Double Click on Tools for Extra Options

Ashley Mitchell

5

InDesign places great power and control right at your fingertips, you are the Mighty Freakin’ Thor of Layout, your hands fairly crackle with power as you sculpt type and images into designs of such beauty and sophistication that even Abraham Lincoln would have no choice but to giggle and clap like a little girl at the glory of it all, and this is wonderful. but that’s not what we’re going to learn about today. Today I’m going to tell you about what happens when you double click on tools in the Tools panel.

Many of the tools in the Tools panel will open panels or special dialogs when you double click on them. Not all tools do this and there is no visual indication as to which tools do or don’t do this, so here is a list of which tools do something special when you double click on them:

• Apply Color Icon– opens the Color panel
• Apply Gradient Icon– opens the Gradient panel
• Eyedropper Tool– opens the Eyedropper Options dialog
• Fill/Stroke Swatch Icons– opens the Color Picker dialog
• Gradient Feather Tool– opens the Effects dialog
• Gradient Tool– opens the Gradient panel
• Hand Tool– zooms to Fit Spread in Window view
• Line Tool– opens the Stroke panel
• Measure Tool– opens the Info panel
• Pencil Tool– opens the Pencil Tool Preferences dialog
• Polygon Tool– opens the Polygon Settings dialog. Note: Normally, if you have an object selected when you change some setting those changes apply only to that object and the document defaults remain unchanged. However, unlike all other dialogs in InDesign, values that you type into the Polygon Settings dialog will become the new default values for all new Polygons that you create even if you change the values while an object is selected.
• Rotate Tool– opens the Rotate dialog. Note: This dialog will only appear if you have one or more objects selected.
• Scale Tool– opens the Scale dialog. Note: This dialog will only appear if you have one or more objects selected.
• Shear Tool– opens the Shear dialog. Note: This dialog will only appear if you have one or more objects selected.
• Smooth Tool– opens the Smooth Tool Preferences dialog
• Type on a Path Tool– opens the Type on a Path Options dialog. Note: You must have either nothing selected or have type on a path selected for this dialog to appear.
• Zoom Tool– zooms to 100% view.

Now, none of this will give you super powers but you might be surprised at what you can do in some of these dialogs, so next time you’re choosing a tool why not just double click instead and see what happens.