Make a New Document Fast with a Keyboard Shortcut
One little keyboard shortcut can save you a lot of time when making documents of the same size
Just a quickie to mention one of my favorite and most-used shortcuts — something that I find many people still don’t use. You can press Command-Option-N or Ctrl-Alt-N to create a new document quickly, without opening the New Document dialog box.
The document you get is based on the last-used setting in the Document Preset pop-up menu of the New Document dialog box. In other words, if you know you’re going to be making 10 files with the same New Document settings, just set it up once, then click the Save Preset button in the New Document dialog box and give it a name. When you click OK, you’ll get the first one. Since that was the last setting in the pop-up menu, pressing this shortcut will get you more of the same.
Easy, quick, and oh-so-helpful.
If you find yourself with a lot of document presets, note that you can also select them from the File > Document Preset menu. But that’s boring, because that just opens the New Document dialog box set up to that preset. Instead, hold down the Shift key while selecting from that menu and you’ll make the new document, bypassing the dialog box entirely.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on October 14, 2008
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Recommended for you
Create a Keyboard Shortcut for Preview Mode
It's not hard to define your own keyboard shortcut that works even when your'e e...
6 ways to type the Pi symbol in InDesign
My youngest son informed me today that we are 10 days from Pi day (in the US). 3...
Tip of the Week: Reset Tracking and Kerning
This InDesign tip on how to reset tracking and kerning was sent to Tip of the We...
