InDesign Tips

Switch to the Next Window

When working with several InDesign document windows open at the same time, you will often need to switch from one window to the next. It may be faster to press Command/Ctrl-tilde to switch to the next window and Command-Shift/Ctrl-Shift-tilde to switch to the previous window

Stroke Frame Corners

Here’s how to make a stroke that appears only at the corners of a frame:

1. Create a new dashed stroke style by choosing “Stroke Styles” from the “Stroke” palette menu and name it something appropriate, like “Border Corners” (found under the arrow button in the upper left-hand area of that palette).
2. Next, apply that stroke to a text or graphic frame and give it a stroke width thick enough to show your border effect. Then return to the stroke style to edit Corners.
3. For “Pattern Length,” insert an amount that is much larger than your frame.
4. For “Corners,” select “Adjust Gaps” (which keeps the dash length fixed).
5. Be sure to choose the “Preview” check box, fine-tuning your corner effect as you move the little ruler arrow until you achieve the desired result.
6. Now you can apply your custom stroke to a frame of any size and the corners will be identical for all objects. The border effect works on tables, as well.

Guide Secrets

What follows is a collection of tips for accurately dragging out guides:

• Shift-Drag ruler w/selection tool, and increments jump to next
  tick-mark increment
  • Zoom in and increments get smaller. Zoom out and they get larger.
• Hold down CMD (CNTRL for PC) while dragging and guides will become spread guides.

Component Information Dialog Box

If you are having problems with an InDesign document, you may want to check out the Component Information Dialog Box. In order to display the dialog box CMD-Select “About InDesign” under the Apple menu. This dialog box displays, among other things:
- The plugins running
- The Document history, including saves
- If your current document was opened from a Quark document
- The last time your document was saved