Tips and Techniques

The tips here rotate randomly, so be sure to come back often for more tips. You can also reload the page to get new tips. Note that we show both Macintosh and Windows keyboard shortcuts, Macintosh first.

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InDesign CS3 | InDesign CS2 | InDesign CS

InDesign CS3

Revenge of the Butterflies

The new iconography for Creative Suite is fairly boring, though many people disliked the previous versions' nature subjects. But if you miss the old InDesign butterflies, open the About box (choose InDesignAbout on the Mac, or HelpAbout in Windows) and type butterfly. Watch what happens. And the longer you let it go, the more interesting it gets! (Also see what happens when you click a butterfly.)

Interface and Operation Tips

Tip #30: To close all windows for the currently displayed document, press Shift++W or Ctrl+Shift+W. To close all windows for all open documents, press Option+Shift++W or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W.

Layout, Typography, Graphics, and Output Tips

Tip #138: To remove all layers that do not contain objects, choose Delete Unused Layers from the Layers panel's flyout menu.

What's New in Version 5 (InDesign CS3)

New #77: Newly supported text attributes in InDesign CS3 for importing include support for automatic bulleted and numbered lists, Word's various underline options, and tracked changes (for use in InCopy).

Notes for QuarkXPress Users

Note #22: Unlike Windows QuarkXPress, InDesign for Windows supports automatic ligatures in Windows fonts that have them.

InDesign CS3 | InDesign CS2 | InDesign CS

InDesign CS2

Interface and Operation Tips

Tip #131: The operands for performing math in fields are + (addition), - (subtraction), * (multiplication), and / (division). If you want to combine these operands — for example, add 5 then subtract 2 — you'll have to remember back to middle school and Algebra I to type the operands in the correct order: multiply, divide, add, and then subtract.

Layout, Typography, and Graphics Tips

Tip #348: The Transformations Are Totals option in the Transform pane's and Control palette's palette menu relates to the angle of rotation of a nested object. If Transformations Are Totals is selected, the Rotation Angle displayed for a nested item is calculated by adding its angle to the angle of the containing frame. For example, if Transformations Are Totals is selected, a graphic that's been rotated 30 degrees that's in a frame that's been rotated 30 degrees will display a Rotation Angle value of 60°. If Transformations Are Totals is not selected, the Rotation Angle value is 30°.

What's New in Version 4 (InDesign CS2)

New #81: The Delete Elements, Frames, and Content That Do Not Match Imported XML; Only Import Elements That Match Existing Structure; Repeated Text Elements Inherit Formatting; and Do Not Import Contents of Whitespace-Only Elements are new options in the InDesign CS2 Import XML dialog box. To access these controls, the Show XML Import Options option must be selected in the Import XML dialog box.

Notes for QuarkXPress Users

Note #39: InDesign and QuarkXPress have comparable color-calibration features, but there are some differences: QuarkXPress does not let you apply black-point compensation. And InDesign lets you save your color-management preferences for use in other documents, as well as share them across all Creative Suite 2 applications automatically.

InDesign CS3 | InDesign CS2 | InDesign CS

InDesign CS

Interface and Operation Tips

Tip #27: To temporarily access the Hand tool when the Type tool is not selected, press the spacebar. The hand pointer is displayed. Click and drag to move the page within the document window. (This is one of InDesign's most useful keyboard shortcuts!)

Layout, Typography, and Graphics Tips

Tip #240: You should never enter text in all capital letters, even if you think you want all caps. If you enter lowercase letters, you can easily change them to uppercase by applying the All Caps format, but if you enter uppercase letters, you can't change them to lowercase or to small caps without retyping them.

What's New in Version 3 (InDesign CS)

New #36: You can now resize a text frame with the Text tool.

Notes for QuarkXPress Users

Note #34: Although InDesign doesn't have background, frame, and contents icons in its Swatches pane to let you select where color is applied, as QuarkXPress does, InDesign lets you determine what component of the image gets the color based on how you apply the color, as described earlier. Furthermore, you can use the Control palette's Select Container and Select Contents icons to choose whether the image background or contents, respectively, are colored when you click a swatch.

InDesign CS3 | InDesign CS2 | InDesign CS

REMEMBER:
Adobe Creative Suite does not come with a printed manual for InDesign!

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