ADOBE INDESIGN : GENERAL TIPS

Resetting Preferences:
If InDesign CS2 crashes, freezes or shuts down unexpectedly while you are working in the application it may mean the Preference file has become corrupted. You can fix a lot of these problems by deleting the preference file when launching InDesign:

Method 1:
Launch InDesign, then immediately hold down Shift+Alt+Ctrl (Windows) or Shift+Control+Option+Command (Macintosh). This will delete the old preference file so that InDesign launches using manufacturer's default settings.

Method 2:
1. Quit InDesign.
2. Rename the InDesign SavedData file and the InDesign Defaults file (for example, to InDesign SavedData.old, InDesign Defaults.old) in the following location:
-- Windows: Documents and Settings/ [user name] /Application Data/Adobe/InDesign/Version 4.0
-- Mac OS: [user name] /Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 4.0
3. Start InDesign. InDesign creates new preference files.
4. If the problem persists, you can restore the original preferences by deleting the new files and renaming the old preference files back to their original names.

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

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.

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.

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.

Type-size Shortcuts:
To change type size and leading incrementally, start by setting increment size (in Preferences > Units & Increments). In your document, use Shift+Command/Ctrl+< (fullstop) to decrease the point size of selected type by one increment, and Shift+Command/Ctrl+> (comma) 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.

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.
1. Use the Text tool to create a text frame.
2. In Text Frame Options, choose the desired number of columns.
3. Use the Type on a Path tool on the text frame outline and type the headline.
4. Position the text brackets so that the text begins and ends above the text frame.
5. Thread the text frames by selecting the headline out-port and connecting it to the text frame.
6. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/xml_scripting.html and download the bundle of scripts from there.

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.

Same Image, Multiple Frames:
For an interesting effect, you can make one image look as if it's inside multiple frames:
1. Place the image in a circular frame.
2. Use Edit > Step and Repeat to create a row of frames.
3. Using the Direct Selection tool, shift-click to select each image.
4. 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!)
5. 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.

Extending a Table:
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:
1. Hover your Text tool cursor over the bottom or right edge of the table so that the cursor changes to a double arrow.
2. Now, press and hold down the mouse button -- but still don't move the mouse.
3. Press and hold down Shift and the Option/Alt key.
4. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stroke Frame and Table Corners:
Here's how to make a stroke that appears only at the corners of a frame:
1. Create a new dashed stroke style by choosing Stroke Styles from the Stroke palette menu. Call it something like Corners.
2. Apply the stroke to a text or graphic frame and give it an adequate stroke width.
3. Return to the stroke style to edit Corners.
4. For Pattern Length, insert a value that is much larger than your frame.
5. For Corners, choose Adjust Gaps (which will keep the length of the dash fixed).
6. Choose Preview for real time fine-tuning.
7. 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.

Viewing Component Information:
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.

Last updated: 6 Feb 07

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