Throughout this chapter, and this entire book, you will find the following shortcuts to be very handy. A much more comprehensive list of shortcuts can be found in the Appendix.
Function |
Mac |
Windows |
Access Selection tool |
tap Escape (if editing text) or V (otherwise) |
|
Undo (an edit) |
⌘-Z |
Ctrl-Z |
Redo |
⌘-shift-Z |
Ctrl-Shift-Z |
Fit current page in window |
⌘-0 |
Ctrl-0 |
Fit current spread in window |
⌘-option-0 |
Ctrl-Alt-0 |
Select All |
⌘-A |
Ctrl-A |
Deselect All |
⌘-shift-A |
Ctrl-Shift-A |
Toggle Preview mode |
tap W |
|
Access Hand tool (to pan) |
press and hold H |
|
Access Zoom tool |
press and hold Z |
|
Constrain while drawing/transforming |
hold Shift |
|
Make copy while drawing/transforming |
hold option |
hold Alt |
Warning: The shortcuts that have you tap or hold down a letter key will not perform the listed function if your text cursor is in a text frame. You’ll end up typing that letter—maybe many times! In this situation, tapping the Esc key removes the application’s focus from your text (if that’s where it was), or in any case will do no harm. Now you can use any shortcut.
While working in InDesign, the application maintains a recovery file that’s stored in the same folder as the file you’re editing. If your computer crashes, upon relaunching InDesign, the recovery file opens right where you left off. This recovery file also gives you unlimited undo, accessed via Edit > Undo or ⌘-Z/Ctrl-Z.
Another Warning: Undo is your best friend most of the time. However, it does not undo actions that have no effect on page items. That is, you cannot undo zooming. I’ve watched many a startled student accidentally zoom, then attempt to recover by using ⌘-Z/Ctrl-Z, only to remain zoomed in, but having lost a previous (and wanted) edit. My advice: learn the shortcuts to fit a page or spread in the window as well as those to zoom!
Hover over other tools and note that many of them also have letters that can be used to access them. Most are not intuitive (M for the Rectangle tool?!). Try it: tap the letter M. The highlighted tool changes to the Rectangle tool. Go from tool to tool: V (the Selection tool), F (the Rectangle Frame tool), Z (the Zoom tool), and back to V again.
That’s one way to use those letter shortcuts. There’s another variation that’s really useful when you need a tool for only a moment, which we’ll discuss next.
Please check your Preferences (⌘-K/Ctrl-K), and if there is a section called GPU Performance, be sure you’ve disabled Animated Zoom.
Warning: In all of these cases, however, you cannot use these shortcuts while actively editing text or else you’ll get lots of z’s, h’s, or spaces in your document.
There are several ways to navigate a multi-page document. In the lower-left corner of the document window is a page menu, from which you can choose a page to go to, or you can click on the arrowhead buttons on either side of the menu to go to the next or previous page, or the first or last page. You can also double-click on a page icon in the Pages panel. The Properties panel has a page menu, too. Finally, there are shortcuts: shift-page down or shift-page up go to the next or previous pages respectively.
Now when you navigate pages, the buttons at lower left go to the next and previous spreads. Also, in the Pages panel, instead of double-clicking a page icon, you can double-click on the pages numbers, and this will take you from spread to spread. There are shortcuts for this, too: option-page down or Alt-page up go to the next or previous spread, respectively. This document has only two spreads, and one of them has only one page, so this is not yet an exciting development. But in longer documents, this will be quite useful.