I received an email from a reader recently (dear reader, if you don’t mind being identified, I would be glad to add your name and a link to your blog! Let me know…)
As a new InDesign user (we switched very recently from good old Quark), I have an idea for an article for you. I’m sure InDesign is a whole lot better, more advanced etc, but there’s some very basic stuff, that used to take me seconds in Quark, that I can’t even find how to do in InDesign (granted, I didn’t have time to even look around it for too long). I mean, really basic stuff… For example – I can’t figure out how to copy/paste an image from one box to another so it would land in the same place, you know what I mean? Like if I have a step’n'repeat, and all I need to change is one image on all items… Or how to get to stuff that’s underneath something else.
For any of you that are also new to InDesign, I thought you might benefit from my response, below, a little more organized than my response to her.
Most important: remember that InDesign is an Adobe product. Many of the shortcuts from Illustrator are the same in InDesign.
There are loads of beginner InDesign articles on Creative Curio. For starters, check these out:
- You Still Use Quark?! InDesign basics
- Making Changes Easier with Master Pages
- Avoiding Disaster with Paragraph Styles
- Avoiding Disaster with Character Styles
- Understanding InDesign Layers
I highly suggest taking the time to memorize the InDesign shortcuts; they will make your job so much faster and easier once you get them down (you can even customize them with a preset to match the Quark shortcuts if you want, though you may want to just get used to ID shortcuts because that’s what many people reference when they talk about shortcuts, plus they are similar to other Adobe shortcuts anyway).
For getting to stuff that’s underneath other things, try using layers (which you can lock if you don’t want to select or accidentally move its contents), or if you don’t want to bother with layers, select the
objects on top and hit Cmd + [ to move them down (Cmd + Shift + [ to move them all the way to the bottom in one quick stroke).
I recently learned an easy way to switch things on layers: go to Layers panel and with the objects to move selected, drag the colored box on the right to the layer you want the objects on.
Step and repeat is under Edit>Step and Repeat. Nice little dialog box with the settings and (joy!) PREVIEW! (for CS3 at least, not sure about previous versions).
Paste in Place (right click and choose Paste in Place, or Opt + Cmd + Shift + V, or Edit>Paste in Place… there are multiple ways to do almost everything!) is another really helpful command to know. I use this a lot, especially for transferring things from one layer to another.
Get to know your right click contextual menu! It will be your best friend. It has quick access to things like special characters, spaces and markers, grids and guides, spell checker, etc. And remember it’s context-sensitive, so depending on what you have selected/where your cursor is (type, object, nothing, table, etc), the menu will be different. All the Adobe programs (at least the important ones — Illy, ID and PS 
) are like this.
For all the other InDesign articles on Creative Curio, check out the InDesign tag.
I would love to hear more of your questions! It would make an easy article for me to write and hopefully it will be very helpful for you. I know a lot about InDesign, but I’m never exactly sure what to share; what is too basic and what are things that you struggle with?
Haha… Where did I see this “inquiring reader”? Oh, yeah, in the mirror!
I’ve been totally engrossed in some web design that needed to be done at work, so didn’t even get a chance to implement any of your helpful tips. But I did, in between things, got to go through most of my preferences, and finally, made all of the menu items permanently visible (you laugh, but it took me a while to find link to Layers palette, since it was hidden! Duh…)
RaShell´s last blog post: Sketch Theatre
RaShell,
So want me to link to doodlage in the post? I didn’t have time to get a response from you before I posted. And I don’t laugh, ID is a complex program!
Indesign is too complex for me
but i wanna learn about that
thanks for sharing
sasidesign´s last blog post: Let Your Love Shine Through
In my indesign file, I have placed a pdf file which has more than one page. I have put only page 1 of the pdf file (try.pdf) on page 4 of the indesign file (try.indd)
When I go to the link dialog box of the indesign file, I find two instances of the pdf link. One shows the link on page 4 against it. The other does hot have any page pointer nor PB against it.
Now I remove the pdf file from page 4 of the indesign file. Out of the two instances of the link, the link connected to page 4 disappears. But one without any page connect is showing.
Hos is it happening?
Arjun Mishra
Arjun,
That is a curious problem. Without actually seeing the file myself, I can only guess at what is going on. Are you sure the extra PDF isn’t on a master page? Linked files that are on master pages show up as an additional instance (with the master page listed as the page number) in the Links panel.
If the extra PDF is not showing in the document, does it matter that it is in the links panel? If you suspect it is making your .indd file bigger, try doing a Save As. This forces InDesign to recreate preview images (when you delete an image or file from the InDesign file, it doesn’t dump the image preview from the file) and may take care of little bugs like what you are experiencing.
If the Save As doesn’t work, then do File>Export and choose the file type InDesign Interchange (.inx). Then close the .indd and open that new .inx file. That usually fixes a lot of funny bugs InDesign files may develop (this is also how you would export a file to use in an older version of InDesign).
Hope one of these things helps!
How do I set up my document with an automatic text box like you could do in Quark. I am getting to grips with the difference between InDesign and Quark after using Quark for 10 years and doing everything so quickly with it.
Kim,
You’ll be working quickly with InDesign soon, too! I can totally sympathize with you on the frustrations of learning a new program, though. Have you seen my Quark for InDesign Users articles? Your situation is the other way around, but it still may be helpful to you.
Also check out the first InDesign basics series I did, as well as the second one, a project walkthrough. Feel free to leave comments on any of those articles if you have questions. I’ll try to answer them for you! And never underestimate the power of Adobe LiveDocs for the programs. They do a really good job (unlike many other user’s manuals).
As for your particular question, you can use a text box on the master page (if you have several, link them on the master page). Then load your text into your cursor (Cmd/Ctrl + D and select your text file), hold Shift and click in the text frame. This method will add the number of pages necessary to fit all the text in the file. If you don’t like that, then you can create the text frames and just detach/override the master object in your layout pages with Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Click.
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