Group Work
Working with grouped objects makes moving related items around document pages easier during the layout process. InDesign CS5 adds a seemingly small feature to working with groups that allows us to edit individual objects that are part of a group without the need to ungroup the objects or swap to the Direct Selection tool to access them.
Imagine you’re working on something like a newspaper or magazine layout, and you’ve formatted a story with an image an caption, but don’t quite know yet where everyting will end up on the page… Let’s see how InDesign’s CS5’s new double click behavior helps us work more efficiently with groups.
Start out by creating the story text frame – I’m using the new CS5 Span All feature to automatically span the headline across all columns and am also enabling the Fixed Column Width option in the Object > Text Frame Options dialog so that I can later on easily change the width of the story text frame and have InDesign automatically amend the number of columns!
Add image and caption, and select the image and caption and turn these two objects into a group ( Object > Group), and apply text wrap to the group – I tend to use jump object with jump object text wrap.
Next select the story frame and the previously created group and create the overall group that contains not only the story but also the image and caption.
What we’ve just created is a group that nests another group.
Now comes the fun part… Editing our group work without ever ungrouping it or changing to the Direct Selection tool!
Let’s assume you decide the story is better over 4-columns. We need to get hold of the story text frame. Using the Selection tool, simply double click the larger text frame to select it. Yes, you heard it right! no ungrouping, no direct selection tool involved. Click outside the group to see the article in group mode again.
As the headline now runs over a single line, the image and caption aren’t quite in the right spot. In fact it might be that you decide to change the position of the image and caption altogether.
Here comes the even funner part… our image and caption are a sub group within the overall group. Double clicking this group will enable us to select the sub group itself and move it around… all with the use of the Selection tool.
Group work made easy:
- An article group is easily moved around the page as a whole using the Selection tool.
- An image and caption group (sub group) can be accessed within the article group by double clicking with the Selection tool and moved around as a sub group.
- A story text frame (individual object within group) can be accessed with in the article group by double clicking it with the Selection tool and resized. It can also automatically add/subtract columns and always span its heading across all columns.
- Oooh, and what if you want to change the part of the image that displays? With the Content Grabber enabled, hover the Selection tool over the image within the group and ‘grab’ hold of the image. If you don’t show the Content Grabber (View > Extras), continue to double click with the Selection tool to get to the image…
What can I say? This new CS5 double-click behavior really is kinda cool!
Huraah !… I wanted to know how to disable the content grabber… It annoys me at the moment :D
I have the content grabber switched off – It’s not something I like having on, sometimes I go to grab a frame but the content grabber activates and you move the image. The content grabber might be more useful at a smaller target size, at the moment it takes up too much of the grabability of the frame.
Thanks for the tip on turning off the content grabber. It annoys me to no end. I just turned it off.
To think of all those years I wasted becoming an expert at Select Contents, Select Container, Select Next Object, etc. ;D
I really loved this new behavior for group in CS5. What Cari forget to mention is that instead of double-clicking to “enter” the group, you can once selected use the Shift+Escape key to enter the first object or group level (Content) , hit Escape again to reselect the entire group (Container).
ANd don’t forget, when you are “inside” a group, if you do a Select All, you will indeed select ONLY the content in that particular group. Wonderful! (true in CS4 also)
Uau. Good to know I’m not the only one with the content grabber switched off… It’s exactly like Eugene said.. maybe if it was a smaller symbol…
@JC Thanks heaps for adding the shortcut methods for jumping in and out of (sub)groups :-)
Now all that’s needed is a way to group while retaining layers…
Content-grabber is seriously counter-productive. It’s one of those things that looks great in theory, but in practical day-to-day layout work is a total nightmare.
I’ve been double-clicking into groups since CS4, so I hadn’t noticed a change in the CS5 behavior. What I am having real trouble getting used to is the inability to select an object that’s on top of (even on a higher layer) one that is already selected, regardless of whether you want to add to (Shift-click) or just change the selection. The CS4-and-earlier behavior is so grooved into my muscle memory, and so intuitive (stuff on top should be selectable, dammit!) that I’m constantly having to stop, deselect an image, then carefully select the top items in the stacking order first.