Indesign Secrets

There are so many new features in InDesign CS3 that it’s easy to lose track of some of them. One I’d like to draw your attention to is the new discretionary line break.
Like a discretionary hyphen, the discretionary line break (”DLB” from here on out) finesses where and how InDesign breaks a line of text […]

This is the last installment in the back-to-basics-and-on-to-advanced “Tab Leaders” series. If you’ve been following the series, we began by inserting tabs and dot leaders in columnar text (Part 1); moved on to formatting tab leaders differently than the text they separate (Part 2); created in-line, fill-in-the-blank-style tab spaces (Part 3); used the automated formatting […]

Although I had planned to make part 5 the last in this series, a reader question prompted me to push the tips and tricks out a week and cover another topic this week.
After reading the first few “Tab Leaders” installments, reader Tom asked:
I would like to add words to a text frame and hit tab […]

First, in part 1, we talked about separating columns of text with dot or other kinds of leaders. Next, in part 2, “Formatting Leaders,” we learned that tabs and their leaders can be styled like any other character, opening the possibilities of creative column separators. Last week part 3 focused on using custom text underlines […]

In parts 1 and 2 of this series we discussed inserting and formatting tab leaders in columnar text. The process of separating columns of text is extremely straight forward: hit the TAB key on your keyboard, highlight the resulting tab character, and, using the Tabs Ruler palette (Text > Tabs in InDesign CS3 and Window […]

Last week in the first part of this back to basics series on tab leaders we discussed creating dotted tab leaders in the Tabs palette to separate columnar text. Now, let’s talk about formatting those leaders.
Tab leaders—dots, underscores, hyphens, smiley faces, whatever—inserted via the Tabs Ruler are automatically the same font and color as the […]

Way back in Podcast 25 listeners asked questions about underlining text and creating tab leaders. After hearing the same questions recently from colleagues, I thought the topic was worth revisiting.
Vanessa from Australia asked:
I have a name, address, and a company name. I want to follow each one of those with a dotted underline […]

Here’s a quick tip for changing the font of text quickly in all versions of InDesign and InCopy—and without ever touching the mouse.
Let’s begin by establishing two facts: First, CMD+T/CTRL+T opens or closes the Character panel/palette. Second, we know that typing into the Character panel’s Font Family field causes InDesign to try to match typed […]

Among many exciting new and improved features in InDesign CS3, the totally re-imagined Find/Change function is among my favorite top five. The first time I opened the Find/Change dialog I was literally stunned into silence (shutting me up is not an easy task). What about it could possibly silence, even for a moment, this opinionated […]

You probabaly already know that you can type into just about any of InDesign’s measurement fields a value based on any measurement system InDesign understands. For instance, if the document uses pica for measurement, you can still specify height, width, and numerous other values in inches by typing X in (for inches [also “ and […]