InDesign has always been capable of drag-placing files: You can drag a file of any format that InDesign supports (for example, a PSD or Word file) from the Desktop into an InDesign document. Or, you can drag files from Adobe Bridge onto a page. But this isn’t always easy to do because you have to reduce the size of your InDesign window so you can see the file(s) to be dragged and the InDesign window at the same time. Or, if you’re using Bridge you need to figure out how to use Compact mode so you can see files and the InDesign page simultaneously.
Now, if you’re an Mac user who has upgraded to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), you can use the enhanced features of Expose to drag-place files into InDesign. This trick works with at least InDesign CS3 and CS4 (the versions I was able to test).
Expose, introduced in Mac OS X 10.3, provides a way for a user to quickly view open windows in all applications, or display windows in the current application, or hide all windows to reveal the Desktop. Until Snow Leopard, the feature was invoked by a function key for each of its three modes.
In Snow Leopard, there are some enhancements: Windows no longer all scale by the same amount; smaller windows aren’t shrunk as much as larger one, making them more readable. They align neatly on a grid (or staggered if an odd number). Minimized windows in the Dock appear too – they appear in a separate bottom bar on the screen, with a line dividing them from the normal windows. And all windows get titles – no more need to scrub over each one to learn its name!
Even better, you can show the windows for an application by clicking and pausing over its Dock icon. Every other application shrinks away to nothing in the background, and your chosen application’s windows tile themselves out. Meanwhile in the Dock, your app is dramatically spotlit, and a little popup menu appears with the options to hide or quit the app, or set some of its Dock options.
This method now makes it easy to drag-place files into InDesign documents:
1. Select the file(s) you want to place. Of course, InDesign CS2 and greater can place multiple files at the same time.
2. Drag over the InDesign icon on the Dock, and all its open or minimized windows appear. (The smaller window indicates a file that has been minimized to the Dock.)
3. Drag over the window of the InDesign file in which you want to place your files.
4. That window will come to the front. If you’ve selected more than one file, you’ll see the multi-place cursor so you can place the files where you like.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on September 3, 2009
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You can do this with hot corners used to activate expose too.
It works really well if you can stand the accidental activation cause by the corners serving as triggers.
For example, you can have one activate your desktop, grab a file off it, use another to see all windows, hover over the window, hit the space bar, and drop it in.
I do it all day, and could not work without it.
Yes, keyboard shortcuts and assigning buttons on special mice are nice, but they’re not very “discoverable” by those who aren’t power users.
The new method is more likely to be discovered by those less technically adept and remembered by those with failing memory.
The great thing is that all these methods work!
@Eric:
I don’t have fancy mice with five buttons ;) , but I use F11 in this way ALL THE TIME.
When I’m dragging from a folder, I usually use Command-Tab to switch back to InDesign.
[quote]Expose, introduced in Mac OS X 10.3, provides a way for a user to quickly view open windows in all applications, or display windows in the current application, or hide all windows to reveal the Desktop. Until Snow Leopard, the feature was invoked by a function key for each of its three modes.[/quote]
Not entirely true. There has always been the ability to assign mouse buttons, and if you have a 5-button mouse the absolute best thing to do, IMHO, is to set buttons 4 and 5 to do Expose commands (which has worked since the introduction of Expose). This speeds up productivity in any app through the ability to quickly select amongst windows just from the mouse or to drag and drop from one window or the desktop to any window you have open.
To set it up, first go to the Expose System Prefs. Then set button 4 to “Show Desktop” and button 5 to “Show All Windows”.
Now with a little dextrous clicking, you can drag stuff from your desktop. Button 4, left click AND HOLD graphic icon you want to place, button 4 to bring ID docs back, release left click to drop graphic into document.
Similarly, you can drag from any folder into any window in ID. Button 5, left click Finder window with graphic, left click to select Finder window with graphics, left click AND HOLD graphic icon in Finder window, button 5, hover over ID window you want to release on and button 5 again to choose, release left click to drop graphic.
It sounds a little complicated, but in practice it is dirt simple and after a couple days it becomes nigh on impossible to imagine living without!
Excellent tip Steve regarding Snow Leopard.
The one advantage to Placing is you get Import Options (choose a Layer, Crop to:, etc), otherwise I like to use drag-and-drop (into InDesign either from the Desktop (which is what this method does) or from Bridge.)
John,
You never lose the integrity of the file if you drag-and-drop into InDesign either from the Desktop (which is what this method does) or from Bridge. These methods create a link and maintain the integrity of the file exactly as if you had chosen File > Place. (Claudia McCue calls this “Good Drag and Drop” in her great book “Real World Print Production.”)
Dragging directly from PHOTOSHOP will change the file. I will be embedded, it will become RGB. (Claudia calls this “Bad Drag and Drop”.)
What I wanted to say is that most of the conferences’ attendees are reading InDesign Secrets ;-)
Drag & dropping documents is great BUT let’s not forget that when we do that, we lose some integrity of the original file. This is especially true when dragging and dropping images. If you have a duotone, for example, dragging it into an InDesign document will bring it in as CMYK (probably not what you’d want). I know that copy/paste of Word files lose locally formatted bolds and italics.
I try to teach my students that PLACING is always preferred because InDesign recognizes the file type better and runs it through its translators.
Thanks for the post, Steve! That ability to head toward the dock in Snow Leopard sounds sweet. And I agree: I don’t recall the Expose trick showing up here before. (Not everyone got your conference handouts, Branislav! Even though they were good!) ;)
Points well taken that it was possible to do drag and drop in OTHER WAYS on the Mac and in Windows into InDesign windows. Thanks for the links!
However, this is a NEW way (and I would claim, a more discoverable and easier way) to do it on the Macintosh. I believe I had tried one of those methods other before, but it was sufficiently obscure and hard-to-remember that it dropped out of my memory bank! Expose now makes it easy enough that I’ll probably remember this one.
In a quick search last night when I was writing this, I couldn’t find that we had covered this topic on InDesignSecrets.com before.
This also works in Windows with Alt+Tab or in Vista with Win+Tab.
Sorry Steve – but nothing new here? :)
GeorgS, I think you have not read my previous post but this is exactly what I have written. ;-)
For those of you who are fluent in French, I made a video three years ago (Tiger) about all the possible tricks you can do with Mac OS X’s Exposé and Adobe CS2 applications.
The free video can be watched here : https://www.indesignvideos.com/videos-gratuites/idcs2-macosx-768.mov
you can also grab the file (in Finder or Bridge), hold Command+Tab, and move the mouse over the Indesign icon (still holding the mouse button), release the Command+Tab and wait for Indesign to redraw. Now you can drop the file into the doc.
Georg
Hi Steve, the step-by-step process was even possible with CS2 and in Tiger even if InDesign was hidden.
The tip is described in the handouts of the InDesign conferences where I was present as a speaker, and I think that many InDesignSecrets readers have these handouts.
The quick way was to simply invoke Exposé and then Cmd-Tab to display the icon of the hidden InDesign app, hover it and then ID is again in front and then you can choose the target window. At this stage you can change the Exposé mode to F9 or F11.