Quick Apply!
1. When using Quick Apply, holding Option/Alt removes local overrides when applying a paragraph style.
2. When using Quick Apply, hold Shift+Enter/Return to keep the dialog box open so you can do more quick applying.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Snippets! 
Snippets, as you know, are handy little files that describe an object's location on a page relative to other objects. You can also send snippets to other people to ensure consistent placement of items.
To ensure a snippet is always placed in the new file in the same spot as the original, lock the object(s) before exporting (Object > Lock).
Uncheck Prevent Selection of Locked Objects first (Preferences > General). Otherwise you can't select the locked object to export it.
If some evil person sends you a snippet that has a locked item, you can unlock it by opening the snippet in a text editor and setting the Locked value to False.
- Mike Rankin

Three Text Tips These three tips are not only fast, but they're fun to do, too.
1. Leading: To increase leading, select the text then press Option+Up arrow; to decrease leading, use Option+Down arrow.
2. Tracking: To increase tracking, select the text then press Option+Right arrow; press Option+Left arrow to decrease it.
3. Baseline: To set the Baseline options for a text box, press Command+B. It's easy to remember, too: B is for Baseline.
— Mike Rankin

TIP: Two Bridge Tips 
1. To switch back and forth between Adobe Bridge and InDesign, press Command+Option+o. This keystroke combination works in both apps.
2. To open MiniBridge in InDesign, shift-click the Bridge icon in your application bar. Bridge must be already open when you do this.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Two Table Tips 
Selecting Cells: To select all the cells in a table, press Cmd+Opt+a. To select the cells in the current row, press Cmd/Ctl+3.To select the current column, press Cmd/Ctl+Opt+3. To select the current cell, press Cmd/Ctl+/.
Replacing Cell Content: You can replace the contents of table cells with tab-delimited text from another application — and keep the current formatting — by selecting one or more cells and then pasting.
— Mike Rankin

TIP: Tabbed Document Tips 
By default in InDesign CS4, CS5, and CS5.5, documents open in a tabbed window format. Being a kid at heart, I spent quite a bit of time playing with this new interface feature when I first installed CS4. My exploration led to the following tab tips.
If you don't like the order of the tabs, you can click and drag the tabs to the right or left. You can also click on a tab and undock the document so it's in a separate window by dragging it away from the tabs. Once undocked, you can click and drag the document by its title bar back up to the tabbed documents. When the tab section and the rest of the tabbed window is highlighted, release your mouse and the document will rejoin the tabbed window.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Unexpected JPEG Export Option 
Here’s a tip I uncovered totally by accident. I was training artists on site at a publisher using one of their computers connected up to a projector. While discussing exporting to a variety of formats out of InDesign, something unexpected happened.
I went to File > Export, chose JPEG as the format, selected High for Quality and 300 ppi for Resolution and pressed Export. When I opened the JPEG in Photoshop, much to my surprise, just a single Text Frame and its copy had been exported. “Hmm! What’s this about?” I thought.
When I returned to the InDesign layout, I realized that the Text Frame was the only selected object in my layout. I repeated my Export process, and quickly saw what had occurred. In the JPEG Export window, you’re given a choice of what to Export — a Selection, a Range of pages, or All pages as single pages or spreads. Because Selection was chosen in the Export dialog, the selected Text Frame was the only item exported.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Aligning Logos Fast 
I just finished a flyer for an upscale sports bar in my area. The client wanted to feature a selection of beer logos across the top of the page, so I imported all of the logos into separate Graphic Frames (File > Place) and sized them to fit nicely across the page. But how could I quickly Align all of the tops of logo to each other across the page and space them equally? Here’s a little-known tip that can do the trick.
Select the first logo with your Direct Selection tool (A), hold down your Shift key and click on the remaining logos across the page. In the Align panel (Window > Object and Layout > Align), make sure Align to Margin is chosen in the popup menu, and click the “Align top edges” button, and the tops of all the logos will Align across the page to the top Margin of the page.
Then, in the Distribute Spacing section of the panel, click the “Distribute horizontal space” button to make the space equal between each logo. If any of the logos get cut off by the Frames that contain them, deselect the logos and switch to your Selection tool (V). Then select the Frame and click and drag on the Frame’s bounding box points to make it big enough to reveal the entire logo.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Collecting Hidden Fonts 
As part of my regular freelance work, I design brochures and posters in several languages for a large international company. After consulting with my printer, we decided to put the type for various languages in separate Layers within the same layout. The printer’s output department would then click on the Eye icons next to each language Layer leaving only one language Layer visible for output. Because only visible Layers will be output, this layered language technique can be incredibly efficient.
But keep one important point in mind. If you are using different typefaces for some of the languages, by Default, typefaces and graphics in hidden Layers will not be Packaged. So when you are ready to put the finished job on disk, go to File > Package and in the dialog window that opens, make sure to check the option "Show Data for Hidden and Non-Printing Layers." The first time I forgot about this option I received a call from my printer’s Preflight specialist who has a wonderful sense of humor. He said, "It may be Greek to you, but without the fonts it’s total gibberish."
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Finding the Right Layout with “Browse” Is a Breeze 
Printing a Booklet Made Easy Is there a quick way to look through a bunch of layouts within a folder and actually get a nice-sized preview of what’s in the files without having to open each of them? Yes! That’s what File > Browse is all about in InDesign. This command opens Bridge, which is perfect for the job of searching through all the layouts in a selected folder that includes a great preview of the first page in each document. In seconds, instead of struggling to decipher very similar file names, you can find and open the exact layout that you need.
With the addition of the Mini Bridge panel in InDesign CS5, I expect a lot of artists to start previewing and opening all of their layouts through this extremely helpful new panel, not to mention the time they’ll save by dragging and dropping images from the panel directly into their layouts.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Deactivate InDesign to Install It Again 
According the Adobe license agreement, you're allowed to install InDesign (or all of Creative Suite) on two computers that will not be used at the same time, such as a laptop and a tower or an office computer and a home computer. Your software must be Activated within 30 days of installation or it will no longer work. To combat piracy, this software can only be activated on two computers (Help > Activate).
There's a potential problem with Activation if you're not careful. Let's say that you just bought a brand new computer. Congratulations! You'd like to install your software on the new home computer, but it's already installed on your old home computer as well as your laptop. As a good citizen who follows the letter of the law, you delete your software from your old home computer, before installing on the new computer. You try to Activate this software and it doesn't work. Here's the tip to avoiding a lot of frustration and a conversation with Adobe Customer Support. Deactivate your software (Help > Deactivate) before trashing it or you will not be able to Activate it on the new computer.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Frame Resizing On the Double Click 
You've placed an image into a selected Frame and decide afterwards that you'd like the Frame to Fit the whole image. Is there a quick way to accomplish this without applying any menu commands or dragging of bounding box points? If you're using CS3 or later, you're in luck.
Instead of dragging bounding box points, simply double-click on any corner bounding box point. The Frame will instantly resize to the image it contains.
If you double-click on a side center Bounding Box Point, the Frame will resize to fit the Image's width leaving the height of the Frame untouched. If you double-click on a top or bottom center Bounding Box Point, the Frame will resize to fit the Image's height leaving the width of the Frame untouched.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Make the Pasteboard Bigger 
InDesign's Pasteboard to the left and right of a page are plenty big enough to store design elements, but the default Pasteboard size above and below a page is just 1" tall. To make the Pasteboard taller, go to the InDesign menu (PC: Edit) > Preferences > Guides & Pasteboard and increase the Minimum Vertical Offset in the Pasteboard Options section of the dialog window to any size up to 120". Then click OK to apply.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Match Colors on Your Monitor and Your iPad 
The iPad has a strange color gamut (range of colors). To get an approximate preview of iPad colors on your desktop, download Christian Albrecht's ICC color profile for the iPad from http://bit.ly/xEI6nH.
Install this profile on your computer and then do the following in InDesign:
1. Be sure that Edit > Transparency Blend Space is set to Document RGB.
2. Be sure that Edit > Color Settings is set to North America General Purpose 2.
3. Choose View > Proof Setup > Custom.
4. Select iPad.icc for the "Device to Simulate" and check the Preserve RGB Numbers option.
5. Choose View > Proof Colors.
The colors on your monitor should now more closely match the colors on your iPad.
- Keith Gilbert

TIP: Tabbed Document Tips 
By default in InDesign CS4, CS5, and CS5.5, documents open in a tabbed window format. If you don't like the order of the tabs, you can click and drag the tabs to the right or left. You can also click on a tab and undock the document so it's in a separate window by dragging it away from the tabs. Once undocked, you can click and drag the document by its title bar back up to the tabbed documents. When the tab section and the rest of the tabbed window is highlighted, release your mouse and the document will rejoin the tabbed window.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Printing a Booklet Made Easy 
Printing out a brochure layout to create a client comp or a dummy was always an imposing task involving lots of cutting and pasting. In InDesign CS3 or later, however, there's an easy way to print brochures in printers spreads on your desktop printer. Let's say you designed an 8-page brochure that folds to 8.5" x 11". To output printers spreads, simply go to File > Print Booklet, and in the window that opens, use the Default settings and press Print. Your spreads will print out with page 8 next to page 1, page 2 next to 7, 6 next to 3, and 4 next to 5.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: Panels Popping In and Out
You probably know that when your cursor isn't in text, you can press the Tab key to make InDesign's panels disappear and reappear. But with your panels hidden, you can also simply bring your cursor to the right or left edge of your Workspace and the panels will pop into view.
- Jeff Witchel

TIP: InDesign Templates for iPad Publications
When you're creating an iPad publication, set InDesign's measurement system to pixels and your "pages" (screens) to 1024 x 768. To download InDesign templates for iPad screens with these settings, as well as the correct transparency blend space and color, go to http://bit.ly/yiC79C.
- Keith Gilbert