Recently in Tips and Tricks Category

 

This week's shortcut is a twofer. Let's say you're entering info in a field of a panel, and you want to move to the next field. Type the Tab key to jump to the next field of the panel you're working in. Need to go back? No problem. Hold down Shift and type Tab to jump to the previous field of the panel. Remember, though, that Tab is also a text character, so make sure you've moved your cursor out of live text, and into the panel you want to work with, or you'll end up with a typo.

HOT TIP: This works across Adobe applications, and beyond. Use it in Microsoft Office, in a web browser, and pretty much anywhere.

PS: If you haven't done it yet, download a free poster with our first 25 Shortcuts to Success!

 

Manually adding page numbers to a document in sequence, a process know as paginating, can be tedious, especially when the order of the pages changes. Save yourself lots of time and effort and let InDesign do the work for you. Click in a text frame with the Type Tool, and type command + option + shift + N to insert the Current Page Number Marker. 

HOT TIP: Do this on the file's Master Page(s), and any existing or new Document Page based on those Master(s) will automatically paginate, even if moved to a different position.

PS: If you haven't done it yet, download a free poster with our first 25 Shortcuts to Success!

 

The easiest and fastest way to add a left indent to a paragraph is to use the Indent to Here Character. To insert the Indent to Here Character, type command + \ (backslash). See it in action after the jump. 

 

A hyphen can be one of the most dangerous characters to use, because it can lead to a typo if your text reflows. InDesign has a special character called a discretionary hyphen, which appears when it's needed, and goes away when it isn't. To insert a discretionary hyphen, type command + shift + hyphen. See it in action after the jump. 

 

If you don't know about the Glyphs Panel, your life is about to be changed, forever! But, first, what is a glyph? Well, in typography, it simply means any mark. A character can have more than one glyph. Let's say a font has two versions of the letter F. The F is the character, and each version is a glyph. The Glyphs Panel is a great tool, because it lets you see and select every glyph for any font loaded in your system. See how it's done, after the jump.

 

option + e + character; option + `  + character

Every so often, you'll need to use a word that requires an acute or grave accent. This is frequently the case if you're working in a language other than English, like our friends and Pub Crawl hosts at People en Español. Here's how to do it:

PS: If you haven't done it yet, download a free poster with our first 25 Shortcuts to Success!

 

You probably know that using swatches to manage color is a big time-saver, because you can define them, apply them, and once you edit them, the change will be applied throughout your document. Save even more time with this shortcut that lets you choose how you want to apply your swatch to a selected object. Type X to toggle between the fill and stroke, activating one and deactivating the other. Just make sure, as usual, that you're not in live text, or you'll end up with an unwanted X.

HOT TIP: Check out our shortcut from September to learn how to swap the fill and stroke.

PS: If you haven't done it yet, download a free poster with our first 25 Shortcuts to Success!

 

The Help Menu is an often overlooked resource for getting yourself unstuck when you're not quite sure how to do what you want to do. Type command + shift + ? to access the Help Menu, and type what you're looking for into the search field, or choose a menu item. See an example after the jump.

 

Some of us like to work in picas, others in inches, and some even in centimeters. You can easily customize InDesign to suit your needs by changing Preferences. To open the Preferences dialog box and select the General tab, type command + K. Simply click a different tab to change to it.

PS: If you haven't done it yet, download a free poster with our first 25 Shortcuts to Success!

Let's say you want to push a subhead to the top of the next column in a chain of text. Instead of resizing the text frame, or adding more words, click with the Type Tool in front of the text that you want to push to the next column, and type enter.