InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Calling Out Characters

To insert a special character in QuarkXPress, you're forced to memorize particular keystrokes, or perhaps rely on a crib sheet taped near your computer. By contrast, InDesign gives you several ways of calling out special charactersincluding two menus and a palette. However, you can still use keystrokes if you prefer. In addition, if you're using OpenType fonts, some special characters can be inserted in your text automatically.

Insert Character Menus

InDesign offers three special character submenus under the Type menu: Insert Special Character, Insert White Space, or Insert Break Character. The menus list all the white space and break characters and many common visible special characters. Instead of going to the Type menu, you can insert special characters with the context menu: Use the Type tool to place the text insertion point, then Control-click/right-click and select a character from one of the three submenus (see Figure 51-1).

Glyphs Palette

The Glyphs palette gives you access to all glyphs in a font. You can open the palette by placing the text cursor in a frame and choosing Insert Glyphs from the Type menu (see Figure 51-2). The palette displays the glyphs from the current font, though you can choose a different font from the Font Family and Type Style menus at the bottom. Click the Zoom buttons to enlarge or reduce the size of the glyphs. Then scroll through the palette to see all the characters. To insert a glyph you see in the Glyphs palette, double-click on it.

When viewing an OpenType font, the Show menu also lets you see a subset of the glyphs, such as Small Capitals or Oldstyle Figures. To replace one character with an alternate glyph, select the character in your text, then choose Alternates for Selection from the Show menu. If there are alternate glyphs, they are displayed. Double-click a glyph to replace the selected character.

Be careful when changing fonts in the Glyphs palette; if you have text selected, this is the same as changing its font in the Character palette.

Keystrokes

Of course, the fastest way to get a special character is to memorize and type a keystroke. Many special characters already have shortcuts defined (see Chapter 6 for more on how to set, view, and edit shortcuts).