Revealing Missing Fonts with the Story Editor
If you search for a missing font with Find Font, but you can't see the text on the page, hit Cancel (to close Find Font) and then open Story Editor. The cursor will be highlighting the problem text.
-Scott Citron

Speedy Output
If you regularly output your InDesign documents to specific printers or job types, you probably already know how print and PDF presets automate the process to save you time. These presets contain all the proper output settings that you either define yourself (via File > Print Presets > Define and File > Adobe PDF Presets > Define) or get from another source, such as a print shop or coworker.
But here's the power-user tip: Hold down the Shift key when you select a preset. If the output is PDF, InDesign will skip the PDF options dialog. But if it's a print preset, InDesign skips everything-paper just flies out of the printer!
-Colin Fleming

Customizing Corner Effects
You can convert corner effects applied to any object into actual Bezier lines and points by selecting the object with the Direct Selection tool and clicking on the Live Corners control.

Or you can select the object and choose Object > Paths > Closed Path for a closed object, or Object > Paths > Open Path for an open path. Then you can edit the corner effects just like any other points along a path.

An object with Fancy corner effects applied

After converting corners to paths

Corners are fully editable

Constrain Unchained!
To force InDesign to constrain proportions when applying width, height, or scale values in the Control
panel, press Ctrl+Enter/Command+Enter. This way, you can leave both chains "broken" and only constrain proportions when you mean to via the keyboard shortcut.
-Mike Rankin

Pick Up Where You Left Off
To activate the last-used field in the last-used panel, press Command+Option+~/Ctrl+Alt+~ [tilde]. For example, if you entered a value in the Weight field of the Stroke panel, you can use this shortcut to reactivate the Weight field and change the stroke weight. It even works if you have since selected a different object.
-Mike Rankin

Using Negative Text Wrap
If you want text to follow the shape of an object, while overlapping the object too, enter negative values in the Text Wrap panel.
-Erica Gamet

Using the Spacebar to Adjust Spacing Between Objects
In CS5 or later: Select more than one object and start dragging a side or corner handle. While the mouse button is down, hold down the spacebar and InDesign adjusts the spacing between the objects instead of scaling them.

Anchoring Graphics Between Paragraphs
To add a graphic separator between paragraphs (such as ornamental
dots), anchor the graphic as the first character in the second paragraph, select it, choose Object > Anchored Object > Options, and choose the Above Line option.
Bonus: In CS5.5 and later you can use the Anchored Object Control (the little blue square that appears on an object when it is selected) to anchor an object and set the options. To anchor an object, simply drag the blue square to the point in the text where you want the anchor to be located. To anchor an object and open the options dialog box at the same time, hold Option/Alt as you drag and release the blue square.

Justify text with last line aligned right
If you ever encounter a scenario where you want to justify your InDesign text with the last line aligned to the right, you'll notice it is not among the alignment options in the Control Bar.
That is why designers usually think this kind of alignment isn't possible in InDesign. Most designers are so used to finding what they need in the Control Bar that they forget it is only a shortcut to options that are spread out in other panels. If you open those panels, you will find more options.
So to set justified text with the last line aligned right, open the Paragraph panel (choose Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph) and there you'll find the "justify with last line aligned right"-button.
-Bart Van de Wiele

Five Guide Tips
1. Double-click the spot on the ruler where you want to add a guide.
2. While dragging a guide, hold the Shift key to have the guide snap to tick marks on the ruler.
3. Hold the Option/Alt key and drag an existing guide to make a copy of it.
4. When you're dragging a new guide from a ruler, you can change it from horizontal to vertical (or vice versa) by holding Option/Alt.
5. To create a page guide that extends to the edges of a page, drag a guide from the ruler and release the guide over the page. To create a spread guide that extends to the edges of the pasteboard, drag a guide from the ruler and release the guide over the pasteboard (or hold the Command/Ctrl key while you release the guide.
- Mike Rankin

Re-numbered Lists
The fastest way to force an auto-numbered paragraph to restart at a custom number is to place your cursor in the paragraph you want to renumber and then Option/Alt-click the Numbered List icon in the Control panel. That opens the dialog box where you can enter any number you want in the Mode: Start At field. Enter your number, click the OK button, and the numbered list fixes itself.
 -Anne-Marie Concepcion

Cleaning Out Old Hyperlinks
Looking for a good InDesign New Year's resolution? How about cleaning out your Hyperlinks panel and getting rid of all the old hyperlink destinations that may be cluttering up your documents and slowing you down? Just follow these steps from a recent InQuestion column by Sandee Cohen.
1) Choose Hyperlink Destination Options from the Hyperlinks panel menu.
2) Click the Edit button in the dialog box. If you have a very long list of destinations, there might be a long pause.
3) Use the Destination menu to move through your destinations to delete the ones you don’t want, or click the Delete All button to clear the list completely.
Bonus tip: You can also use the Hyperlink Destination Options dialog box to edit your destinations. So if a client changes his URL link, you don’t have to re-create all the hyperlinks in the document—just change the destination setting.

Halting Hyphenation Without Forced Line Breaks
We've all done it: pressed shift+enter/return to stop a word from hyphenating. It's quick and easy, but it's sort of like sweeping dirt under the rug. You've solved one problem but created another. If you re-use that text either with different formatting, or in a different output a forced line break will almost always crop up in a very inopportune spot. Fortunately, there are plenty of better alternatives to stop a word from hyphenating, like these from Jean-Claude Tremblay:
1) Select the word and apply a No Break character attribute
2) Select the word and apply the No Language character attribute
3) Add a Discretionary Hyphen in front of the word (Type > Insert Special Character > Hyphens and Dashes > Discretionary Hyphen).
4) Add the word with a tilde (~) in front of it in the user dictionary
5) Use a paragraph GREP style to search the word and apply either method 1 or 2 as a character style.

Learn About Your Links at a Glance
The Links panel is a great tool to review and manage all the placed links in your InDesign documents. But it's not obvious how to get a quick summary of the status of your links. Sure you have Column and Link Info where you can set up different metadata and filter your images, but what if you just want a quick count of how many unique images you have in your document? Or how many missing, modified, or embedded images?
Just hover your cursor over the total link count on the left side of the Links panel and you get a pop-up that tells you exactly how many unique links there are in your document. It also shows you counts of missing, modified, embedded links. It will even tell you how many sublinks you have in your document (which are links in other .INDDs placed in your current document).
Thanks to Bart Van de Wiele for this tip.

Export Images from Word Files
Did you know that Word's DOCX file format is a glorified ZIP file? Change the extension to ZIP, unzip it, and you'll find all of the document's original assets, including the images as individual files in a folder.
More importantly, InDesign can access the original high-resolution images when you place a DOCX file, even if they're CMYK. Theolder DOC format converts all images to RGB PNG files.
- Bob Levine

Preview InDesign files with QuickLook
QuickLook is a very handy tool for Mac users to preview documents by selecting them in the Finder and pressing the spacebar. But by default you can't use it to preview InDesign documents. If you press the spacebar, you only get some info about the document and a generic icon.
Fortunately, there are 3rd party solutions that enable you to get a real preview image of your InDesign docs. One option that's free is a QuickLook generator file created by Jenny Hofer. You can download it here. To use it, simply follow the instructions posted on the download page to create a QuickLook folder inside your user Library folder, and then place the file inside the QuickLook folder. Instantly you'll be able to press the spacebar and preview your InDesign documents.
Thanks to Bart Van de Wiele for this tip.

Fancier Paragraph Rules
You can get fancier rules between paragraphs if you combine a Rule Above and Rule Below. By adjusting the Offset values of both rules, you can overlap them so they appear to be a single rule. Or you can create new styles like a double dotted rule.
- Mike Rankin

Keeping [Registration] Out of Your Way
[Registration] is a special swatch in InDesign to apply a color that prints on all printing plates. It's useful for creating registration marks for print but you don't want to apply it to any object on the pages of your layout. To avoid accidentally clicking on the [Registration] swatch instead of [Black], drag Registration to the bottom of the swatch list. Do this while no files are open and it will become the default for all new documents you create.
- Mike Rankin

How to Break Em and En Spaces
InDesign treats special white space characters (such as em and en spaces) as nonbreaking. If you want to allow them to break at the end of the line, insert a Discretionary Line Break (from the Insert Line Break submenu, under the Type menu).
- David Blatner

File Info Helps You Find It Faster
You can add metadata to your InDesign files with File > File Info, and then search for your documents better, based on that metadata, in Bridge. The metadata will also show up in exported PDF files.
- David Blatner

Making Objects the Same Size
To change many frames to the same size: Set the height and width of one of them. Then select all the rest and choose Object > Transform Again > Transform Sequence Again Individually.
- David Blatner

Starting a Document on a Left-Hand Page
Want to change your document so it starts on a left-hand page (so that the first two pages make a two-page spread)? One way is to double-click the little black triangle over the first page in the Pages panel and set its page number to 2 (or any other even number). Another way is to disable Allow Document Pages to Shuffle in the Pages panel menu, then drag the page thumbnail for page 2 over next to the first page.
- David Blatner

The Movable Magnifier
While working on a layout...
1. Press Cmd-Spacebar to invoke the temporary Loupe tool
2. Drag to draw an area
3. While keeping the mouse button down, release CMD-Spacebar
4. Drag to slightly change the size of the drawn area
5. Press again Cmd-Spacebar and then move the mouse
The result is you can move the selection that you drew to another area while keeping the size of the drawn area!
It seems that you only need step 4 the first time you do the trick. If you want to continue to move the zooming selection area, steps 3 and 5 are enough and you can skip step 4.
- Branislav Milic

Fill and Stroke Shortcuts
Use keyboard shortcuts to quickly change the attributes of your object's fill or stroke.
D = Default (no fill, black stroke)
X = Exchange (activates fill or stroke, whichever was not selected)
Shift+X = Exchange (swaps the fill/stroke values)
/ = None (sets fill/stroke to none)
, (comma) = Applies last used color
. (period) = Applies last used gradient
- James Fritz

Removing Local Overrides
If you want to remove local overrides from text, don't Opt/Alt click on a style. Instead, click the Remove Local Overrides button in the Paragraph Styles panel. This way is more flexible, because if you select text first, it removes overrides just from the selected text. If you have the cursor flashing, it removes overrides from the whole paragraph. If you have a frame selected, it removes overrides from all text in the frame.
- David Blatner

You See What You Want to See...
In recent versions of InDesign, the number of icons, adornments, and miscellaneous doo-dads that appear on the objects in your layouts has certainly grown. Mostly, this is a good thing. These little controls add speed and convenience for tasks like anchoring an object, updating a linked graphic, or rounding a corner. But the downside is they can be a distraction.
Fortunately, you can turn off most on-frame afforandances (now there's a fancy word) via the View > Extras menu.
So, for example, if you're not a fan of the Content Grabber, you can simply turn it off by selecting Hide Content Grabber. Same goes for the Anchored Object control (which in CS6 now sports the same color as the layer the frame is on), the Live Corners control, and (in CS6) the Link Badge.
- Mike Rankin

Redefining Styles
Need to make a change in the attributes of a paragraph or character style? One easy way is to right click on the style name in either the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles panel and choose Edit from the contextual menu. But there's an even faster way. Just make the change you want to some text where the style has been applied in your document. Then to redefine the paragraph style (to incorporate the change you just made), press Command+Shift+Option+R/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R. Likewise, to quickly redefine a character style, select text where a style has been applied, make the desired change to the text, then press Command+Shift+Option+C/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C.
- Mike Rankin

Solving the Mystery of of Overset Text
Did you ever come across text that mysteriously became overset when you copied and pasted it to another page (or document). Sometimes text can go from OK to overset even if you just nudge its text frame a tiny amount. What's going on? A text crime has been committed! Round up the usual suspects!
1. Text Wrap - Be sure there are no other objects that have text wrap applied that could be causing the overset. The easiest way to eliminate this as a cause is to Option/Alt double click on the overset frame. This opens the Text Frame Options dialog box, where you can select Ignore Text Wrap. Click OK and if the text appears, you know the cause was Text Wrap applied to a nearby object.
2. Align to Grid - In many cases, aligning text to a grid is an essential technique for creating professional quality layouts. But it can trip you up when you copy and paste a text frame from one document to another, since different documents can have different grids. And even if you just move a frame up or down on a page, you can get overset text if there isn't enough room in the frame to accommodate the text as it snaps up or down to stick to the grid. To check, look at the paragraph style options, the Paragraph panel, or if you can put your cursor in the paragraph, check the Control Panel's Align to Grid icons.
3. Keep Options - Another essential tool, especially for working with long documents, where you want headings to stick with the following text, or simply to minimize the widows and orphans you have to deal with. But, like Align to Grid, Keep Options can lead to overset. For example, if you set a paragraph style's Keep Options so that the paragraph has to start in the next column, frame, or page, and there is no next column, frame, or page for it to go to. Again, check the paragraph style options, or if you can put your cursor in the paragraph (use the Story Editor to do this when the paragraph is completely overset) and press Command+Option+K/Ctrl+Alt+K to open the Keep Options dialog box.
- Mike Rankin

Text Spacing Shortcuts
You should almost always use styles to control text spacing attributes like tracking and leading, but there will be times when you need to override these attributes. You can of course, use the buttons in the Control panel (or the Character panel). But using keyboard shortcuts is always faster. Next time you need to adjust text spacing on the fly, try these shortcuts, which all use Option/Alt and arrow keys.
With a selection of text:
• press Option/Alt+left arrow to decrease tracking
• press Option/Alt+right arrow to increase tracking
• press Option/Alt+up arrow to decrease leading
• press Option/Alt+down arrow to increase leading
With your cursor between two characters:
• press Option/Alt+left arrow to decrease kerning
• press Option/Alt+right arrow to increase kerning
There's also a shortcut you can use to quickly reset all tracking and kerning applied to selected text.
• In Windows, press Ctr l+Alt+Q
• In Mac OS 10.6 and earlier (pre-Lion), press Cmd+Opt+Q
• In Mac OS 10.7 and later Cmd+Opt+Q will quit InDesign, so you have to edit your keyboard shortcut set (choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts) and  assign a new shortcut. Try something easy to remember that's not used by default, like Opt+Q.
- Mike Rankin

A Script to Show Overridden Items
Generally speaking, InDesign's scheme for handling master page items works very well for most users. It gives you the flexibility to locally override some aspects of master page items (like position, stroke/fill, etc) while leaving other aspects controlled by the master page until you specifically override them. It's the best of both worlds; you have global control over formatting that hasn't been changed locally.
But there is at least one way in which master page items could be improved: there's no way to tell which master items have been overridden just by looking at them. So you might make changes on a master page and unexpectedly have those changes not reflected in your document pages. This could be especially annoying (and time-consuming) to deal with in a long document.
Wouldn't it be handy if InDesign applied some kind of label to overridden master items on your document pages? Unfortunately, it doesn't. But now thanks to Marijan Tompa, there's a script that reveals overridden master items!
The script is called tomaxxiMARK-UP, and you can download it (and plenty of other cool scripts) at Marijan's website, tomaxxi.com.
The script applies XML tagging to overridden master items, and thus gives you two ways to spot them. First, when you run the script, you can see overridden items highlighted with the color of the XML tag.
You can change the color of the highlighting if you want, by double clicking on the _Overridden_ tag in the Tags panel and choosing a new color.
You can also see all the overridden items in a document in the Structure pane (choose View > Structure > Show Structure, or press Cmd+Opt+1/Ctrl+Alt+1). You will see items listed with the _Overridden_ tag and you can double click on each one to navigate to it in the document.
Obviously, you wouldn't want to use this script if XML tagging and structure are part of your workflow. But for the vast majority of users, the use of XML tags won't cause any problems whatsoever.
Thanks Marijan, for another great InDesign script!
- Mike Rankin

Spring Loaded Shortcuts
Most of the tools in the Tools panel have single-key keyboard shortcuts you can use to select them. For example, pressing V will get you the Selection tool, A gets the Direct Selection tool, T gets the Type tool, and so on.
Even better, these keyboard shortcuts are "spring loaded," meaning that if you press and hold the key (instead of tapping it), you can use that tool temporarily so when you release the key, you spring back to the tool you were previously using.
For example, say you're creating a series of frames to hold pictures and captions. You can press F to select the Rectangle Frame tool and drag out a picture frame. Then press and hold the T key to drag out a text frame for the caption. When you release the T key, you will spring back to the Rectangle Frame tool and can immediately start drawing your next picture frame.
- Mike Rankin

Color Tips and Tricks
Sure, there are probably folks who use InDesign and never need anything more than the Black swatch. But for vast majority of us, InDesign's a much more colorful application. Here are some tips and tricks for working with colors:
1. Option/Alt double click the Fill or Stroke boxes in the Control panel or the Tools panel to open the Color Picker.
2. InDesign keeps track of the last used solid color and the last used gradient so you can use shortcuts to apply them to other objects.
To apply the last used color to a selected object, press , (comma).
To apply the last used gradient, press . (period).
To apply [None], press / (forward slash).
You can also use the controls at the bottom of the Tools panel to apply any of these.
3. To cycle through color modes (RGB, CMYK, and LAB) in the New Color Swatch or Swatch Options dialog box, Shift-click the color box.
4. To quickly define a spot color in the Swatches panel, make sure that no swatches are selected, then hold Command+Option/Ctrl+Alt while you click the New Swatch button.
5. To create swatches of all used colors in a document, choose Add Unnamed Colors from the Swatches panel.
6. If you have an undeletable swatch that you're sure isn't used anywhere in the document, try saving the document as an InDesign Markup (IDML) file. Then open the IDML file to create a fresh version of the document, where you should be able to delete the formerly undeletable swatch.
- Mike Rankin

Layer Shortcuts
Layers are an essential tool for organizing the content in your InDesign documents. Here are 5 tips to help you work efficiently with layers:
1. Always name your layers to identify the content that belongs in them. In the Layers panel, click on the layer you want to name, pause for a moment, then start typing. Even better, name each new layer as you create it by holding Option/Alt while you click on the the New layer icon in the Layers panel.
2. By default, new layers are created above the currently selected layer. If you want to create a new layer below the current layer, hold Command/Ctrl while you click on the the New layer icon in the Layers panel. To create a new layer on top of all others, hold Command+Shift/Ctrl+Shift while you click the icon. And remember to add Option/Alt if you want to name these new layers.
3. To select all items on a Layer, Option/Alt+Click on the layer name in the Layers panel.
4. To copy a layer from one document to another, make sure Paste Remembers Layers is selected in the Layers panel menu, then copy an object from the desired layer and paste it into the other document.
5. You can use the Layers panel to change the stacking order of objects, by dragging them up or down in the panel. You can also add or remove items from groups, just by dragging those items in the Layers panel into (or out of) a group.
- Mike Rankin

Smart(er) Guides
Smart Guides are a great tool to help you align, resize, and rotate objects without measuring. You can also adjust them to your liking and make them even "smarter" with these tips:
1. You can toggle all Smart Guides on or off by pressing Cmd+U/Ctrl+U.
2. Most of the aspects of Smart Guides (including the color of the guides) can be customized in Guides & Pasteboard preferences.
3. Smart Cursors show you an object's current size or rotation angle as you move or transform it. If you find this distracting, you can turn off Smart Cursors in Interface preferences, by deselecting Show Transformation Values.
4. Smart Guides only display guides related to objects currently in view. So if your Smart Guides seem "dumb", zoom in on the area containing objects you want to align to. You should get better results.
5. To make Smart Guides stop snapping to column guides, turn off Snap To Guides (View > Grids & Guides > Snap To Guides).
6. You can temporarily turn off all Smart Guides (along with Snap to Guides and Snap to Document Grid) on the Mac by holding the Ctrl key after you start dragging an object.
- Mike Rankin

Viewing Document History
If a document is acting strange and you can't tell why, you might want to take a look at its history. Hold Command/Ctrl and choose About InDesign from the InDesign menu. In the dialog box, you can see if the document was converted from another application, if it was recovered from a crash, which versions of InDesign have been used to edit the document, which plug-ins were used with the document, and more.
- Mike Rankin

Type on a Curve
You can make some very interesting effects by putting type on a curved path. But it can be pretty hard to get that type perfectly centered on the curve, if you try the usual method of dragging the brackets at the center or ends of the type.
Instead, try this method:
1. Draw an ellipse that has the curve you want the type to sit on.
2. Click anywhere on the ellipse with the Type on a Path tool.
3. Use the Direct Selection tool to select just the bottom anchor point of the ellipse.
4. Press Delete to remove that anchor point. Now you have an open, curved path instead of an ellipse.
5. Use the Paragraph controls in the Control panel to center align the text on the curve.
Also, be sure to take a good look at your type on a curve and adjust the kerning as needed to get the best-looking type.
- Mike Rankin

Better Hyphenation
Hyphenation is a necessary evil. Without it, you'd have horribly ragged text, or holes in justified text big enough to drive a Linotype machine through. But in order to get the best-looking text, you often have to override InDesign's defaults.
Here are 5 tips for tweaking your hyphenation for better results:
1. Pay attention to the Hyphenation settings in each paragraph style you use. That's where you can set limits for where (and how many) hyphens are allowed.
2. You can control where a word breaks by manually inserting a discretionary hyphen, by putting your cursor where you want the hyphen to appear and pressing Command+Shift+-/Ctrl+Shift+-
3. Place a discretionary hyphen at the beginning of a word to prevent it from hyphenating.
4. If you want a word to contain a visible hyphen but not break at that hyphen, make it a nonbreaking hyphen by pressing Command+Option+-/Ctrl+Alt+-
5. You can toggle automatic hyphenation on and off by putting your cursor in a paragraph and pressing Command+Shift+Option+H/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+H or deselecting Hyphenate in the Control panel's Paragraph Controls.
- Mike Rankin

Take Control of the Control Panel 
Here are some useful shortcuts for working with the most important panel inside InDesign, the Control Panel.
1. To show or hide the Control panel, press Command+Option+6/Ctrl+Alt+6
2. To put your keyboard focus in the first available Control panel field, press Command/Ctrl+6.
3. To switch between Character and Paragraph Modes in the Control Panel, press Command+Option+7/Ctrl+Alt+
4. To activate the last-used field (in any panel, but especially useful in the Control panel), press Command+Option+`/Ctrl+Alt+`
- Mike Rankin

Search All Keyboard Shortcuts Quickly with Show Set
What do you do when you can't remember a specific keyboard shortcut in InDesign? Google it? Go to the Help? One method you can use to see a list of all your current keyboard shortcuts (including any you've customized) is to choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. You can click around in this dialog box to select menu items and commands and see the shortcuts for each. But if you click on the Show Set button, it opens a list of your shortcuts in a plain text file that you can search for elusive items, like these shortcuts for pinning objects in a CS6 liquid layout.
- Mike Rankin

Placing Graphics 
There are tons of tips and tricks you can take advantage of while placing images. Here are a few of my favorites:
In the Place dialog box, hold shift while you click Open to show Image Import Options and allow you to set the visibility of layers, apply cropping and clipping paths, assign color profiles, etc.
When you are placing several images at once, you can see thumbnail previews and the number of images remaining to be placed at your cursor.
Use your arrow keys to change which image gets placed next.
If you decide you don't want to place one of the images in your loaded place cursor, press esc to remove it.
You can add more images to your loaded place cursor by pressing cmd+d/ctrl+d to re-open the Place dialog box.
If you're not sure which image is foremost in your loaded place cursor, go to the Links panel. You can see all the info for all the images in your cursor, with the foremost one highlighted.
To replace an image already in your layout, hold option/alt and click on the image with your loaded place cursor.
If you accidentally place an image where you don't want it, just undo to put it back in your cursor so you can place it elsewhere.
- Mike Rankin

Edit Original 
To edit a placed graphic hold option/alt and double click on the photo in InDesign. The graphic will open up in the default application on your computer (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc).
If you don't want to use the default application, double click on the placed graphic in InDesign to select it (or just click on it once with the Direct Selection tool), then right click and choose Edit With from the contextual menu.
Also, you don't have to be viewing a graphic in the layout to open it with another application. You can right click on the graphic in the Links panel and choose Edit Original or Edit With.
- Mike Rankin

Perfect Your Pages Panel
Descriptive prefixes and color labels can make it a lot easier to tell pages apart in a long document. By default, InDesign displays thumbnail images of each page in the Pages panel. But that's not always the most useful option for telling one page from another, especially in a document with a lot of pages that share a similar design.
You can turn off thumbnails in the Panel Options dialog box inside the Pages panel fly out menu. When thumbnails are turned off, each document page is shown with its master page prefix in the center. You can put up to four characters here, so don't be shy. Descriptive prefixes make it easier to navigate a long InDesign document.
To take it one step further, you can also add color labels that appear under pages in the Pages panel. To apply color labels, select one or more pages in the Pages panel, right click and choose Page Attributes > Color Label, then select the color of your choice. You can also set color labels on master pages and automatically have document pages display the color label of their masters.
- Mike Rankin

Frame Tools vs. Shape Tools 
Ever wonder why InDesign has two sets of shape tools for making rectangles, circles, and polygons? One set is for creating empty frames. They have the word "frame" in their names: Rectangle Frame Tool, Ellipse Frame Tool, Polygon Frame Tool. And they create the shapes with a big X inside them. These shapes will always start out with no stroke and no fill.
The other set of tools allows you to define formatting, so every new shape you draw can have a certain stroke, fill, corners, or effects automatically. These are the Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, and Polygon Tool.
To set formatting for these tools, select one of them, deselect everything in your document, and then set the formatting you want in the Control panel, Swatches panel, etc. To make these shapes go back to using default formatting, deselect everything in your document, select the tool, and press d (for default).
- Mike Rankin

Importing and Exporting 
1. To reset the settings in most Export dialog boxes, such as those for PDF, SWF, FLA, JPEG, and XML, go to File>Export and select the file type. In the next dialog, hold down the Option/Alt key so the Cancel button changes to Reset.
2. When placing text or photos, hold down the Shift key while clicking Open in the Place dialog box. This will display Import options.
— Mike Rankin

TIP: Editing 
When editing text, press Cmd+ up/down arrows to jump to the start of previous/next paragraphs.
When editing text, press Cmd+ left/right arrows to jump to the start of previous/next words.
- Mike Rankin

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