In QuarkXPress 4, you can stop an object from printing by selecting it and then choosing Item> Modify. At the bottom of that dialog box you check the Suppress Printing option. InDesign 2 has a similar feature located in a different position.
Let’s say you want to add notes to a document, but you don’t want them to print (figure 1). Simply open the Attributes palette and check Nonprinting (figure 2).
Figure 1: These notes let one person communicate with another, but really should not print as part of the final document.
Figure 2: You can set an object to not print using the Attributes palette.
However, just because you’ve set something to Nonprinting doesn’t mean you might not want it to print under some circumstances. All you need to do is check the Option to print Non-printing Objects in the General category of the Print dialog box (figure 3).
Figure 3: If you need to print out the non-printing items, just click the option in the General category of the Print dialog box.
Another way to set objects to not print is to put them on their own layer and then turn off the visibility of that layer before output (figure 4). I’m not as fond of this method since you have to remember to turn off the layer just before output.
Figure 4: When the visibility of a layer is turned off, objects on that layer do not print.
Read more On the Move to InDesign tips here.
Read more by Sandee Cohen.
This article was last modified on March 10, 2025
This article was first published on April 10, 2002
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I’ve been looking for this command everywhere. Thanks.