Tips & Tricks Session

TIP: Meet the Content Grabber

In the past, you had to do the Texas two-step to select a graphic in an InDesign frame: Double-click to get the Direct Selection tool, click again to select the image, double-click again for the Selection tool. Rinse and repeat as necessary. In InDesign CS5, you just hover over a graphic frame with the Selection tool and a viewfinder-like icon appears. (I call it the Donut.) Click, and--poof--you've selected the graphic, without even changing tools. To leave this mode and return to dealing with the frame, press Escape or double-click.

TIP: Clean Up Imported Word Documents

If you've imported a Microsoft Word document that's riddled with problems (for example, two hyphens instead of an em dash, or tabs instead of paragraph indents), don't repair your file line by line. Instead, use Edit > Find/Change and correct the problems with a single mouse click. In the Find/Change dialog box, on the Text tab, first define the scope of your search with the Search dropdown menu. Then use these Find What/Change To pairs to solve common problems:

Replace two hyphens with an em dash.

Find what: --

Change to: ^_

Multiple spaces after punctuation or used for indent.

Find what: [space][space]

Change to: [space]

Replace multiple tabs with a single tab.

Find what: ^t^t

Change to: ^t

Replace three periods with an ellipses.

Find what:...

Change to: ^e

Space before a carriage return.

Find what: [space]^p

Change to: ^p

Space at beginning of paragraph.

Find what: ^p[space]

Change to: ^p

Tab before a carriage return.

Find what: ^t^p

Change to: ^p

Tab after a carriage return.

Find what: ^p^t

Change to: ^p

TIP: Convert Spot Colors to Process Colors

To convert a spot color to process, double-click the name of the swatch in the Swatches panel and change the Color Type from Spot to Process. If you used the Pantone color library to define the color, first change the Color Mode to CMYK. You can also specify that all spot colors are automatically converted to process to automatically converted to process when the job prints. Choose Ink Manager from the Swatches panel menu. You'll see all the colors in your document. Click the All Spots to Process option and the spot color will be converted to process.