I love the fact that I can undo multiple times in InDesign, but sometimes I want to undo a bunch of stuff all in one fell swoop. Why doesn''t InDesign have a History palette like Photoshop?
Why Adobe didn''t give us a History palette is a question for the oracle. How to deal with this limitation is a question of finding the right third-party developer. If you want a palette, check out 65bit Software''s EasyHistory or DTP Tools'' History plug-ins. They''re both relatively inexpensive and offer cool features like taking snapshots of your document in any current state.
65bit Software also offers a free plug-in called Multido, but it uses a menu instead of a palette (more awkward, but free).
Here''s where you can find these three plug-ins:
I''m used to getting a printed "cheat sheet" of keyboard shortcuts when I buy a program, but I didn''t get anything like that with InDesign. It''s difficult to figure out which keyboard shortcuts do what without a printed reference. At least for me, anyway.
There are a couple of ways to get a printout of InDesign keyboard shortcuts, if the ones InDesign displays in its menus and tool tips aren''t enough for you.
First, you can open Online Help (Help > InDesign Help) and after it loads, scroll down the list of Contents in the left-hand pane. Towards the bottom you''ll see a link called "Keyboard Shortcuts." Click the link (and then click Default Keyboard Shortcuts in InDesign CS2) and you''ll see a long list of other links leading to subcategories. Click any one of these links "Keys for Selecting Tools," "Keys for Using Palettes," and so on to open a printable page of Windows and Macintosh keyboard shortcuts for that category.
Another way is more sneaky. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and click the "Show Set" button at the top right. InDesign creates and opens a text file listing every menu item, palette and tool, organized into the same categories as the "Product Area" popup menu. If an item has a keyboard shortcut, it''s listed here; if it doesn''t, it says "[none defined]." You can print out the text file or save it for future reference on your hard drive. It''d be nice if it formatted the shortcuts (like made the headings bold), but no, if you want this list formatted, you''ll have to do it yourself.
The Selection tool''s keyboard shortcut, "V," is hardly ever useful to me since most of my time in InDesign is spent editing textpressing "V" in this case just inserts the character wherever I''m typing. I''m developing a bad case of tennis elbow from having to mouse over to the Tools palette to click the Selection tool a hundred times a day. What possessed Adobe to give the tool a single letter shortcut?
The method to Adobe''s madness of assigning single letter keyboard shortcuts to items in InDesign''s Tools palette lies in their desire for The Holy Grail of Creative Suite Consistency. Photoshop and Illustrator''s tools used single letter shortcuts as far back as we can remember, so it does make some sense for InDesign to share the trait. And many tools, including the Selection tool, are almost exactly the same between InDesign and Illustrator, even as far as sharing the same slot in the Tools palette. Of course, Photoshop and Illustrator users don''t normally spend as much time as InDesign users spend editing text.
The good news is that InDesign has a number of ways to skin this cat. When you''re editing text with the Type tool, you can switch to the Selection tool without visiting the Tools palette via any of the following methods:
Click outside of the text frame onto an empty area (not on top of a different frame), then press "V".
If you can''t find any empty real estate nearby, press Command-Shift-A/Ctrl-Shift-A (the keyboard shortcut for Edit > Deselect All), then "V".
Hold down the Command/Ctrl key to get a temporary Selection tool; releasing the key reverts to the Type tool (Note: This is the only method where InDesign remembers your text cursor location in the text frame after using the Selection tool). You can also Command/Ctrl-click on the text frame with the Text tool to select the frame itself (rather than the text inside it); now you can press V to switch to the Selection tool.
You can press Control-Tab/Ctrl-Tab (same on Macintosh and Windows) when editing text to select the text frame as though you clicked on it with the Selection tool. Now you can press another key (like "V") to switch tools, turn on preview, or whatever.
Here''s an even better solution: Add a new keyboard shortcut for the Selection tool. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and pick "Tools" from the Product Area popup menu. Click on the entry for the Selection tool to see its current shortcut appear at the bottom of the dialog. Now, type a new keyboard shortcut, such as Command-Option-V/Ctrl-Alt-V. This one is usually reserved for the Paste Into feature, so choose Text from the Context popup menuthat tells InDesign that this keyboard shortcut should switch to the Selection tool only when the cursor is in text (when you''re never going to use Paste Into). Don''t forget to click the Assign button before pressing OK, or else the shortcut doesn''t take affect. Now the Selection tool has two different shortcuts, one of which only works when you''re editing text.
WARNING
The "Default" keyboard shortcut set is not locked and can be modified by the user. If you edit the shortcuts in this set, there is no way to get back the default set other than reinstalling Adobe InDesign. (Rebuilding preferences does not affect any keyboard shortcut sets, including the Default set.) You can avert this problem before it happens by locking the Default set (see the next tip).
Some of the designers in my department have been modifying the Default Set in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts instead of creating their own custom set and leaving the Default alone. This makes it difficult when more than one person shares the same computer; they don''t understand why sometimes the default keyboard shortcuts don''t work. I tried rebuilding the InDesign preferences on the affected computers, but it didn''t restore InDesign''s Default keyboard shortcut set.
As far as we''re concerned, making the Default keyboard shortcut set "writable" is a bug. The Default Set was locked in earlier versions, and if you tried to make a change, you''d get an alert stating such (and suggesting you create a Custom set). Unfortunately, there is no way to rebuild the Default keyboard shortcut set once it gets changed. You can reinstall the program, or you can copy over a pristine Default set from another copy of InDesign to replace the modified one (you might need administrator privileges for this).
On Windows, you''ll find the Default file here: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Presets\InDesign Shortcut Sets\Default.indk
And on Macs, it''s here: [Hard Drive Name]/Applications/Adobe InDesign CS/Presets/InDesign Shortcut Sets/Default
To prevent the problem in the future, lock the Default file that is, set it Read Only using your operating system''s method of doing so (Get Info on the Mac; Properties in Windows).
I keep bouncing into or out of Preview mode without meaning to. I know it''s because of Preview''s one-key shortcut, a "W," which I sometimes hit by mistake. It''s driving me crazy!
Do yourself a favor and change the shortcut from just plain ''W'' to something that requires a few more keys (and thus more intention) in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts > Product Area: Tools > Toggle View Setting Between Default and Preview.