You'll have to excuse me if the following tips are a little too simplistic for you, or you already know them. Not only do they apply to the entire Creative Suite, they also apply to any program out there.
The reason I'm publishing these tips is that I know for a fact that if you don't already know them they will make your life a whole lot easier. Proof of this comes from the reaction I usually get from a good 70% of people that I train in any software, be it InDesign, Illustrator, Quark or whatever. Many people are generally shocked that it’s so easy to select type. You may be too, but if you already know this you'll wonder why I'm wasting everybody’s time.
Selecting type
There are many ways of doing this, of course. The vast majority of people simply insert their cursor into the text and drag, taking care not to pick up any stray spaces at the beginning or end of the selection. Others do the clever thing: they hit Apple-left arrow to select a word, or Apple-down arrow to select a paragraph. All well and good, but here’s the best way of doing it:
Two clicks of the mouse to select a word
Three clicks of the mouse to select a line.
Four clicks of the mouse to select a paragraph
Five clicks of the mouse to select all words (including any over-set type)
Double-click on a word and then drag (keeping the mouse held down) to select a range of type that starts and ends anywhere within a paragraph
(Indesign Only) Position your cursor anywhere within the type and hit Shift-Apple-Home to select all the type from that point upwards. Hit Shift-Apple-End to select all the type from that point downwards
(QuarkXpress Only) Position your cursor anywhere within the type and hit Apple-alt-shift-up arrow to select all the type from that point upwards. Hit Apple-alt-shift-down arrow to select all the type from that point downwards
Apologies once again if all this is old news for you. And double apologies if I've offended any Adobe acolytes by mentioning QuarkXpress. But what the hell... Those guys need help :-)
1 comments:
Thanks! Simplistic things are necessary! In fact they are vital! I have sometimes found it difficult to follow your help because I do not know some basic stuff, which I suppose you have 'reasonably' assumed. Please try to include the simple little 'basics' for those of us who enjoy your training if it is at all practical to do so.
I also like the amusing way you make reference to 'other' software without causing offence. -Neat!
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