All styles—paragraph, character, table, cell, and object—may be assigned to keyboard shortcuts on the General pane of their options dialogs. To set a keyboard shortcut, click in the Shortcut field and press the keyboard keys that will serve the particular style—for instance, Cmd+5/Ctrl+5. Assigning keyboard shortcuts to styles is not a new feature; neither is the fact that it’s so limited as to be almost useless.
The primary limitation to style shortcuts, you see, is that they require use of the numeric keypad— the set of number keys out to the right of full-sized keyboards. Every shortcut must be one or more modifier keys—Cmd, Opt, Ctrl, Shift on Mac or Ctrl, Alt, Shift on Windows—plus a numeric keypad number. Thus, the first limitation is that usually alphabetically named styles must be bound to arbitrary numbers. (Did I put the RunIn Head paragraph style on Ctrl+Shift+Num 5, Ctrl+Num 5, or was it something plus the 6?) Next, you have to recognize that, on most keyboards, any of these options are two-handed keyboard shortcuts, which are only—and not always—slightly more convenient than reaching for the mouse and clicking an entry on a panel. The choice of shortcuts is also limited by the fact that many key combinations are reserved for use by the operating system. On Windows, for example, you cannot use Alt and a number without also choosing Shift or Ctrl because Alt plus the numeric keypad numbers is reserved for system-wide insertion of special characters—for example, to insert a copyright symbol, press Alt+0169. Finally, the biggest limitation to keyboard shortcuts for styles is again the numeric keypad. Laptops don’t have them, nor do many slim desktop keyboards. Most laptop keyboards have a pseudo-numeric keypad created by depressing the Function key (often labeled as Fn and unique to laptops) and then pressing other keys (such as U, I, and O for 4, 5, and 6 or another mapping of numeric keypad functions to existing keys). So, in addition to pressing one, two, or three modifier keys and a number key, those using laptops or slim keyboards must press Function. Worse, pressing Function often changes the function of a modifier key. Option on a Mac PowerBook, for instance, becomes Alt when the Function key is depressed. Therefore, it is impossible to press Opt+Shift+Num 6 on a PowerBook’s built-in keyboard.
Until Adobe adds styles to the customize Keyboard Shortcuts dialog and opens up the rest of the keyboard to style shortcuts, the feature is more of a hindrance than a help. The only exception I would proffer is default styles. Leave your custom styles unassigned to shortcuts, but binding the Basic Paragraph paragraph style, the None character style, and similar defaults for table, cell, and object styles to shortcuts can be very useful and universal because every document you create has these defaults (though you may not use them). For instance, some people find it very helpful to put Basic Paragraph on the numeric keypad’s 1 key, the None character style on 2, and so on. For the rest of their styles they use something far more efficient: Quick Apply.
The primary limitation to style shortcuts, you see, is that they require use of the numeric keypad— the set of number keys out to the right of full-sized keyboards. Every shortcut must be one or more modifier keys—Cmd, Opt, Ctrl, Shift on Mac or Ctrl, Alt, Shift on Windows—plus a numeric keypad number. Thus, the first limitation is that usually alphabetically named styles must be bound to arbitrary numbers. (Did I put the RunIn Head paragraph style on Ctrl+Shift+Num 5, Ctrl+Num 5, or was it something plus the 6?) Next, you have to recognize that, on most keyboards, any of these options are two-handed keyboard shortcuts, which are only—and not always—slightly more convenient than reaching for the mouse and clicking an entry on a panel. The choice of shortcuts is also limited by the fact that many key combinations are reserved for use by the operating system. On Windows, for example, you cannot use Alt and a number without also choosing Shift or Ctrl because Alt plus the numeric keypad numbers is reserved for system-wide insertion of special characters—for example, to insert a copyright symbol, press Alt+0169. Finally, the biggest limitation to keyboard shortcuts for styles is again the numeric keypad. Laptops don’t have them, nor do many slim desktop keyboards. Most laptop keyboards have a pseudo-numeric keypad created by depressing the Function key (often labeled as Fn and unique to laptops) and then pressing other keys (such as U, I, and O for 4, 5, and 6 or another mapping of numeric keypad functions to existing keys). So, in addition to pressing one, two, or three modifier keys and a number key, those using laptops or slim keyboards must press Function. Worse, pressing Function often changes the function of a modifier key. Option on a Mac PowerBook, for instance, becomes Alt when the Function key is depressed. Therefore, it is impossible to press Opt+Shift+Num 6 on a PowerBook’s built-in keyboard.
Until Adobe adds styles to the customize Keyboard Shortcuts dialog and opens up the rest of the keyboard to style shortcuts, the feature is more of a hindrance than a help. The only exception I would proffer is default styles. Leave your custom styles unassigned to shortcuts, but binding the Basic Paragraph paragraph style, the None character style, and similar defaults for table, cell, and object styles to shortcuts can be very useful and universal because every document you create has these defaults (though you may not use them). For instance, some people find it very helpful to put Basic Paragraph on the numeric keypad’s 1 key, the None character style on 2, and so on. For the rest of their styles they use something far more efficient: Quick Apply.
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