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TECHNIQUE TECHNIQUE
ADOBE INDESIGN CS5
10+ Tips to Speed Up Your Layout
By David A. Rogers
If you’re wondering if the upgrade from CS4 to
CS5 is worth it, you might want to ask yourself
what your time is worth. While Photoshop and
Illustrator were bestowed some sexy innovative
features, InDesign got its fair share of features
that are sure to save you enough time to
charge more or go home early. Some of these
features deal directly with the placement and
manipulation of images. In this tutorial, we’ll
explore these features and see what they can
do to speed up our workflow.
MINI BRIDGE_ From the Window menu, you can
now select Mini Bridge: a panel that will give you the
visual search capabilities of Bridge without leaving
InDesign. Images can be selected individually or in
groups from Mini Bridge and dragged to existing
frames or you can create new frames simply by
dragging them inside your document.
PLACING IMAGES_ If you load up with
multiple images you can change the order in
which they are placed by using the arrows keys
to scroll though the previews before clicking on
the document. Using the escape key will release
images from the loaded cursor individually in
case you picked up too many or change your
mind.
Holding down Shift + Command keys will place all
images in a grid pattern. The default grid is set for
nine frames, but you can increase this on the fly
with the arrow keys to increase or decrease the
number of columns or rows. Note: The grid is not
a table but individual frames.
ARRANGING IMAGES_ Another time saving
feature is to use the move tool to select multiple
frames and rearrange them without grouping
them. Using Smart Guides helps to position
elements evenly on the page.
LIVE CAPTIONING_ For those of you
who work with Photographers or use captions
under your images, a new feature specifically
designed for captioning will no doubt streamline
your workflow. Live captioning draws from the
Metadata inside an image to be used as a caption.
To add Metadata to the images go to Bridge or
Photoshop and Choose File > File Info. Locate the
Title field and enter the data there.
Once you have chosen the data you want from a
list in the Caption Setup dialog box, you can format
it with a paragraph style. To apply a caption to an
image, select the image frame and from the menu,
choose Object > Captions > Generate Live Caption.
In this case I chose to use the Title as the caption
so I need to enter some information in the Title
section of the image Metadata panel.
CONCLUSION_ The combination of Mini
Bridge and the improved image frame navigation
in Adobe InDesign CS5 is so powerful that even
an inexperienced user should be able to save
a significant amount of time while working on
projects and be able to focus on refining a layout,
rather than fumbling between unnecessary tools
and extensive keyboard combinations.
One of my favorite features with respect to the
placement of images is the new Content Grabber.
Hovering over an image reveals a double circle in
the center. Simply click and drag to reposition an
image within the frame. No need to change to the
content tool. Live screen drawing is enabled by
default so there is no need to pause before seeing
the entire image outside of any framed area.
Clicking on the Content Grabber will access the
content for resizing, again, without the need to
use the content tool or remember any keyboard
shortcuts that size only the content and not the
frame. Double clicking the content of a frame
no longer selects the content tool, meaning you
don’t have to reselect the move tool.
SCALING IMAGES_ Using the move tool,
we can resize both the frame and content by
checking the new box Auto-Fit in the options bar.
This checkbox is frame-specific so it doesn’t have
to apply to all frames in a document.
If all the boxes in a group use the Auto-Fit feature
they can be scaled without creating a group. This is
yet another speed feature for the “power user.”
80 artistikmagazine.com | WINTER 2011
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