Top 20 Command/Control Clicks
Everybody loves a good list. They’re like the proverbial box o’ chocolates. You take a bite and move on. Sometimes you get your favorite (mmm, caramel) sometimes you get that strawberry nougat thing with the nut in it. To me, this list is all caramels. It’s my top 20 tricks using the Command key on the Mac or Control key on Windows. Note that these aren’t the classic keyboard shortcuts where you press Command/Control along with other keys. For that, there’s a lovely poster you can buy somewhere around here…
1. Temporarily get either the Selection tool or Direct Selection tool, while you’re using a different tool, hold Cmd/Ctrl. If you were using any path editing tool (Pen, Pencil, Scissors and all their variations) you always get the Direct Selection tool. For all other tools, you get the last used selection tool. One exception: this trick doesn’t work when you’re in Notes mode. Pressing Cmd/Ctrl then gets you an I-bar cursor so you can click a new spot for another note.
2. If you’re editing text and you want to move or resize the text frame, hold down Cmd/Ctrl and drag the frame.
3. To select a frame that is underneath others, using the Selection tool, hold down Cmd/Ctrl and keep clicking the same place until you’ve got the frame (or group) you want.
4. To scale a frame and its content, hold down Cmd/Ctrl while dragging a corner.
Are these too plain vanilla for you? Hang in there, maybe you like the strawberry nougat nut thing. It’s in here somewhere.
5. Layers 1: To create a new layer above the selected layer, hold down Cmd/Ctrl as you click the New Layer button. Otherwise the new layer gets created atop the stack.
6. Layers 2: To move selected objects to a hidden or locked layer, hold down Cmd/Ctrl as you drag the colored square on the right side of the Layers panel.
7. To see the save and version history of InDesign document, as well as required plug-ins and other geeky information hold down Ctrl and choose Help > About
InDesign (Windows) or hold down Command (Mac) and choose InDesign > About InDesign.
8. When you’re using drag and drop text, to create a new frame and drop the text into it, start dragging the text, then hold down Cmd/Ctrl, and then release the mouse button before releasing Cmd/Ctrl.
9. Editing character styles: To change a character style so it is color-blind, (i.e. to make it so it ignores the color of text it’s applied to) hold down Cmd/Ctrl and click the color swatch in the list.
Have you found a caramel yet?
10. Clearing overrides: To clear character overrides only (preserve paragraph formatting overrides), Cmd/Ctrl click the Clear Overrides icon on the Paragraph Styles Panel or the Control Panel.
11. Drawing 1: To Connect two open paths with the Pencil tool, after you begin dragging, hold down Cmd/Ctrl. You’ll see a small merge symbol at your cursor to indicate you’re connecting to the existing path. You do need to release the mouse button right on the second point or the paths won’t be joined.
12. Drawing 2: To adjust a path segment while you’re drawing with the Pen tool, hold down Cmd/Ctrl. It gets you the Direct Selection tool, so you can move anchor points and/or their direction points.
13. Drawing 3: To stop drawing a path with the Pen tool, without having to close the path or switch to another tool, Cmd/Ctrl click in any empty spot.
14. Panel Lists 1: To expand or collapse an XML element and all elements within it, Cmd/Ctrl click the triangle next to the element.
15. Panel Lists 2: To expand or collapse a style group and all its subgroups, Cmd/Ctrl click the triangle icon.
16. Guides 1: To create a spread guide when you’re zoomed in and can’t see the pasteboard, press Cmd/Ctrl as you drag from the ruler.
17. Guides 2: To move a spread guide when you’re zoomed in and can’t see the pasteboard, press Cmd/Ctrl as you drag the guide on the page.
18. Guides 3: To create vertical and horizontal guides simultaneously, Cmd/Ctrl while you drag from the ruler intersection where the rulers meet.
19. Show Hidden Menu Items: Hold down Cmd/Ctrl to temporarily display menu commands you hid by customizing menus.
20. Master Pages: Cmd/Ctrl click the Create New Page button in the Pages Panel to quickly create (and navigate to) a new master page.
Bonus/Cheat: This is technically a keyboard shortcut, but I love it too much to leave off the list. To apply a width, height, or scale value proportionally from the Control panel (when the constrain chain is broken) press Cmd/Ctrl Enter.
Hope you found something tasty. And remember, the best thing about this list: zero calories!
Wow, a tasty list indeed — thanks, Mike! I’m gonna try them all out, and in this order, too. Now I eagerly await “The Sequel: Shift.”
Thanks for these tips.
Question about #3: After using Ctrl-click to select a text frame that is underneath other frames, how do I then select inside that same frame for editing?
Actually, I just want to know the best way of selecting inside a text frame for editing, when that frame is underneath other frames. So if there is a way of doing this without first selecting it with Ctrl-click with the selection tool, that’s good, too.
Hi Shmuel-
Start with the Type tool, hold command/control, click until you see that you have the frame you want (control handles and text ports will be visible), release command/control, and click. Your cursor will be in the frame you want and you can start editing text.
The other thing you could do drag over the stack with the Selection tool and press command/control+y to open the Story Editor. If there were other stories in the stack, they would open additional story windows.
Thanks, Mike.
A bit counterintuitive, but effective. I guess that’s a combination of “tricks” #1 and #3. I must have figured this out before, but I didn’t really understand what I was doing or why it worked; I think I do now.
It looks look I could also switch to the Text tool (press “T” or click in the toolbar) after selecting with ctrl-click using the Selection tool, then click again.
But doing as you suggested is easier, because if I’m just going through the document to select various text for editing, I could select any text using this method (with the Type tool) without ever having to actually switch to the Selection tool.
Uhm… caramel makes me hurl
Now chocolate is a whole other story.
Anyway, the most useful tip/hint/cheat is probably the bonus one.
If you finished reading Mike’s piece on the Cmd/Ctrl key and want even more, you must read his article on double-clicking that he wrote earlier this year.
Thanks, these are useful. I knew most of them, but I could never figure out how to remove the color form a character style. I always created a new style and replaced the old one.
I ‘ve got to get those shortcuts into my system! It improves the workflow so much. Thanks for sharing.