I have a simple but essential tip to give you for working in InDesign.
Learn to love the Control/Command key!
Here’s why:
Scale Objects Quickly
While in the Selection Tool (black arrow, shortcut V) or the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow, A) you can hold down Ctrl/Cmd and click and drag on one of the frame handles (little boxes in the corners or in the middle of the sides) to scale it without leaving the tool you are in.
You’ll want to hold down shift, too, though, otherwise the object will scale disproportionately.
Now you really have no reason to ever use the Free Transform (E) or Scale (S) tools!
Select Objects Below
Are you ever annoyed by not being able to select the right overlapping object? If you’re actively moving objects around, it can be a hassle to go lock the layer your images are on just to select that one object (you did set up InDesign Layers, right?). So how do you select overlapping images quickly?
Ctrl/Cmd key!
Just hold down ctrl/cmd and click on the overlapping area. And actually, if you keep clicking, it will cycle through the stacking order, so this works if you even have 4 or 5 or 10 objects overlapping each other in InDesign. When it gets to the bottom of the order, it’ll start back at the top.
Click once too far? No problem! Hold down alt/opt and ctrl/cmd and click again!
Create Spread Guides While Zoomed In
There is a difference between spread guides and regular page guides. Spread guides span the whole spread—2+ pages.
If you are really zoomed in while working on a spread and you realize you need a spread guide to go across all the pages so you can line something up, don’t waste time zooming out! Simply hold down ctrl/cmd while dragging a guide out from the ruler.
Coming up, we’ll finish the Principles of Design series with the principles of Rhythm and Unity. If you’ve missed any of the previous articles, you can read them here:
Be sure to check out the Elements of Design articles, too!
Nice post!
I am looking for some cool tutorial effects for my flash work.
Excellent point! I did become friendly with that key for the “selecting below” already. The scaling needs some getting used to as well, because occasionally I attempt to scale the cropping box instead of it’s contents. But I’m working on it
Thanks for your great tips!
RaShell´s last blog post: Spooky Doodles
Flash,
I’m afraid InDesign won’t help you much with Flash effects, and I don’t use Flash at all
RaShell,
Heh, yeah, sometimes I accidentally grab the frame instead of the frame and contents, too. If you ever have any ID questions I would love to hear them; if I don’t know the answers off the top of my head, I like searching for them because then I learn something new, too!
Hi Lauren, I’m always learning things here; I didn’t know that about the spread guides. Thank you.
Rob Cubbon´s last blog post: How to market yourself #2: How to set up a website
Rob,
You’re most welcome!