Top 10 Things You Must Do Immediately After Installing InDesign

When you buy a baseball glove or a bicycle, you expect to spend a little time setting it up or breaking it in. Likewise, when you first install InDesign, don’t just start using it “out of the box.” Instead, take some time to set it up right. When I help teams get up and running with InDesign, I suggest ten things to do immediately after launching InDesign for the first time. Some of these things provide immediate benefit, and some lay the groundwork for being a productive dynamo in InDesign. In this article, we’ll go through each of those ten things, so let’s jump in.

1. Set Your Default Units in Preferences

After launching InDesign and creating your first document, you soon realize that most measurements in InDesign are based on the unit of measure called the pica. The first time I heard of picas, I wondered what was wrong with the good old inch or centimeter? My first triumph in InDesign was changing the unit of measure to something I was likely to use—that good old inch. To change units, if you have a document open, you can right-click the little square area where the horizontal and vertical ruler come together, and choose the unit of measure you wish to use for that document only (Figure 1). That changes the unit of measure on both rulers. I was happy to learn that, but then I opened a new document later that day only to realize that the old pica was rearing its ugly head again. Clearly, I had to change the unit somewhere else!

Tip: Press Command+Option+Shift+U (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U in Windows) a series of times to toggle between all of the units of measure on both rulers (if the rulers are set to the same unit to begin with). InDesign has something called the “no pub state” that us old-timers refer to. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with Prohibition. It means that you can set preferences for the program with no documents (pubs) open, and those preferences are then set for every new document you create. So, with no documents open in InDesign, choose InDesign > Preferences (Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Windows), and select the Units & Increments category (Figure 2). In the Ruler Units options, change the units for Horizontal and Vertical to Inches (or whatever you need—including the handy Cicero [insert sarcasm]). Click OK, and inches are what you’ll see with every new document. Note: This won’t affect existing documents when you open them later—just new documents.

2. Adjust Default Settings

InDesign has some serious power when you are ready to dive in, and part of that power comes from setting the right presets for the program. As with setting your measurement system, the Preferences dialog box (InDesign > Preferences [Mac] or Edit > Preferences [Windows]) is where you can set program preferences that control how InDesign “thinks.” The Preferences dialog box isn’t the only place to set up the program, though. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been cruising along in my workday in InDesign only to find that the default font for the program changed to a font like Giddyup or Times New Roman, or even a missing font. I’ve thought to myself, “when did I do that?” Well, much like the units you set in the previous section, there are default settings you can set with no documents open that will become the program defaults going forward. For example, try this:

1. Close all open documents in InDesign (but don’t quit the application).
2. In the Swatches panel, choose New Swatch after clicking the panel menu icon in the upper right corner of the panel, and define a color (Figure 3).
3. Create a new document. The swatch is there! Imagine setting up a series of company colors you use all of the time as default swatches.

The same defaults hold true for styles (Paragraph, Character, Object, Table, and Cell styles). Imagine a workflow where your base company styles and colors are always there—no copying from an existing document or importing every time. But let’s take this a bit further. With no documents open, select the Type tool in the Tools panel (Figure 4). You now have access to the character and paragraph formatting in the Control panel (or Character panel and Paragraph panel). If you were to change, say, the Font Family, that characteristic would change for every new document and override the Basic Paragraph style (so be careful). Tip: If you have a document open and nothing is selected on your page, and you then select the Type tool and make some character or paragraph formatting changes, that change becomes the default for all new text frames, but only in that document. I learned that one the hard way at the eleventh hour on a book I was working on. Tip: If you either take this too far and change something that shouldn’t be changed, or somehow it changes mysteriously on its own, you can always reset the program preferences to start again. Quit out of InDesign, and relaunch it. Immediately after relaunching, press Command+Option+Shift+Control (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) and a dialog box will appear asking if you want to delete the InDesign preferences (Figure 5). Click Yes. This will reset all of the preferences and settings to their defaults (including those in the Preferences dialog box).

3. Set the Keyboard Increments for Type Shortcuts (leading, kerning, etc.)

Most of us start learning InDesign’s keyboard commands in order to stem the monotony of having to choose the same features from the File menu for the six billionth time in the last hour. The same holds true for working with text formatting. There’s only so many times you can click the little arrows to the left of the leading or kerning fields, for instance, to edit those properties for your text before searching for a faster way to get it done. Using keyboard shortcuts, you can adjust a lot of the type formatting in your documents. This can shave tons of time off your day (if you’re paid hourly, then skip to the next section—I’m just kidding). Here are some keyboard shortcuts worth learning:

• Sizing text: Command+Shift+< or > (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+< or > (Windows)
• Leading: Option+Up Arrow/Down Arrow (Mac) or Alt+Up Arrow/Down Arrow (Windows)
• Kerning/tracking: Option+Right Arrow/Left Arrow (Mac) or Alt+Right Arrow/Left Arrow (Windows)

“But I want bigger (or smaller) increments!” you say. No problem. Each of these keyboard shortcuts has set increments (how much the option changes every time you press the shortcut). You can and should change those increments when you first open InDesign. Close all open InDesign documents, because the preferences you are about to edit are part of that “no pub state” thing. Choose InDesign > Preferences on the Mac or Edit > Preferences in Windows, and select the Units & Increments category again. Figure 6 shows suggestions based on my own experience. As you work in InDesign, you may wish to change these to match your work habits. After setting the options, click OK.

4. Create Your Own Workspace

Some people, when they first get into InDesign (and some of us, for our entire InDesign careers) wrestle with the application’s user interface. Particularly, the many panels and toolbars (and other bits of the workspace) can be a bit frustrating and cumbersome, especially when you are constantly opening/closing and moving them out of the way to see your design. Well, InDesign has a built-in method for wrangling the workspace that you should learn right out of the gate. One of the first things I suggest people do in InDesign is to familiarize themselves with how to reset the workspace (get everything back where it was when you first launched InDesign) and then learn how to create your own customized workspace. With InDesign open, choose Window > Workspace (or in the Application bar above the document window, you can see the same options in the Workspace Switcher). The default set of workspaces is listed in the menu. Choose Window > Workspace > Advanced, because that’s far better than the stripped-down Essential workspace. But then, after you inevitably open, close, or move panels, then choose Window > Workspace > Reset Advanced. Just choosing one of the workspaces isn’t enough—the workspace isn’t reset. InDesign remembers every change you make to a workspace and only discards those changes when you choose Reset (Figure 7).

Even better than using Advanced is making your own custom workspace. If you open panels from the Window menu, you can arrange them in the workspace by docking them however you like. You can then create a new workspace by choosing Window > Workspace > New Workspace, give it a name, and click OK. Next time you want it, you can then simply choose your workspace from the workspace menu to get a jump-start on productivity. Tip: When I make a custom workspace, I usually start with the Advanced workspace because it has most of what I need. Then I add the Text Wrap panel (Window > Text Wrap) and the Info panel (Window > Info). Open the panels you most use, and then save your workspace.

5. Set Panel Options

Almost every panel in InDesign has options that can be set to make the panel behave the way you want it. By clicking the panel menu icon in the upper right corner of the panel, you can access the options. Here are a few of those options that you should consider setting when you first crack open InDesign.

• Links panel: Click the Links panel menu icon, and choose Panel Options (Figure 8). In the Panel Options dialog box, you can set the size of the links to smaller, so more fit in the panel at once, and you can also select specific attributes and options such as Show Link Info to see a thumbnail of a link in the panel when it’s selected in the list. I also like to turn on the Effective PPI and Scale checkboxes in the Show Column section, so that I can see that image information with a quick glance at the panel.

• Pages panel: Click the Pages panel menu icon, and choose Panel Options. You can change the appearance of the pages in the panel by selecting a size and whether or not to show thumbnails. My favorite option, though, used to be in Panel Options, but is now in the Pages panel menu’s View Pages submenu: The option to display the pages horizontally instead of vertically in the panel. (It generally makes better use of the screen real estate to view them horizontally in the panel.)
• Swatches panel: From the Swatches panel menu, you can choose an option like Small Swatch to show the colors in the Swatches panel the way Illustrator does.

6. Set Up Spell Check

One of my favorite geek features in InDesign is working with the spelling and autocorrect feature. InDesign’s spelling features include check spelling, dynamic spelling, and autocorrect. Check spelling (Edit > Spelling > Check Spelling) is similar to other applications in that it checks the spelling throughout the document(s) you have open and allows you to check against a default dictionary or a user dictionary that you can edit (Figure 9) and even share with others.

My favorite spelling feature is dynamic spelling. Dynamic spelling (Edit > Spelling > Dynamic Spelling) will flag words as you type that aren’t in the defined dictionary, putting those red squiggly lines under text. Pretty helpful, most of the time. Dynamic spelling can be toggled on and off in the Edit menu, and there is a preference for it in the Preferences dialog box, in the Spelling category (InDesign > Preferences on the Mac or Edit > Preferences in Windows). Autocorrect is one of those features that can be useful in several ways; and when it’s not being useful, it can be toggled on and off by choosing Edit > Spelling > Autocorrect. Autocorrect needs to be set up and “taught.” It works as you type (not on existing or placed text) to help automatically correct words you constantly misspell (I couldn’t survive in InDesign without it). Here’s how:

1. Choose InDesign > Preferences (Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Windows), and select the Autocorrect category.
2. Select Enable Autocorrect. You’ll see a default list of words that have a misspelling and a correction.
3. Add your own entries by clicking the Add button and typing in the misspelling (as you usually type it—like “indeisng”), and then the correct spelling, like “InDesign.” Click OK (Figure 10).

In the document you have open, begin typing misspelled words; those found in the preferences list will be automatically corrected. I definitely like turning on and customizing autocorrect in all new InDesign installations.

7. Learn Basic Shortcuts

As I mentioned earlier, learning some basic keyboard shortcuts can save you a ton of time. I know there’s lots to learn in the program, but remembering a few basic keyboard shortcuts can go a long way. Here are just a few of the most basic shortcuts to get you started—the ones you just have to learn:

• Zoom in: Command/Ctrl+=
• Zoom out: Command/Ctrl+-
• Zoom in (when not using the Type tool): Command/Ctrl+Spacebar
• Zoom out (when not using the Type tool): Command/Ctrl+Option/Alt+Spacebar
• Select through objects: Press and hold Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click overlapping objects
• Place images: Command/Ctrl+D
• Jump to first field in Control panel: Command/Ctrl+6
• Switch between paragraph and character formatting in Control panel when Type tool is selected: Command/Ctrl+Option/Alt+7
• Unlock master items: Shift+Command/Ctrl-click on a master item on a page
• Switch to the Selection tool when type cursor is in a text frame: Esc
• Toggle visibility of panels: Tab or Shift+Tab to show or hide just the docked panels on the right side of the workspace

8. Import Predefined Settings

If you work in a team environment or work with a service provider, like a printer, it can be very useful to import defined settings that can make your time in InDesign much easier and more efficient. For instance, there are a series of presets you can import to ensure that you are using the optimal PDF settings for your team (also called “joboptions” by many PDF mavens), or print settings for your service provider. To add, change, or export your own settings, you can either choose File > Adobe PDF Presets > Define (for PDF settings) or File > Print Presets > Define (for print settings). You can then load the settings given to you by a team member or other colleague (they can even email the settings file to you) in the dialog boxes that appear (Figure 11). Those settings will remain in InDesign and can be used for any document.

9. Start a Library for Re-usable Content

Part of getting a fresh start is getting ready to work on new files. When I first started out using InDesign, I would open an InDesign file that someone else created and copy and paste content that I didn’t know how to build (or didn’t have time to learn how to build), and paste it into my InDesign file. I was being industrious in my own way, but InDesign has a more powerful feature for storing and using content—one that you should consider setting up right away: Libraries. Libraries are a way for you to save and reuse design elements across one or more document. Libraries can store text frames, linked graphics, entire page designs, and more. You can set up as many libraries as you need. In order to create one, choose File > New > Library, and save your library wherever you can later get at it. An .indl file is created that you can open and close like a regular InDesign document, except that libraries open as panels that can be saved in your workspaces (the name of the library file becomes the name of the panel). I won’t go into all of the awesome features of libraries, but I will say that you can simply click and drag items to the library to add them as untitled objects. To use them, simply drag them into any InDesign document (Figure 12). You can even edit the name and object type of the library item to make it easier to keep track of them and search later.

10. Get Familiar with Scripts and Plug-ins

Getting InDesign set up is just part of the task; next you need to set up the environment within which you’re using InDesign. No, I’m not talking about putting flowers on your standing desk; I’m talking about your digital environment: the other programs and tools you have at your fingertips. Apps (such as Illustrator and Photoshop) are part of that; but scripts and plug-ins are often just as important. Some of those scripts and plug-ins ship right with InDesign, and others come from third-party vendors. Scripts and plug-ins can be used to automate repetitive tasks, make things possible that InDesign can’t do out of the box, and more. I’m not expecting you to jump feet first into the deep end of the pool, so to speak. I just want you to be aware of these and see if there are any out there that can make an immediate impact on how you work in InDesign. You can find the scripts in InDesign in the Scripts panel (Window > Utilities > Scripts). As you can see in Figure 13, there are two folders: Application (those that come with InDesign by default) and User (a folder for your scripts). If you want to run a script that comes with InDesign, double-click it in the Scripts panel. If the script needs something to be selected first, it usually warns you after you attempt to run it. Plug-ins often have their own installer and show up in various menus in InDesign; check the plug-in’s documentation for details.

To install your own scripts, check out How to Install a Script in InDesign That You Found in a Forum or Blog Post. Here are a few of my favorites (everyone has their favorites, I know):

• PatternMaker
• Calendar Wizard
• TextStitch

For more info on working with scripts, check out 20 Free Must-Have Scripts for InDesign Users and the Free Stuff at Creativepro.com.

Wrap Up

Well, there you have it—the ten things you should do immediately after launching InDesign. Some of them you can utilize right away and others are great foundations for a more productive future in InDesign. Honestly, I could think of about a hundred things, but to me, these will give you the most bang for your buck. With that said, go forth and be productive in InDesign.