Track Down That Layout
Brooks wrote,
Is there any way to see the full document path of an open InDesign document? Sometimes it’s important to know if we’ve opened a document via a mapped drive (e.g., “L:\path”) or the full network (\\Network\drive\path). The only thing we can find to do this is the “Reveal in Explorer” command on the task bar, but there must be a better way. Any ideas?
Well, geez, Brooks, I was going to say “Choose ‘Reveal in Explorer’ from the bottom of the window,” until I finished reading your question. Smarty-pants!
So you had me there for a second, until I remembered a tidbit that I think you’ll like: Choose Edit > Deselect All (or press Command/Ctrl-Shift-A, or click in an empty area) so that nothing is selected. Then open the Info panel from the Window menu.
When nothing is selected, the path to the current InDesign document is displayed in the Info panel. Since you can’t resize the panel (boo hiss), the path is most likely truncated. However, if you hover your cursor over the bit you can see, the tool tip will show you the full path.
By the way, if you’re wondering how to find that “Reveal in Explorer” (on a Mac it’s “Reveal in Finder”) command that Brooks mentioned, it’s in a little pop-up to the left of the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the window. It appears in both CS3 and CS4 (and maybe earlier versions too.) You don’t have to deselect anything to see the command. In CS4, the icon you click on is a dog-eared page in a gray circle, as shown below.
In CS3, the pop-up icon is a right-pointing triangle in the status field (it says “Open” or “Never Saved”) at the bottom of the window:
You can use either of these techniques to make sure you’re working on the right file! I sometimes find I’m working on the “wrong” version of a layout after doing a File > Package or even a Save a Copy, so I’m a big fan of both of these path-discovery methods.
 |
Excellent! Note that on the Mac OS you can also Command-click the name of the file in the Title bar to see its path… and then select from that list to open the path to that point.
@David: I love this Mac OS feature to command-click the title bar. But it don’t works in CS4. Not with application frame turned on (that’s not a normal Mac OS Window), and not even if it’s turned off. That annoys me a lot!
@Martin: I find it to still work, sort of, using Application Frame in CS4 on a Mac.
What I do is to grab the tab of my document and tear it off, so that it becomes a floating window. Now I can command-click to see the path just as in CS3. Afterwards I put the now floating document back in place.
Not a perfect solution, but it does the job…
@Martin: Cmd-clicking on the title bar works perfectly here. That is, if this unholy cr.. of an application frame, which WAS, IS and WILL EVER BE non-user-friendly and a no-go for all times, is deactivated and windows are not tabbed (which as well is pure evil, it breaks Exposé). In the one and only view (a window is a window is a window ;) Cmd-clicking works. Amen.
:-) DrWatson. Don’t hold back!
Now, I LOVE the application frame and keep it turned on all the time. Also really really love the tabbed documents, once I got used to where the close box was. That’s the only way I work, now, in the CS4 apps.
Expose doesn’t do much for the 15 tabbed sites I have open in Safari or Firefox either. Are you saying you don’t use tabs in your browser?
That said, it would be useful if Adobe could show me a large thumbnail preview of each of the inactive tabbed docs when I hover over each one. But I can do the same thing (almost) in a second by using the N-up widget to quickly show me all of them, then choose Consolidate All to make them all tabs again.
What I’m missing in ID is Photoshop’s ability to Match Position and Match Zoom when you’re looking at an N-up view; and of course its drag-and-drop-on-tabs intelligence.
Also, if you’re feeling not-so-keyboardey, instead of cmd-clicking you can simply right-click. (everyone together now: “…or control-click if you’re using a one-button mouse…”)
You say it’s CS4-only (hovering over the info palette), but it works fine in CS3 that I’m running here at my office.
Chris, you’re absolutely right. Thanks! (I had tested it in CS3 to double-check, and it wasn’t working … but of course when I tested again just now, there it was.)
I’ll fix the post.