InDesign is an awesome bit of software and it’s one I use pretty much every day. It’s incredibly powerful, especially for creating multiple–page documents. But with so many features and settings, it can seem mind-bogglingly complicated, especially if you’re a new user.
Don’t worry though, today I’ve got 8 quick tips that will simplify your workflow and save you time. And if you want to make working in InDesign even faster, don’t forget to grab your free shortcuts cheatsheet. Let’s get started!
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1. Master pages
Master pages let you automatically add layouts and elements to pages in your document, for example, if you want to place your logo in the same spot on every page in your file, using a master page is a great way to do that.
You could add things like guides, images, page numbers… whatever type of element you need repeated across the pages. You can also use multiple master pages within the same file if you want to re-use several varying layouts.
To access your master pages, open up the Pages panel and, at the top, you should see “A Master”. Double click on it to edit.
And to apply a master page to pages in your document, simply drag it into those pages. Alternatively, right click on a page and choose “Apply Master to Pages.”
2. Automatic Page Numbers
If you want to add page numbers to your document, manually adding them to every single page would be really time-consuming, especially if your file has lots and lots of pages. And if you reordered your pages, you’d have to go through and update every single one – nightmare!
There’s a much easier way. Add a text box to your master page, then click Type > Insert > Special character > Markers > Current Page Number. Then it’ll appear on every page, and if you rearrange the pages the numbers will update automatically.
3. Character and Paragraph Styles
Use character and paragraph styles to apply consistent text formatting across your whole document. For example, create a style you want to use for headings and instead of manually setting the font, size, colour etc for each one, just highlight the text and apply the heading style.
What’s more, that means if you want to change the style of your headings later (such as changing the colour), you only need to update the heading style, and all your headings will be changed.
4. Import styles from another document
If you’ve spent ages setting up all your character and paragraph styles and want to use the same styles in another file, there’s a quick way to do that.
You don’t have to go through recreating the styles in your new file. Instead you can import the styles. Open up the character styles panel and click on “Load Character Styles”. Find the document you want to copy them from and click Open. Check the box beside any styles you want to import – you can also import the Paragraph Styles at the same time.
5. Link files instead of using copy & paste
Adobe has made it really easy to copy and paste from one programme to another. But that doesn’t mean you should.
If you place files rather than pasting your elements in, it’s much easier and faster to update them later. For example, if you place an illustration into your file, then later make changes to it, you can simply refresh the link to show the latest version. InDesign will even detect when a linked file has been updated and show a warning so you know to refresh it. It’s especially handy if you’ve used the same element multiple times – so you can be sure to update all instances of it.
To place a file, click on File > Place then find the file and click Open. Or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D.
6. Replace one file with another
When your elements are placed files, it also makes it easier to replace them with different elements without having to resize and reposition them.
To replace one linked file with another, click on it and in the Links panel click on Relink. Choose the new file and it’ll appear in the same frame, and therefore in the same position on the page.
7. Find/Change
If you’re working on a really text-heavy document and you need to change a certain word or phrase every time it appears, doing that manually would be an awful chore. You might have to go through the document a few times just to make sure you got them all.
But there’s a much easier way. Click Edit > Find/Change – or use the shortcut Ctrl+F and InDesign will do the changes for you in a fraction of the time.
8. Preflight your files
Before you package up your InDesign file, or export a PDF proof, there are 2 things you really must do. Firstly, run the spellcheck to make sure you’ve caught any misspellings or typos.
Secondly, use the Preflight panel to check for things like images in RGB mode rather than CMYK, missing fonts, overset text etc. You can even create your own preflight profiles to customise the things it’ll check for.
By running the preflight, InDesign will pick up these errors, saving you time when you’re proofreading your PDF, and avoiding potential issues when your artwork goes to the print.
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