
- Identifying Fonts:
- What the Font: https://www.myfonts.com/pages/whatthefont
- How to identify fonts: https://creativepro.com/identifying-fonts/
- Glyphs panel:
- Learning about the Glyphs panel: https://creativepro.com/get-know-indesigns-glyphs-panel/
- Tips: https://creativepro.com/tip-week-glyphs-panel-display/
- Finding characters: https://creativepro.com/find-characters-using-the-glyphs-panel/
- Custom glyph sets: https://creativepro.com/working-with-custom-glyph-sets/
- Laura Worthington’s Hummingbird font: https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/hummingbird
- Making Fonts:
- IndyFont: https://www.indiscripts.com/post/2012/06/indyfont-build-opentype-fonts-from-within-indesign
- If you have a LinkedIn Learning subscription: our video on IndyFont: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/indesign-secrets/055-making-a-font-with-indesign-using-the-indyfont-script?u=0
- FontSelf in Illustrator: https://creativepro.com/create-fonts-illustrator-cc-fontself/
- Installing Fonts:
- Document Fonts folder: https://creativepro.com/easy-font-activation-using-document-fonts/
- InDesign application’s Fonts folder: https://creativepro.com/getting-indesign-to-see-your-fonts/
- News
- InDesign 18.1 release
- Design & Powerpoint Summit coming up Feb 16–17, 2023
- CreativePro Week 2023 agenda posted
- CreativePro Magazine January 2023: PowerPoint Tips; Overcoming Creative Burnout.
- CreativePro Magazine February 2023: Making Forms with InDesign and Acrobat
- Monitoring the InDesign Dashboard
- ChatGPT and Generative AI
- Obscure InDesign Feature: Adjust spacing automatically when cutting and pasting words
Sponsor for this episode:
>>PageProof is the top online proofing workflow platform for your creative process: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Powerpoint, image files, and more. It’s free for reviewers, and flat rate pricing for you and your designers makes it easy to get started! We interview Marcus Radich, CTO, in this episode, and you can hear David’s more in-depth interview in this CreativePro Conversation on YouTube.
Links mentioned in this podcast:
News
- Should you update to the newest version of InDesign? https://creativepro.com/should-adobe-fix-older-versions-of-programs/
- Are you feeling creative burnout? Read Maya Lim’s article: https://creativepro.com/breaking-through-creative-burnout/
- Check out Maya’s other great articles here: https://creativepro.com/author/maya-lim/
InDesign Dashboard
- Control vs. Properties panel: https://creativepro.com/video-how-to-bring-the-control-panel-back-and-keep-it/
- How to customize the links panel: https://creativepro.com/customizing-links-panel/
- Red dot = overset text: https://creativepro.com/tip-week-finding-overset-text-preflight/
- Rotate pages/spreads: https://creativepro.com/tip-week-rotate-spread-view-gesture/
- Showing which pages have transparency: https://creativepro.com/why-the-checkerboard/
- Other alerts to watch for: https://creativepro.com/whats-that-alert-or-question-mark-icon-in-indesign/
ChatGPT, DALL-E, and other Generative A.I.
- What you need to know: https://creativepro.com/opinion-the-future-is-genai-enabled/
- The script that David made with ChatGPT: https://creativepro.com/move-every-object-on-every-page-toward-or-away-from-spine/#comments/2427288
- Star Trek: “Hello Computer” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWhugUmV5U
Obscure Feature: Adjust spacing automatically when cutting and pasting words
- Changing preferences with QuickApply: https://creativepro.com/10-essential-tips-for-working-with-styles-indesign/
- In the news:
- CreativePro rebrand!!
- Design & Marketing Summit, July 27–28, online only
- Adobe MAX 2023, David and Anne-Marie are doing live sessions
- InDesign 18.4 is slowly being rolled out
- CreativePro Week was phenomenal!
- Grab an On Demand Pass to watch all the sessions, including IGNITE! and download the handouts
- Next year in Washington DC! More info to come.
- CreativePro Magazine June 2023, issue 20: Email templates, cover story by our designer Pam Sparks! Also great InDesign tips and tricks
- Getting geeky with IDML, Tagged Text, ICML, and Snippet files
- Obscure Feature of the Week: Remove Forced Line Break
Sponsor for this episode
>> Noble Desktop: For over 30 years, Noble Desktop’s project-based classes and certificate programs have given professionals the tools to pursue creative careers in design, coding, and beyond. Learn more about them on our Training Provider page or at NobleDesktop.com.
Links mentioned in this podcast
- YES our original InDesign Secrets mug IS still available!
https://www.cafepress.com/mf/14282011/large-indesignsecrets-_mugs?productId=60507004 - Watch our free webinar: Creating Social Media Assets with InDesign
https://creativepro.com/watch-on-demand-indesign-social-assets/ - We’re speaking at MAX 2023
David Blatner
Anne-Marie Concepcion - Pam’s article on Building Email Templates:
https://creativepro.com/building-email-templates/ - Getting Geeky:
- Snippets:
https://creativepro.com/the-joy-of-snippets/
https://creativepro.com/place-snippets-at-the-same-location-or-not/
https://creativepro.com/locking-snippets/
https://creativepro.com/using-indesign-snippets-in-a-printing-workflow/ - Tagged Text:
Database or spreadsheet to tagged text: https://creativepro.com/automate-text-formatting-with-tagged-text/ - IDML:
Jeff Potter’s amazing web app to IDML trick: https://creativepro.com/harnessing-the-power-of-text-variables-and-idml/
Hard-core editing to fix RGB Black: https://creativepro.com/turning-rgb-black-to-cmyk-black/
Download this great illustrated guide to IDML by Mike Rankin: https://creativepro.com/downloads/Anatomy_of_IDML.pdf
Color swatches that won’t delete: https://creativepro.com/color-swatches-that-wont-delete/
- Snippets:
This article appeared in Issue 127 of InDesign Magazine.Pamela Pfiffner takes a look back at how it all started, key moments in InDesign’s development, and where it all goes from here.
If you’re like most folks who use InDesign, you probably never gave much thought to how the program came to be. The thing you care about most is that it does what you need. You edit a paragraph, the lines rewrap to create a pleasing look. You drag an Opacity slider and objects blend—and output—seamlessly. But there’s a story behind every feature. And knowing some of those stories just might deepen your appreciation for this program that you spend so much of your time using.
The story begins something like this: In the 1990s, Adobe was looking to develop a product to unseat QuarkXPress as the dominant page layout application in the design and publishing market. QuarkXPress had long outpaced its closest competitor, PageMaker, the software that created the desktop publishing revolution. Developed by Aldus Corporation, PageMaker labored under creaky code from the 1980s that was difficult to upgrade to the sophisticated software demanded in the rapidly evolving publishing industry.
PageMaker started the desktop publishing revolution.
To retake the publishing market required starting from scratch. With PageMaker still on the market, in the fall of 1992, the Aldus engineering team began developing a software platform with a modular architecture that could be updated over time to take advantage of the latest technologies. Code-named Shuksan, the software bore the name of a mountain in Washington state, not just because of the peak’s beauty but also because it represented the uphill battle of challenges that loomed ahead. Aldus management showed Shuksan to Adobe representatives, who were so impressed by the software that the company acquired Aldus in 1994. Under the aegis of Adobe, more resources were dedicated to the project and its development accelerated.
Shuksan is the underlying technology of InDesign. Now that the InDesign application was taking shape, Adobe engineers wanted a reality check. Were they on the right track? How did it compare to rival QuarkXPress? Subsequently, Adobe engineers asked for the opinion of an outsider who had experience with QuarkXPress. They turned to David Blatner, who was considered the industry’s foremost expert in QuarkXPress. Informally known as “Mr. QuarkXPress,” Blatner was the nemesis of many Shuksan engineers. The day Blatner visited Adobe’s Seattle offices, his escort told him: “Don’t worry. We asked everyone to take down the David Blatner dartboards,” remembers Blatner.
After the team demonstrated the software to Blatner, “His response was startlingly negative,” remembered Zak Williamson, an early Shuksan engineer who was briefed on the conversation later. Paraphrased, Blatner’s reaction was: “Everyone loves QuarkXPress. Yeah, we hate Quark the company, but everyone loves QuarkXPress the product. Nobody wants or needs another DTP program. XPress has everything anyone needs. You should take the developers off this and put them on Photoshop development.” Williamson describes it as “a punch in the gut, but it was also a challenge to all of us on the team to make InDesign something [Blatner] would love.”
It took several iterations of the software before Adobe engineers succeeded in converting Blatner into a true InDesign admirer. The proof? The magazine you are reading, the books you refer to, the conferences you attend—these are all focused on InDesign and produced by Blatner and his colleagues at the CreativePro Network. “When we ‘got’ David, when he gave up QuarkXPress, we knew we had it.”
Sure, Blatner’s opinion was important to the people working on the software, but he was only a catalyst to InDesign’s success. What has allowed InDesign to achieve this 20th anniversary milestone are the dedicated engineers who worked long hours to develop it, a management team that championed it, and top-level executives who were willing to fund it.
Documentation showing the early specifications for InDesign’s Layers panel.
Mountain Climbing
The name QuarkXPress comes up a lot when recounting the history of InDesign, at least initially. It will disappear from this particular story soon enough, but in the 1990s, QuarkXPress owned 90% or so market share. Back then, the tradition-bound publishing industry exercised caution when converting to digital technology for producing work. Choosing the right software for print design and production had to be done carefully. The pioneering program PageMaker had come to be viewed as software used by amateurs making newsletters for volunteer organizations. QuarkXPress ticked the right boxes for professionals: controls that allowed typographic finesse, a frame-based interface for building content-free mock-ups, and a technology infrastructure that allowed third-party companies to extend its capabilities in areas such as prepress.
Therefore the InDesign team had two mountains to climb: create superior software to outdo its rival and convince the publishing industry to replace QuarkXPress with InDesign. The team decided to look beyond Mount Shuksan to another, even taller mountain: InDesign 1.0 would be code named K2, the Himalayan peak that is not the highest in the world, but considered by many to be the most technically difficult to climb.
Pins handed out by Publish magazine at the 1998 Seybold Conference in response to Quark’s announcement that they wanted to buy Adobe.
The mountain-themed code names came to an end after Annapurna, the code name for InDesign 2.0. “Annapurna is a mountain range in the Himalayas with numerous mountain peaks,” says Maria Yap, lead project manager for InDesign 2.0 and now Vice President of Imaging Products. “I often felt the engineers picked that name because we had so many simultaneous priorities: printing, performance, typography, Mac OSX, tables, transparency, etc.”
The team had a nickname for the code name: Anna. One day the executive assistant to then-Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen called Yap in a panic. “Bruce wanted to have a meeting with Anna immediately, but the admin could not find Anna in the phone directory. I laughed and said that Bruce wants to have a product review on InDesign 2.0, code named Anna.” There would be no such confusion with future code names like Dragontail (CS) and Firedrake (CS2).
InDesign 1.0 and its full set of panels
Because QuarkXPress was an entrenched competitor, the InDesign team strategized how to convince users that their future lay in InDesign. Former Senior Director of Development Frits Habermann, currently CEO of mobile photo app PicMonkey, described the strategy in a 2018 post on Quora.com: “We understood that to switch many customers, we had to focus on the buyers, who were typically IT or print leaders at magazines or newspapers. Their adoption cycles were long, but if we swayed some of them, we knew we’d be carrying many seats as conversions.” He continued, “For that we had to implement the critical features that these customers needed (multi-ink support, advanced type controls, color management, etc.), but we also we needed to provide something new (multi-line composition, arbitrary shape text wrap, optical kerning, scripting, etc.).”
“One of the things that made it so hard to get InDesign started was that there were so many features it had to have just to get in the door,” remembers Robin Briggs, an InDesign developer since its inception in 1992 and currently a partner in app developer Puddlehop. “But once we hit the baseline of what people needed, adding new features was (relatively) easy for us.”
Briggs played a central role in the development of Shuksan and, ultimately, InDesign. The object-model architecture on which InDesign is built was largely her idea. Former InDesign Evangelist Tim Cole puts Briggs’s contribution in context. “Other excellent developers worked on [Shuksan], but it was Robin’s vision that was actualized with that architecture. It enabled InDesign to leverage all manner of other mature and powerful technologies at Adobe.”
Shuksan was basically a collection of task-specific plug-ins glued together. According to engineer Douglas Waterfall, this digital glue “makes a whole bunch of internal components work with absolute reliability and makes them faster to implement.” He further explains, “So things
like master page text wrap, links, the Articles panel, cross-references, text wrap on inlines, text wrap in general, text insets, spread rotation, and a host of other features rely on this glue to be able to find out that something has changed in the data that they depend on so they can react appropriately. It was pretty amazing in the end.”
From its inception, InDesign focused on fine typography.
Tackling Type
Much of the focus in the early days of InDesign was on text features. Designers live and die by type, so the team dug deep into the principles, traditions, and nuances of good typography. The goal was to provide “the best damn typography on the planet,” recalls Zak Williamson.
“There were so many new typography concepts to absorb and then understand the context of what and how InDesign would do with them,” says Waterfall, whose first task on the InDesign team was to implement First Baseline Offset, “something I knew absolutely nothing about.” According to Waterfall, the process went something like this: “So this UI actually sets this value here, which then triggers ‘damage’ of the composition here, which then causes the paragraph composer to recompose the paragraph here, which then asks for that new value which we just stored at the beginning, which then changes the Y-position calculated by the paragraph composer for the first line of that frame.” Of course!
Many of InDesign’s typographic features were revolutionary, such as the Multi-line Composer, developed by Eric Menninga, the principal engineer behind many of InDesign’s breakthrough type controls. In InDesign 2.0, Menninga, along with colleagues Williamson and Waterfall, expanded that feature into the Paragraph Composer, a groundbreaking technology for text composition for which the three were later jointly awarded a patent. Today, Menninga looks back at the Paragraph Composer as his greatest accomplishment in his time at Adobe.
Another Menninga feature developed cult-like status because of a pop-culture reference. Menninga devised the Hyphenation Penalty Slider, “a wonderfully cool bit of compositional control one can impose on a paragraph by increasing or decreasing InDesign’s permission to hyphenate line breaks,” as Tim Cole describes it. As Menninga was completing the user interface, he asked Cole for advice as to how many tick marks to put on the slider. Cole recalls Menninga saying “All I care is that it’s an odd number so that there’s a setting right in the middle. People who don’t understand what it does won’t be comfortable unless there’s a setting right in the middle. How many ticks do you want it to have?”
As a product evangelist, Cole demonstrated InDesign to potential customers around the world. So he replied, “I’d like to be able to demo this feature and claim superiority over Quark’s hyphenation features by stating that our slider goes to 11.” Menninga immediately understood the reference to the movie This is Spinal Tap and the character Nigel Tufnel, whose amplifier’s volume knob could be turned up to 11. From then on, when demonstrating InDesign’s typography, Cole called the hyphenation slider “Nigel.”
In many respects, fine typography is the heart and soul of InDesign. Even now, 20 years on, current Vice President of Imaging products Maria Yap points to the type features as some of InDesign’s most impressive accomplishments. “Optical kerning, multi-line composition, optical margin alignment, support for OpenType and contextual alternates and ligatures—every time I use InDesign, I make sure those features are turned on. This attention to typography is the ‘craft’ of good design,” Yap says.
Packaging for InDesign 1.0 used the butterfly image to suggest a new phase of publishing software.
Gathering Steam
Released in the late summer of 1999, InDesign 1.0 represented a shot across the bow of QuarkXPress, but its immaturity only gave Quark ammunition to scoff at Adobe’s impudence. It’s true that InDesign 1.0 was riddled with bugs. Users, while curious about what Adobe brought to the table, were underwhelmed. Still, on first impression, the software wasn’t entirely alien to QuarkXPress users. Like QuarkXPress, InDesign used a container metaphor for type and graphic positioning. However, while QuarkXPress employed separate boxes for type and graphic placement, in InDesign one box could contain either text or graphics.
“As a trainer, students often asked me why InDesign had two frames (boxes), one with an X through it and one without,” says Scott Citron, a publication designer and InDesign instructor. “One day I asked an InDesign software engineer who was visiting New York this nagging question. The software engineer replied that the frames with the X through them were for former QuarkXPress users. The frame without was for everyone else.”
Voltage was an experimental music magazine published by members of the InDesign QA team as a test of K2 in 1999.
Sandee Cohen, author and educator who calls herself an “InDesign Kvetch,” was hired to write and lay out a Visual Quickstart Guide (Peachpit Press) about InDesign 1.0. At the end of all the books Cohen produces, she adds a colophon that explains what tools were used in its creation. For this book that was a problem.
“InDesign was horribly buggy,” Cohen says, adding that the software lacked certain features essential to publishing a 200+-page book. “So I made the executive decision to lay the book out using QuarkXPress.” The colophon reflected that decision: “In rather bold type, the world was told that the book they were reading about InDesign had been laid out using QuarkXPress.” As the software became more stable, she was able to produce the entire book in InDesign, much to the relief of the engineering team.
The first commercial magazine ever published with InDesign pulled out all the stops to show what the software could do.
While InDesign 1.0 was not yet feasible for producing professional publications, this initial version had features QuarkXPress did not, such as multiple undos, automatic file save, content layers, OpenType support, and 4000% zoom. “Auto Save is a killer feature,” Citron says. “When QuarkXPress crashed (which was often) you’d be lucky if you could reopen your file ever again. Most of the time the file was toast.” In a savvy move to open the door for potential switchers, Adobe engineers also made sure that InDesign 1.0 could open QuarkXPress files.
Just seven months later, in March 2000, Adobe released InDesign 1.5, which improved its stability as well as introduced new features like Text on a Path and Free Transform. With this version, Adobe realized just how passionate and vocal the nascent InDesign community could be. “Adobe tried to charge a fee for version 1.5,” Cohen recalls. “The users went ballistic. They felt that since version 1.0 was unusable, they shouldn’t have to pay for what was essentially a fix. Eventually Adobe caved, and version 1.5 became a free upgrade.” Waiving the upgrade fee contrasted sharply with Quark’s penchant for charging customers hefty fees for every software improvement, no matter how minor.
InDesign 2.0 introduced transparency that let designers create multi-layered effects.
Turning Tables
Released in January 2002, InDesign 2.0 was the game changer. Ask any longstanding InDesign user when the tables turned on QuarkXPress, and this is the version cited. Why? Transparency was introduced in InDesign 2.0, as well as import of native Photoshop and Illustrator files. Now designers could place graphics and apply—and edit!—soft drop shadows, feathering, and blending modes within InDesign.
“InDesign 2.0 was the writing on the wall,” says Terry White, Principal Worldwide Design and Photography Evangelist, who joined Adobe in the mid-1990s and had a front-row seat to InDesign’s development. “What always got people to say ‘wow’ was the fact that they could place native Photoshop files with transparency and not have to do clipping masks.”
In just a few years, InDesign’s capabilities expanded exponentially.
At left is an InDesign 1.0 layout; at right is one created in InDesign 2.0.
That designers could harness the image editing power of Photoshop within InDesign resulted in visually rich layouts. Native file placement meant designers could work efficiently as well. What took many steps in QuarkXPress—place graphic in layout, return to Photoshop to create clipping path, re-place edited graphic in layout, return to Photoshop to fix clipping path, and so on—was accomplished within one application. If QuarkXPress users had glanced over the fence before to check out InDesign, the Adobe application now had their full attention. After all, Photoshop and Illustrator were important components of their design toolkits.
“Transparency sealed the deal in the battle with QuarkXPress,” Cole says. “I used to introduce my transparency demo to customers by calling the new feature ‘the steel folding chair in our Texas cage match with QuarkXPress.’”
Early public demos of InDesign were filled to capacity.
While transparency is the “killer feature” of InDesign 2.0, this version exploded with in-demand features, one of which was tables. Douglas Waterfall’s work on this feature was critical to the product’s success. “This turned out to be a huge effort on so many levels. I ended up right smack in the middle of having to figure out how to teach the text subsystem to host a table, and to have a table host text. There were so many architectural assumptions which had to be undone in order to get this to work.”
“Coming from QuarkXPress, which had no tables, InDesign’s table feature was a godsend,” says designer Scott Citron. “I used tables to quickly organize content that used to be done with tabs and underlines. Even better, data could be imported into tables or tables could be converted back into tabbed text.” Citron used the table feature in less conventional ways, too. He took advantage of the table feature’s grid structure and cell options to create a striking mosaic-like image of the Empire State Building for a poster illustration.
The Empire State Building, created with a table in InDesign 2.0 by Scott Citron.
Rufus Deuchler, who currently manages Creative Cloud Evangelism at Adobe, owned a design agency during InDesign’s early days. His creative workflow revolved around Photoshop, Freehand, and QuarkXPress. Although excited by the premise of InDesign 1.0, he didn’t see the point of implementing it in his current system. “Then came InDesign 2.0, and that was an entirely different story,” Deuchler says. “I attended an Adobe event and thought to myself that if it works as promised it would be life changing. And it was. I was working on a complex guidebook with maps, lots of images, and multiple languages, and I decided to give InDesign 2.0 a shot. Using layers for the languages, importing Illustrator and Photoshop files directly made me so much more efficient. A job I had planned to go for three weeks literally took me one. I was sold. I then brought the PDF files to the printer and everything went flawlessly. A new era had begun.”
InDesign CS: Adobe ups the ante with its cross-product integrations.
Reaching the Summit
The proverbial nail in the coffin of QuarkXPress was InDesign CS in Fall 2003. “CS” stood for Creative Suite, the name given to Adobe’s ambitious goal of sharing features and functions across all its creative applications. Under the hood, this strategy manifested itself in universal technologies like the Adobe Graphics Manager and the Adobe Type Engine that spanned products. In InDesign CS, this approach also bubbled up as user interface enhancements. For instance, InDesign gained an Info panel modeled on those of Photoshop and Illustrator, and the Measure tool from Illustrator found its way into InDesign.
Wayne Hoang, current Senior Product Marketing Manager for Adobe Design products, confirms the impact of the Creative Suite concept on InDesign’s success: “The real difference was when Adobe began to build integration across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. This continues to be what makes InDesign so powerful—the ability for users to easily move between apps, as well as leveraging services such as Adobe Fonts to access thousands of fonts within InDesign.”
MacWorld’s Editor’s Choice Award for Best Publishing Software proves prophetic.
Text controls in InDesign CS continued to improve and innovate. Nested styles was one of those features that boggled the mind. It let users apply embedded character styles within paragraph styles, thus implementing multiple formats with one click. “Nested styles was something that literally made me go ‘Whoa!,’” says Deuchler. “It made my book design go so much faster.”
More importantly, the Creative Suite concept served as a Trojan horse for InDesign. The Adobe applications that designers relied upon most—Photoshop and Illustrator—were sold as a unit, with InDesign part of the package. “People who bought Photoshop suddenly had InDesign on their desks, and folks cautious about InDesign at first were more willing to take a chance because they received Photoshop along with it,” said Frits Habermann.
Now Photoshop-buying, QuarkXPress-using designers had a no-risk way to take InDesign out for a spin. InDesign lapped QuarkXPress in almost every department. QuarkXPress was falling by the wayside. “Bundling InDesign together with Photoshop and Illustrator into the Creative Suite ultimately silenced anyone’s lingering doubts on who would ultimately win the DTP crown,” Williamson says. QuarkXPress was now a piece of digital publishing’s past, not its future.
“Being part of a successful effort to unseat an entrenched competitor with more than 90% market share was very satisfying and something that’s very rare in any industry,” he adds.
Tim Cole and Rufus Deuchler share InDesign tips and techniques during an episode of Caffè Fibonacci on Adobe TV.
Forging Ahead
Five more CS editions of InDesign were released over the next nine years. Adobe continued to push InDesign development, adding new features and enhancing existing ones. New directions were set as well that made InDesign a viable design tool for web and eBook publishing. PDF features were enhanced so that users could create interactive PDF forms within InDesign, for instance.
InDesign’s ecosystem had widened to include products like InCopy, a collaborative editing product. The ability to automate production tasks for specific publishing environments via scripting was also a key driver of InDesign’s success. “The fact that you can create any InDesign document via scripting is under-appreciated,” says Olav Martin Kvern, a former member of InDesign’s Developer Technologies team and a scripting expert. “I do not know of any other application—and certainly not one in a field as complex as graphic design, typesetting, and production—that is as complete or as capable as InDesign. There’s no need to wait for Adobe to add just exactly the feature you want—you can add it yourself, today, with InDesign scripting. That’s what I call user empowerment.”
But some users were still struggling. Enterprise customers were using the desktop version of InDesign to create thousands of pages of data-driven documents, which was a slow and painstaking process. What would speed up the process was a server version of InDesign. “As we were embarrassed that our jobs had to run for hours or even overnight, we spent much of our time in the years from 2000 to 2005 begging Adobe for a server form of the product,” said Max Dunn, President of Silicon Publishing, a company that creates custom InDesign solutions for customers who needed fast-throughput workflows. Adobe was hesitant at first, but it listened to its customers and produced InDesign Server in 2005.
“I think the InCopy and InDesign Server teams were instrumental and essential in InDesign’s victory over QuarkXPress,” Cole says. “Without them, InDesign would never have taken over the magazine and newspaper markets where Quark and CopyDesk [Quark’s editing tool] were dominating.”
Into the Clouds
If the Creative Suite concept shook up how applications are packaged, the Creative Cloud (CC) was a veritable earthquake by comparison. Introduced 10 years after the Creative Suite, CC is a subscription-based plan that allows users to download Adobe applications as needed. While some have balked at paying a monthly fee, the benefit to users is that they get access to an expanded collection of integrated apps and services that are constantly being refined. Updating to the latest version of any application requires only a click. Bug fixes can now be addressed faster, and up-to-date product versions can be downloaded instantly.
For example, InDesign users can go to the recently introduced forum indesign.uservoice.com to report a bug or request a feature. Members of the InDesign team read these messages and respond, indicating if a bug has been fixed and if so, citing the newest version of InDesign that addresses that issue. This immediate feedback not only keeps the software up to date but also ensures users that they’ve been heard.
“A lot of InDesign’s early success was built on our connection with the community. The teams were constantly connected with our customers,” says Wayne Hoang. That rich history of community connection included the creation of InDesign User groups back in 2001. First formed by Adobe’s Noha Edell, the User Groups gave InDesign users meeting places where they could see product demos and share information. Digital forums were another way of connecting with users. Vetted community experts answered questions about InDesign and formed relationships with kindred spirits.
Today that interaction between customers and company has accelerated, thanks to the popularity and pervasiveness of social media. “We launched indesign.uservoice.com, implemented community programs on our social channels, and have continued our outreach to current and future users,” says Hoang. “We are excited about these initiatives as they continue to build upon our strong foundations with the community.”
Getting Smart
Adobe hasn’t forgotten that what engages the community above all is the software itself. Hoang, who joined Adobe in 2017 and oversees InDesign development, offers two recent examples of software advances introduced in InDesign CC 14.0 (2019): the Properties panel and PDF comment import. He says, “With the Properties panel, InDesign now automatically surfaces up the controls and options you need intuitively. Instead of opening multiple panels or toolbars, the Properties panel shows options and controls automatically, and contextually when you need them. The end result is a simpler more intuitive user interface.”
PDF comment import is another notable addition—one that aims to connect individual Adobe technologies. Say a designer creates a layout in InDesign and saves it as a PDF that she then sends to a colleague. The colleague wants changes; he marks up the PDF and sends it back. The designer opens her InDesign file and clicks Import PDF Comments. Now those annotations (including text marked for insertion and deletion) appear in a panel through which changes can be methodically applied. Better yet, in some instances, InDesign will automatically apply the correction indicated in the note to the layout. “Prior to the feature, comments would need to be manually applied by the designer,” Hoang says. “Now you can bring the marked-up PDF comment into InDesign and have those changes automatically applied via the PDF.”
Other features you can look forward to will be based on Sensei, Adobe’s Artificial Intelligence technology. “We’re looking at more ways to use Adobe Sensei technology to streamline and automate tedious design tasks,” he says. “A few examples include Content-Aware fit and a new feature we are currently working on to merge text with photographs. For a designer working on a magazine cover, this is a tedious process to do manually. We’re exploring ways to use Adobe Sensei to make the tedious parts of design easier and faster.”
Rufus Deuchler echoes Hoang. “The art of layout will become increasingly assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) and it will help designers choose proper fonts, crop images, and so forth even faster than today,” he says. “In the end it’s all about speed. I see a lot of potential for speeding up tedious or repetitive operations a layout artist faces on a daily basis.”
Reaching 20
Reaching 20 is a momentous milestone. InDesign is no longer a precocious upstart. It’s a mature product in a rapidly changing world that consumes text and data much differently than it did just a few years ago. Just as the phrase “desktop publishing” is archaic, so too may the term “page layout” become obsolete. Whatever you want to call it, InDesign will do it.
The original InDesign team has moved on, to other companies or other positions within Adobe or even retirement. But the foundation they poured let others build a product that gives people the power to create wonderful things.
“When you’re part of a 1.0/2.0 product, you have no idea what its longevity with be,” says Maria Yap. “You hope you’ll build a successful product that addresses customers’ needs, but you don’t speculate how long the product will be in the market or how much impact it will have on the industry. Looking back at all the versions and all the features, I’m proud that I was there at the beginning and that I helped to set InDesign on the right course.”
Even as we celebrate InDesign’s 20th year, it’s interesting to circle back to the beginning to ponder what could have happened. Frits Habermann, for one, posited, “Had we re-architected PageMaker earlier in the game, Quark may not have taken away our core customer set, who in turn proved to be key influencers in the industry.” In an alternate universe where that happened, might you be reading an article about PageMaker’s 35th anniversary? We’ll never know.
Ultimately, perhaps PageMaker had to die to let InDesign be born. Maybe that’s why the initial packaging for InDesign featured a butterfly that had emerged from its chrysalis. Terry White, for one, understands that. “I remember the internal talk initially of this just being PageMaker 7,” he says. “Thankfully they decided to make it a new product with a new name.”
The InDesign story has not ended. But this seems like a good place to pause and raise a glass to our favorite layout program.