InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Resizing Objects

Resizing a path or frame changes its horizontal or vertical dimensions. As you'll see below, resizing is generally done in InDesign the same way as in QuarkXPress. But InDesign offers a few additional ways to resizeor

scale as Adobe prefers to call it.

There are both interactive and numeric ways of scaling in InDesign. When using the numeric methods described below (the Transform palette and Scale tool), whether or not the content of a frame also changes depends on whether the Transform Content option is on or off in the Transform palette's menu. This feature is turned on by default, so any transformation applies to both frame and content; when turned off, the scaling applies only to the frame.

Dragging the Bounding Box

To resize an object interactively you need to see its bounding box, so you must select it with the Selection tool rather than the Direct Selection tool. You can drag the bounding box handles just as in XPress: When you drag a side handle it resizes it in one dimensionhorizontally or vertically. When you drag a corner handle, you resize it in both dimensions.

To maintain proportions with when resizing a path or frame, hold down the Shift key while dragging the handle. (This is different than in XPress.) However, if you're working with a graphic frame (or a frame with a nested object) and you want the frame's contents to be scaled as well, hold down the Command-Shift/Ctrl-Shift keys when dragging. (This doesn't work for scaling text, though.) See Chapter 64 for more on working with scaling graphics.

Using the Transform Palette

If you know exactly the new size you want the object to be, you can enter either new Height and Width values (in the W: or H: fields) and press Enter, and the object changes immediately. Here's a handy trick to maintain proportions: Type either the Height or Width value, hold down the Command/Ctrl key and press Enter. The other value gets proportionately changed, and the width/height ratio of the object is maintained.

If you want to scale the object to specific percentages, you can enter the new values in the Scale X Percentage and Scale Y Percentage fields, then press Enter. The new scaling percentage appears in the percentage fields. You can use the same trick mentioned above to maintain proportions: Enter a new value in either of the percentage fields, hold down the Command/Ctrl key and press Enter.

Another way to scale by percentage is to use math in the Width and Height fields: just type an asterisk (*) after the current width or height, then type the percentage as a decimal. For instance, 25 percent would be "*.25" and 140 percent would be "*1.4".

Dragging with the Scale Tool

While XPress has no Scale tool, if you're an Illustrator user, you're already familiar with this InDesign feature. InDesign's works almost identically. It has two modesyou can use it to scale by dragging, or you can use the Scale dialog to scale numerically. The Scale tool has one big advantage over other methods: If you want to track scaling changes for a graphic, empty frame, or a path, InDesign shows the scaling values in the Transform palette even after scaling; using most of the other methods, the scaling percentage reverts to 100 percent.

To scale a selected object interactively, position the Scale tool some distance away from the transformation point (see Figure 17-5). The farther from the transformation point you start, the more control you have. Drag in the direction you want to scale the object. Dragging away from the point will make the object larger; moving closer to the point makes it smaller. Holding down the Shift key as you drag constrains to horizontal, vertical or proportional.

Using the Scale Dialog Box

To scale numerically, open the Scale dialog box. While you could choose the Scale command from the Transform submenu (under the Object menu), its much faster to simply double-click the Scale tool to open this dialog box (see Figure 17-6).

• To scale proportionately in the Scale dialog box, select Uniform, enter the scaling percentage, and click OK.




• To scale disproportionately, select Non-Uniform, enter horizontal and vertical scaling percentages, and click OK.




• You can move the object's transformation point and open this dialog box at the same time by Option/Alt-clicking on the page.

Other Ways to Scale

Amazingly enough, there are even two more ways to scale objects in InDesign. First, there is a keyboard shortcut to increase the size of an object in one percent increments (Command/Ctrl-. [period]); or to decrease the size (Command/Ctrl-, [comma]). To change the size in five percent increments also press the Option/Alt key. Note that these won't change the size of text within a text frame, but they do change pictures in graphic frames.

Finally, you can scale while using the Free Transform tool, a tool which lets you perform different kind of tranformations at the same time. We'll discuss that in the next chapter.

Stroke Weights and Scaling Objects

We said the Scale tool is

almost the same as that in Illustrator. Unfortunately, there is one important command found in the illustration program which Adobe left out of InDesign: When you use the Scale tool in InDesign, stroke weights are always scaled with the object (Illustrator lets you turn off this "feature" if you wish). The result is that when you see a path or frame which has a stroke and the scaling percentage shows a value other than 100%, the stroke weight in the Stroke palette shows a value different than the actual stroke wieght on the object. This is very confusing, and we think this should be changed in the next version of InDesign.