CS5’s Gridified Tools Adds a Wrinkle to Drawing Starbursts and Polygons
One of the things that can trip up even the most experienced InDesign users is a change in behavior brought about by new feature. Such is the case with the polygon and polygon frame tools in InDesign CS5.
In past versions if you wanted to draw a starburst you could choose the polygon tool, start dragging and then use the up and down arrows keys to customize the number of points and the left and right arrow keys to control the inset.
If you try that with InDesign CS5 the new gridify feature will kick in and you’ll get a grid of ploygons/stars with an appearance dependent upon your defaults with no apparent way to recapture the previous behavior.
Starburst and polygon lovers, fear not. Adobe has not forsaken you. Nor has InDesign Secrets.
The Secret is in the Spacebar
After selecting the polygon tool and dragging with your mouse, just press the spacebar to toggle the arrow key behavior. Yup, it’s that simple.
After pressing the spacebar the previous behavior will be restored and you can customize the appearance of your single star/polygon with the arrow keys. But the fun doesn’t end there. Press the spacebar again and the gridify behavior returns to the arrow keys allowing you to change the number of rows and columns. Use the spacebar as many times as you like until you get things just the way you like.
Finally, if you’d like to keep that grid of stars or polygons proportional, hold down the shift key before letting go of the mouse.
One plug-in that would be welcome in this old man’s house would read the old-fashioned CS4 command and translate it to the new set of finger exercises required for CS5.
Bet I’ll have to wait for that one.
Great tip! The more these little changes are made, the more I think I’m going to have to conduct different training sessions for each version! In CS5, do this, but in CS4 do this…and you could do it in CS3, but you had to be standing on your head at the time
I have just been watching Anne-Marie’s “Using the gridify technique” on lynda.com and thought about how this would affect the polygon tool.
I immediately headed to David’s “InDesign CS5 Essential Training” at lynda.com and to Chapter 7’s “Making Polygons and Starbursts” to see how if David explained how to access the CS4 functionality.
But just before the video revealed the “spacebar” secret, I paused the video and opened up the Tool Hints panel in my trial version of CS5 and there was the detail on the change.
Had I visited InDesignSecrets first, I would have seen Bob’s post.
Thank you.
yes I was using the gridify the other day and it’s pretty cool. Only thing was the colour of the background made it impossible to see the grid.
Solution – change your layer colour to a more contrasting colour and then gridify as much as you like.
Also when you’re placing multiple images onto a background that is busy, the grid is just a dotted line, and it’s very hard to see, it’s not the layer colour but a dark colour – how can you go about making it easier to see the grid?
Not only the spacebar, but any “white space” key (tab, return, enter) toggles between gridify and polygon functions. But I think, I will use the spacebar most time. This switching thing is SO annoying that I need a LARGE button for it. (Nevertheless: I love Gridify!)
tnk a lot for this great tip .. I tought it was a mistake frome adobe CS5 ..you just save my day !
Can you adjust the gutter on gridify?
If there is, I don’t know it. But if you use step and repeat, you can control it very precisely.
You can adjust the gutter on gridify. While you’re dragging out the grid of objects, hold down the Command/Ctrl key while with your third hand, you tap or press the Up or Down arrow key (increase/decrease horizontal gutters) or the Left or Right arrow key (vertical gutters).
Ah yes, it’s all coming back to me now. It was growing that third arm that sent me back to step and repeat.
Yes. I think a third arm and hand come with BlatnerTools.
I think that’s Mac only, though.
Ho ho ho. I know you’re joking, Bob, but for lurkers: No, Blatner Tools is Mac and Windows (CS3-CS5), and no, it does not cause any significant physical growths such as extra arms.
Re: Can you adjust the gutter on gridify?
Yes, as per Anne-Marie’s tips above, and…
You can also change gridifies default amount of space between elements by altering the default Gutter Width.
With no document open, go to Layout>Margins and Columns> Gutter:
Doing it with no doc open means it will hold that setting for all new docs.
Whatever amount you specify here is what gridify uses
woo hoo!
Sue: Love that tip!