Using Presentation Mode in InDesign
You probably know about Preview mode in InDesign: Press W and suddenly the pasteboard goes neutral gray and all non-printing objects (guides, stuff hanging off the edge of the page) disappear. You can also get to Preview mode from the View > Screen Mode menu. But there’s another feature lurking in that menu, too: Presentation mode.
I love Presentation mode because it takes over your entire screen. It’s like Preview on steroids. The menus go away, the panels go away, all other programs disappear, everything of non-importance goes away, and you’re left with your page on a black background. It’s a terrific way to show a document to your boss or a client.
To jump into Presentation mode, you can also press Shift+W (obviously not when your cursor is in a text frame). To exit Presentation mode, you press the same shortcut or press the Esc key.
Here are a few other Presentation mode secrets you should know:
- When you’re in Presentation mode, you can press W to change the background to white, or G to set it to gray. Press B to set it back to Black.
- If you have more than one monitor, the document goes into Presentation mode on whatever monitor the document is currently on. (That might be different from where your InDesign menus and panels are.)
- You cannot work on your document in Presentation mode, but you can navigate through the document one spread at a time by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard. Also, clicking with the mouse moves forward one spread, and Shift-clicking moves back.
- Even though InDesign calls this “Presentation mode”, unfortunately none of the interactive features work in this mode: no buttons, movies, animations, or anything like that. Too bad!
- Some people like to change their keyboard shortcuts, but if you change or add a keyboard shortcut to Presentation mode, be aware:
- You can find this shortcut by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, choosing the Product Area called View Menu, and scrolling down the list until you find Screen Mode: Presentation.
- If you want the same shortcut to both enter and exit Presentation mode (as a toggle), you need to make two shortcuts for the same feature. First, set the Context (found at the bottom of the menu) to Default and assign your shortcut to this feature. Then, set the Context to Presentation mode and assign the same shortcut. Otherwise, you will be able to enter Presentation Mode, but you won’t be able to exit it again with that shortcut.
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Small thing : the presentation mode is not really full screen, it has (at least on my computers) a small 10px black border around, which makes screen sized pixel documents slightly of pixel perfection when displayed.
I like Presentation Mode in InDesign
I love reviewing my artwork in presentation mode — especially high res brochures when I’m working in a screen mode where my graphics are less than “high quality.” Best of both worlds!
You can work while in Presentation view if you have two monitors:
Window > Arrange > New view
Drag new view to 2nd monitor
Shift-W
Go back to your first view and continue editing – changes are mirrored in real time on the 2nd monitor…
Increible!!!!
Do you know how to keep the Apple menu bar visible on the 1st monitor not the 2nd?
You have to uncheck “displays have separate spaces” within Mission Control / System Prefs…note, this does change/prevents all apps from using Mac fullscreen features in the same way (or at all). Also, the Split Screen /Multi Tasking feature in El Capitan doesn’t work.
i’d like to be able to view pages in presentation mode instead of spreads…any suggestions?
Under document setup if you uncheck the “facing pages” option it will make your document into singular pages instead of spreads.
Just got stuck in presentation mode and had to force quit to get out (shift-w did not work). Looks like another useless Adobe feature to me (especially when preview does the same thing and allows you to get out without force quitting). A quick google search indicates that I’m not the only one to get stuck in presentation mode. Looks to me like another “cool” feature with no real practical functionality.
@Jeff: That’s weird. The Esc key didn’t work either? I’ve never heard of someone getting stuck in Presentation mode. Personally, I find it really useful sometimes, though I use it less frequently than Preview mode.
I, too am stuck in Presentation mode. (CS6, Mac 10.8.4) I remember trying this once before and getting stuck but somehow found a way out. Today nothing works. From the F3 button I accessed Firefox to look for an answer but am not finding it. OK, off to Force Quit and recapture lost work. Any suggestions would be helpful for next time I forget not to try this!
Never happened to me either. strange. You might want to rebuild your preferences, perhaps InDesign has something stuck in its windpipe.
OK, thanks Anne-Marie. Luckily, Cmd-Q worked so I was able to save all open docs before ID closed. On reopening, I looked at keyboard shortcuts and remembered that I am still hanging on to the old Quark 4.0 set. Maybe that’s what is stuck in the windpipe? ;-) I’ll consider a preferences rebuild, but oh so much to re-establish there . . .
Totally got stuck. Again. Did it last year and promised never to. Rubbish
Excellent Share! Be Blessed.
I do love Presentation mode. It’s great when I show an artwork to my boss. However, Presentation mode is not displaying very clear (pixelated), any help?
Is it possible to hide the black line on the page boundaries when you are in White background?
I had the same issue. Just wouldn’t work no matter what i did.
Copied all of the content into a new document, entering and exiting preview mode worked fine with W again.
Just had to force quit. Warning! May have a glitch.
Presentation Mode is great.
To improve it however, I hope that Adobe:
1. Makes it Pixel Perfect in size.
2. On dual monitor systems, it should (or by option should) hide/black out the second monitor. I find the second monitor with all the pallets on it distracting, especially since they are entirely unusable in Presentation mode.
Stuck… on PC, tried everything!
When I pressed shift W to exit presentation mode, my cursor was no longer visible except outside of the area of my InDesign document. I clicked cmd w to close the file but it wanted me to save. I couldn’t get the cursor to click on ‘not save’. (I’m in Windows here at this work place. Sigh.)
PJ: That sounds frustrating. I find that sometimes switching from InDesign to another application and then back again clears up cursor problems. Also, you can use keyboard shortcuts for pressing buttons in dialog boxes. On the Mac, Cmd-D clicks “Don’t Save.” I don’t recall what it is on Windows, but if you hold down the Alt key, you might see a letter underlined; that’s a clue to which key to press to “click” that button.
Thanks. So many keyboard short cuts I don’t know about!
I have a question, actually. I am new to Adobe CC. I’ve noticed that when I am in preview mode and then toggle to normal view (W) that I will get different images on my newspaper layout, as in changes that I made, pictures that I placed, etc. will revert back to previous versions and then go back to what I placed last when I toggle back to preview mode. When I print it will print the latest version even though I’m seeing a different version, but why am I seeing different versions between those 2 views and how can I be certain that I’m changing the correct information? Is there a way to turn that off, whatever it is? I’ve been toggling between the two views with “W” for years, so what changed in CC and how do I turn it off? Does that make sense? I can send screen shots if you need them. I am on an iMac. Thank you!
Darcy: Wow, that is really strange. I’ve not seen it do that before. Consider rebuilding your preferences (if you don’t know how to do that, click Resources in the nav bar at the top of the page and click the InDesign FAQ)
Presentation mode is awesome. However exiting it; it goes to the center of the screen.
Is there any way to exit presentation mode and stay in the same area and zoom you were just in?
I work sometimes at 500% working on small details. Every so often I enter presentation mode and would like when I exit to stay in the zoomed in section I was just at?
Any clue
I’m using the presentation mode for InDesign already a couple of years, but suddenly it seems the presentation mode isn’t full screen. My windows task bar stays visible and hides a portion of my file. It’s really annoying, can I put this off?
And if you’re wondering how to change the background color for standard Preview mode (can be confusing when you inherit a document from someone else), here’s the tip:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/968869
Where is this context menu you speak of? I can’t assign a toggle to my normal/preview mode. Can’t begin to imagine why the shortcut vanished …
Rich: The context menu is when you right-click (or Ctrl-click on a Mac with a one-button mouse).
Oh, okay … I always just called it the “right-click menu.” Now I know :)
Can you zoom in and out on certain elements of a page while in Presentation Mode. Normally I would do this with CMD+Spacebar+CLICK.
This is now advancing to the next page/slide?!?! Can’t find the keyboard shortcut to change this.
Kevin: Nope, Presentation mode is just full screen, for display. You cannot zoom in/out.
If you have trackpad on Mac you can. Pinch with two fingers.
Oh yes you can!
While defining your hotkey, make sure context is set as “Presentation Mode”.
Presentation mode is flickering and inconsistently getting stuck in Adobe InDesign CC 2017.0 (12.0.0.81 build) release on the New MacBook Pro (2016 | Touch Bar, macOS Sierra 10.12.3 (16D32). Really annoying and make presentation unreliable and useless :(
same here. Did you find a solution ?
W, G and B commands no longer seem to work in Presentation Mode for changing the background colour of a document. Does anyone know of a fix?
So sad when I found out that the shortcut wasn’t working anymore!
Does anyone know if you can switch between documents (not pages) whilst in Presentation Mode?
Does anyone know why there isn’t this feature anymore in InDesign CC 2017?
I have the latest version (CC2017) and the feature still works, the only option mentioned that no longer works for me is the W G B to change the color of the back. Try going via the menus to activate it (View -> Screen Mode -> Presentation) Otherwise maybe resetting your preferences will do the trick
Is there a possibility to play the all spreads automatically when I am in presentation mode. So it behaves like a Slideshow. Infinite loop of course.
Thanks for your answers.
So that I not have to make a pdf.
This has been an issue with every version of InDesign that I have ever used. The Esc key simply does not work when in Presentation mode. Simple answer is Do Not Use it! In Windows closing InDesign with Alt-F4 allows you to quit the app. It’s really annoying and has never been addressed by Adobe – bad form!