TIP: Open Files Quickly 
Want to get to the Open a File dialog box quickly? If no documents are open, just double-click the application frame. (Mac users must have the application frame active.) This tip works in CS4 and CS5. [Editor's note: There are a few system configurations in which this tip doesn't work.]
- Bob Levine

TIP: You Don't Need the Chain to Constrain Proportions 
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

TIP: Unsnap To It (Mac only) 
InDesign tries very hard to help you align objects when you drag by snapping them into alignment with other objects, margins, and columns. Usually this is great, but it can become a, uh, drag, when there are a lot of items nearby and you literally can’t put something where you want it. To temporarily turn off the snap, press and hold the Control key as you drag.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Toggle Between Text and Cell in a Table 
To toggle between selecting a cell and the text within that cell, click with the Type tool anywhere in the cell. Then hit the Escape key: Now the cell itself is selected. Hit the Escape key again, and the text is selected. You can keep hitting Escape, but you'll never escape...
- Claudia McCue

TIP: Quick Color Swatches 
If you’re creating a new paragraph style and you realize you don’t have the color you need in your swatches panel, just double click the color proxy to bring up the new color swatch dialog box.
- Bob Levine

TIP: Two Shadows Per Frame 
If you place vector art or a silhouetted image in a frame, you can apply two shadows to the frame; one for the frame, and one for the graphic inside. Select the frame with the Selection tool, and apply the first shadow. Switch to the Direct Selection tool (or if you have CS5, use the new Image Grabber) and select the graphic itself, and apply the second shadow.
Note: Be sure the frame is large enough to reveal the entire shadow cast by the graphic inside; if not, the shadow will be cropped by the frame.
- Claudia McCue

Changing Presentation Mode Background Color
InDesign CS5 offers a new presentation mode (Shift-W) that is great for making quickie presentations. Your document is displayed full screen with a black background by default, but you can change the background color to gray by pressing “g” or to white by pressing “w”.
- Diane Burns

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. The older DOC format converts all images to RGB PNG files.
- Bob Levine

TIP: Shift A Swatch 
Do you like an existing swatch but want a lighter or darker version of it? As you’re creating or modifying the color in the Colors panel, just Shift-drag one of the sliders, and all of them will move together. (This works in Illustrator, too.)
- Claudia McCue

TIP: Scroll Through Your Fonts 
Need to try out different typefaces on existing text? Select the text you want to change, insert your cursor in the font field of the Character panel, then use the Up and Down arrows to scroll through fonts, changing the selected type as you go.
- Erica Gamet

TIP: Have a Fit 
To zoom into currently selected object(s), press Command-Option-(+)/Ctrl-Alt-(+) [plus sign].
This command also works when you’re editing text, but in that mode it may zoom in too close for comfort. Also, Mac users may notice that the shortcut conflicts with the Universal Access System Preference for screen zoom.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Convert Corner Effects 
You can convert any object that has Corner Effects applied to it to actual Bezier lines and points by choosing Object > Paths > Closed Path for a closed object, or Object > Paths > Open Path for an open path.
- Cari Jansen

TIP: OOPS! I HAD THE CAPS LOCK KEY ON

Inspired, you're blindly typing your compelling copy at incredible speed. But you look up to realize that -- doh! --the Caps Lock key has been on for quite some time.
That's OK: InDesign offers a quick fix. Select the text, choose Type > Change Case, and select the correct approach from the submenu that appears. You can pick from UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, and Sentence case.
- Claudia McCue

TIP: Nail Down That Text Wrap! 
It can be very quick and easy to base a text wrap on the edges of a placed graphic. But one downside of this method is that when someone edits the graphic, even just tweaking the color a little, your text wrap may unexpectedly change. To prevent this, select one of the text wrap points with the Direct Selection tool and nudge it just a tiny bit. Your text wrap won’t change, but the Contour Options Type in the Text Wrap panel will now be User-Modified Path, and it will not change if someone changes the graphic.
- Mike Rankin
This tip is from the August/September 2010 issue of InDesign Magazine, now available at www.indesignmag.com.

TIP: Select All Guides 
Don’t drive yourself crazy by trying to Shift-click on all the rulers in a document to select them and move or delete them. Instead, use this handy shortcut: Command-Option-G/Ctrl-Alt-G to select all guides. You can always Shift-click on the few you don’t need before moving or deleting.
- Erica Gamet
This tip is from the August/September 2010 issue of InDesign Magazine, now available at www.indesignmag.com.

TIP: Apply Colors Quickly 
To apply a color quickly, drag a swatch onto a frame, stroke, or table cell. This is also the easiest way to colorize a grayscale TIFF or PSD image.
- Claudia McCue
This tip is from the August/September 2010 issue of InDesign Magazine, now available at www.indesignmag.com.

TIP: Keep Tabs on Preflight Errors 
Look in the lower-left corner of InDesign's document window to see whether you have any preflight errors. If the error number starts creeping up, go to the Preflight panel for more information.

TIP: Dynamic Rotation Cursor 
In InDesign CS5, you can forever eliminate trips to the Tools panel to choose the Rotate tool. Hover just beyond any object's corner with the Selection tool, and the cursor switches to a rotate icon. If you've selected multiple objects, they all rotate together -- no need to group them.
- Michael Murphy

TIP: Bring Hidden Characters to Light 
Hidden characters (also called invisibles) indicate the presence of non-printing characters, such as spaces, tabs, and paragraph returns. Most of the time, you don't need to see these, but when you do, Choose Type > Show Hidden Characters. The characters will be in the same color as layer they're on. When that's light yellow, for example, the hidden characters may be hard to see even after you choose Show Hidden Characters. In that case, just change the color of layer in the Layers panel.

TIP: No More All-Caps in Panel Names 
When text is in all-caps, it can be difficult to read. Why then are the names of InDesign's panels in all caps? To change that, create a new, empty folder and name it "noallcaps". Place that folder in the InDesign application folder. The next time you restart InDesign, all panel names will be the more-pleasing upper/lowercase!
- Colin Fleming

TIP: Add Tabs to Table Cells 
To jump from cell to cell in an InDesign table, just press the Tab key. Handy, right? But to insert an actual tab character in a cell, you'll have to go to Type > Insert Special Character > Other > Tab.

TIP: Control Layer Guides 
Ruler guides are layer-specific: When you create them (Layout > Ruler Guides), they appear on whatever layer is selected at that moment. To hide, show, or lock ruler guides by layer, go to the Layers panel and double-click a layer. The Layer Options dialog pops up, and now you can turn the relevant options on and off.
- Terri Stone

TIP: Paste Remembers Layers
When you want objects to stay on their original layers as you cut and paste them, check Paste Remembers Layers in the Layers panel drop-down menu. This even works for cutting and pasting between different documents.
- Terri Stone

TIP: Find Out Who Changed What 
In InDesign CS5, you can track text changes in the current story or all stories in a document. You can make edits and insert notes either in the layout or Story Editor, but you’ll see changes highlighted only in Story Editor. And you must be viewing your text in Story Editor to accept or reject changes, using the new Track Changes panel.
- Claudia McCue

TIP: Make Your Own Accented Character 
When a typeface is missing an accented letter, you're not out of luck--you can make it yourself, as long as the individual parts (the character and the floating accent, also called diacritical marks) are available in the font. Check the Glyph panel (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs) for the parts, then type the character followed by the accent. Use baseline shift to raise or lower the accent to the desired position, and use extreme reverse kerning to center the accent over the character.
- Ilene Strizver

TIP: Convert Word's Local Formatting to InDesign's Character Styles 
To quickly convert Microsoft Word's local formatting to InDesign's character styles, try these free and easy-to-use scripts: Preserve Local Formatting.jsx is by Dave Saunders and works for InDesign CS1, CS2, and CS3. PrepText.zip is by Jongware, and works with CS4 only. Both scripts can run through text and replace locally formatted bolds and italics, among others, with equivalent character styles. The scripts add the styles to the Character Styles palettes on its own — no need to create them yourself.
For links to the scripts and more information, see my article "Easy Fixes for Microsoft Word Formatting in InDesign." - Anne-Marie Concepción

TIP: Import Options Are Important 
When you place anything into an Adobe InDesign document (File > Place), you'll get a whole new level of control if you click the Show Import Options checkbox in the lower left-hand corner of the Place dialog box before hitting the Open button. These Import options affect Microsoft Word text and graphics; images (layered .psd files, .ai files, etc.), and PDFs.

VIDEO: Modified Gate Fold with Short Panels 
Has InDesign CS5's support of multiple page sizes piqued your interest in documents that go beyond the usual? Then check out Trish Witkowski's video demonstration of a modified gate fold with short panels. It's her April 7, 2010, "Super-Cool Fold of the Week". And of course, while CS5 makes it easier to work with multiple page sizes, you can use any version of the program to design such a piece.

TIP: Meet the Content Grabber
In InDesign CS4 and earlier, you have to do the Texas two-step to select a graphic in a frame: Double-click to get the Direct Selection tool, click again to select the image, double-click again for the Selection tool. In CS5, just hover over a graphic frame with the Selection tool and a viewfinder-like icon appears. (I call it the Donut, but it's official name is the Content Grabber.) Click, and -- poof -- you've selected the graphic, without even changing tools. To leave this mode and return to dealing with the frame, press Escape or double-click. To disable the Donut entirely, go to View > Extras > Hide Content Grabber.
- Claudia McCue

TIP: Clean Up Imported Word Documents
If you've imported a Microsoft Word document that's riddled with problems (for example, two hyphens instead of an em dash, or tabs instead of paragraph indents), don't repair your file line by line. Instead, use Edit > Find/Change and correct the problems with a single mouse click. In the Find/Change dialog box, on the Text tab, first define the scope of your search with the Search dropdown menu. Then use these Find What/Change To pairs to solve common problems:
Replace two hyphens with an em dash.
Find what: --
Change to: ^_
Multiple spaces after punctuation or used for indent.
Find what: [space][space]
Change to: [space]
Replace multiple tabs with a single tab.
Find what: ^t^t
Change to: ^t
Replace three periods with an ellipses.
Find what:...
Change to: ^e
Space before a carriage return.
Find what: [space]^p
Change to: ^p
Space at beginning of paragraph.
Find what: ^p[space]
Change to: ^p
Tab before a carriage return.
Find what: ^t^p
Change to: ^p
Tab after a carriage return.
Find what: ^p^t
Change to: ^p

- Pariah Burke

TIP: Convert Spot Colors to Process Colors 
To convert a spot color to process, double-click the name of the swatch in the Swatches panel and change the Color Type from Spot to Process. If you used the Pantone color library to define the color, first change the Color Mode to CMYK. You can also specify that all spot colors are automatically converted to process to automatically converted to process when the job prints. Choose Ink Manager from the Swatches panel menu. You’ll see all the colors in your document. Click the All Spots to Process option and the spot color will be converted to process.
- Sandee Cohen

TIP: Banish Ugly Hyperlink Rectangles 
To disable the Visible Rectangle option for multiple hyperlinks all at once, select them in the Hyperlinks panel, then go to Hyperlink Options in the panel's drop-down menu and set Appearance to Invisible Rectangle.
- David Blatner

TIP: What To Include When Exporting Interactive InDesign Files to PDF
In InDesign, choose File > Export Adobe PDF to open the Export Adobe PDF dialog. If you have included bookmarks, that item must be checked in the Include section at the bottom. For buttons, transitions, and hyperlinks to appear in the PDF file, check Hyperlinks and Interactive Elements. If you've placed a movie or sound file, you'll get the best results if you choose the Compatibility to be Acrobat 6 or higher.
- Steve Werner

TIP: Sync Files Across Multiple Computers
To ensure that everyone working on a project always has the latest versions of all of its related files, try a service like Dropbox or Windows Live Sync. They're platform agnostic and can synchronize files across many computers, ensuring that you, the client, and anyone else involved all have the exact same files, updated in near-real-time.
- Pariah Burke

TIP: Enlarge Characters in the Glyphs Panel 
InDesign’s Glyphs panel (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs) reveals all the characters in a font. If you're having trouble seeing exactly what those characters look like, make the glyphs larger by clicking the mountain button in the lower right corner. You can also filter the display by choosing options from the Show menu.
- David Blatner

TIP: Quickly Escape Quick Apply
You open the Quick Apply window and begin typing, then change your mind. A menu command is currently highlighted in the Quick Apply window. The fastest way to close the Quick Apply window without triggering the selected menu command is to press the Esc key.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Create a Snippet with Multiple Objects
To create one snippet  that contains several objects on a page, select the objects and drag and drop them to the desktop. You can also choose File > Export, then choose InDesign Snippet from the Format menu in the Export dialog box.
- Mike Rankin

TIP: Horizontal Pages Panel
By default, InDesign's Pages panel has a vertical orientation. If you'd prefer your Pages panel to be horizontal, choose Panel Options... from the Pages panel menu. In the Panel Options dialog box, you'll see a checkbox labeled "Show Vertically." Deselect the option for the pages and/or the masters.
- Sandee Cohen

TIP: Hyphenate Words Your Way 
To tell InDesign exactly where to hyphenate a word, open InDesign and go to Edit > Spelling > Dictionary. Do this with no document open to set the default for all new documents. Type the word in the Word field and then click Hyphenate. The tilde (~) characters indicate how InDesign will hyphenate the word. To change those settings, retype the word in the Word field using tildes as follows:

• One tilde (~) indicates the most desirable hyphenation position.
• Two tildes (~~) indicate a slightly less desirable hyphenation position.
• Three tildes (~~~) mark the least desirable hyphenation position.
• A tilde inserted before the word tells InDesign never to hyphenate the word at all.
Finally, click the Add Button to change the word to your customized setting.
- Sandee Cohen

TIP: No Kerning Pairs? No Problem 
In many typefaces, there are no kern pairs for the number characters, and these characters occupy equal widths -- a narrow number like a 1 uses the same amount of space as a 9 or 0. This is great for making numbers line up perfectly in columns down a page, but it can look awful when numbers are in body text. To make the numbers as beautifully spaced as the rest of the characters, place your cursor between the characters you want to kern and select Optical in the Character panel's Kerning menu. By the way, InDesign has had the Optical kerning option since version 1!
-Jeff Witchel

TIP: Change One Corner of a Rounded Rectangle to a Point 
Once you've applied rounded corners to a rectangle, you can change one or more curves to a corner point. Select the path you want to expand, and then click either the Open Path or Close Path icon in the Pathfinder panel (Window > Object and Layout > Pathfinder). Either one converts the electronic corner effect into actual path points. Choose Open Path if you're converting an open path (like a Bezier line), or Close Path if you're converting a shape (like a rectangle).
- Sandee Cohen

TIP: Change the Default Font 
To change InDesign's default font, open InDesign but don’t open any documents. On the Character panel, change the Font Family and Font Style dropdowns to your preferred default. Edit the “[Basic Paragraph]” style on the Paragraph Styles panel to match your new font. Quit or restart InDesign. From now on, every new document you create will use your chosen font. Note: You will lose this Basic Paragraph Style custom formatting if you copy-and-paste a paragraph into another document. If you’re sure all your documents will be created with this custom Basic Paragraph style, it’s probably okay. If not, create a new paragraph style and click on it while no documents are open. That, then, becomes your default paragraph style instead of the undependable Basic style.
- Pariah Burke

TIP: Find Out if an Image Is Flipped
In the past, editors and fact checkers couldn't tell for sure if an image was flipped after it was placed in InDesign. But in CS3 and CS4, you can find out the truth by clicking on the image with either selection tool. If the image was flipped in InDesign, you'll see a reverse "P" symbol in the Control panel. But beware! If the image was flipped in Photoshop, saved, and then placed in InDesign, there's no trail of evidence left behind.
- Keith Gilbert

TIP: Optical Alignment Makes You Look Good
By default, InDesign vertically aligns type in a text frame by moving the character as far left or right as it can go. Unfortunately, smaller characters (such as punctuation marks) and characters with slanted strokes (such as A, W, and V) can look indented instead of flush to the edge. You can solve this problem by selecting the text frame, opening the Story panel (Type > Story), and checking the panel's Optical Margin Alignment box. - Jeff Witchel

TIP: Is an Image Stretched?
To find out if an image in your InDesign layout has been stretched, click on it with the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow). Only then will the Control panel's Scale fields reveal the truth. To return the image to its original proportions, enter equal values in the X (width) and Y (height) scale fields.
- Keith Gilbert