Where Was I a Moment Ago?
This happens to me all the time: I type some text, then look at some other page. If I want to skip back to the page with that text on it, it’s easy: Choose Layout > Go Page (or press command/ctrl-page up). That works just like the “Back” button in a web browser, jumping back to the previous page I was on.
But the real problem is when I go to about 15 other pages, looking here and there for something… and then I want to go back to where that text was.
MS Word has a cool “place the cursor back where I was a moment ago” feature, but InDesign doesn’t. (Please, Adobe! It’d be so helpful to have such a shortcut!) So here’s my workaround. It’s complex. Ready? Press Command/Ctrl-Z. Yup, just undo it. That jumps right back to where the text cursor was. Then press Command-Shift-Z/Ctrl-Shift-Z to redo the change you made, putting you right back to where you were before you started skipping from page to page.
It doesn’t match the zoom magnification, but that’s not a big deal — the important thing is that the cursor is (more or less) in the right place.
Of course, this also works when moving objects around. For example, you move an object, then skip around the document and don’t remember what page that object was on. Undo/Redo puts you right back, ready to go.
InCopy has a wondeful tool call the position marker. You put your cursor where you want it to be and press cmd+shift+[ and go on with your business. When you want to go back to where you were you press cmd+shift+] and you go right back to where you were.
It is a pretty slick feature that InDesign should pick up.
@Fritz Wow, I agree! I don’t use InCopy so I wasn’t aware of that.
Dear Adobe,
InCopy position marker for InDesign, pretty please!
Love,
Everyone
PS: more easter eggs please
Since David posted first about a (MSW-word) feature InDesign doesn’t have, I’ll post another one. Whenever I’m forced to use (MSW-word), there’s a cool thing that Dreamweaver also has: Redo. But a redo that doesn’t work just like the forward button: you, say, color a cell, and go to the other cells and… it redoes. Its shortcut on Dreanweaver is Ctrl+Y; I don’t know the one in (MSW-word).
Or am I missing something and this IS available on InDesign?
It’s Command/Ctrl-Y in Word too. I would LOVE to see that in ID. I think of it as the “do it again” command.
David, I like your funky workaround, it’s great for on the fly backtracking.
Sometimes when I don’t mind taking a couple seconds (esp if I need to keep coming back to the same few places in a long doc) I just use bookmarks. If you keep the bookmark panel open you can use it to just double-click to jump to your “saved” destinations.
I’ve been using this one for years: http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/qm.jsx. No need for undoing/redoing.
Peter
@ Peter,
what is doing the script really (cs4)?
@ Peter:
I’ve found your description,
http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/qm.html
Now it’s clear. Thanks.
Jochen
Great tip, David! And Anne-Marie, I like what you said about using bookmarks. I’d never bothered with them as it hadn’t occurred to me to use them since I don’t make interactive PDFs. But they could definitely serve another purpose. I tested one out now. Went to delete it and was surprised when InDesign asked me “Are you sure you want to delete this bookmark and its children?” I felt so evil. The poor children….
Phyllis
I would like view buttons (like in Acrobat) to take you back or forward to previous views (that doesn’t sound quite right but you know what I mean), with keyboard shortcuts, of course.
In the same vein, how do you get ID to take you to the TOP of the page when using Page Up or Page Down? Right now it moves to the same xy coordinates as the page you just left.
>I’ve found your description
Ah — thanks, Jochen, that is the correct link indeed.
Interesting tip. The problem with this is that InDesign remembers ephemeral actions such as show/hide gridlines in its undo list, so you have to cycle through all of those before you actually get back to where you made a change. I wish there were some way of having it undo only actions that actually change the document (i.e., actions that would cause a document that was just saved to be able to be saved again).
@Shmuel: I believe that an early version of CS3 included things like hiding/showing guides in its Undo list, but Adobe quickly changed that in a free update (5.02?).
David: I’m using 5.0.4 on Windows XP, as part of Design Standard CS3, and it still behaves that way.