Don't overlook InDesign's Story Editor

One of the most overlooked features of InDesign is the Story Editor. The Story Editor provides a word processor-style view of an InDesign "story" (any individual text frame or set of threaded text frames). Any changes that you make to your text in the Story Editor are immediately made to the layout.

To quickly display the Story Editor, select some text with the Type tool or select a text frame with the Selection tool, and press command-y (Mac) or ctrl-y (Windows). (Think "y" because the word "story" ends with "y"). When you are finished in Story Editor, to return to the layout view, press command-w (Mac) or ctrl-w (Windows).

The story editor is useful for the following situations:

1. To help you concentrate on content, not formatting. Most formatting does not display in the Story Editor view.

2. When you need an easier-to-read view of your text. If your formatted page has text flowing through multiple columns, or text that is small and hard to read, the Story Editor makes the text easier to read and edit. By choosing Preferences > Story Editor Display, you can choose a large, easy to read font for the Story Editor display, different from the font used to format the text in the layout.

3. When you need to see invisible items more clearly. Items such as XML tags, notes, variables, hyperlinks, footnotes and index markers show up much more clearly in Story Editor than they do in the layout view, making them much easier to work with.

4. When you want to edit overset text, or write copy to fit. The Overset Text Indicator in the Story Editor show you where text is flowing out of the last box in the text thread, but unlike in layout view, you can still see and edit the text that is overset. This makes editing copy to fit much easier than in layout view.

One minor gripe: you can't edit text in table cells in the Story Editor.

So give the Story Editor a whirl. I think you'll like it!

Why does Illustrator artwork have a white box around it in InDesign?

One of the most frequent questions I receive is "Why does my placed Illustrator .AI or .EPS file have an opaque white box behind or around it in InDesign?" In the picture below, the left-most cartoon exhibits this behavior.

A quick workaround that will solve this problem in most cases is to choose View > Display Performance > High Quality Display. This will usually make the box disappear on the screen. If this doesn't work, or if you want to make the box disappear without having to enter High Quality Display mode, follow these instructions.

There are three possible explanations for a white box behind an AI or EPS graphic, and each has a simple solution:

1. The placed graphic is an EPS file. Solution: When you place the graphic, be sure to select the Show Import Options checkbox in the bottom left corner of the "Place" dialog box. When this is selected, you will see the dialog box below after you choose the graphic you are placing. Select the Rasterize the PostScript option, and the white box will not appear in the placed graphic.

2. The placed graphic is an AI file. Solution: When you place the graphic, be sure to select the Show Import Options checkbox in the bottom left corner of the "Place" dialog box. When this is selected, you will see the dialog box below after you choose the graphic you are placing. Select the Transparent Background option, and the white box will not appear in the placed graphic.

3. The placed graphic AI or EPS file really has a white box behind it in Illustrator. Solution: Open the graphic in Illustrator and remove the white box.

Totally off-topic: Twins blog

If you're a Minnesota Twins fan, check out my friend Frank Genalo's blog: Bert's Buddy. He has teamed up with Bert Blyleven to write a weekly blog commentary on all things Twins. Insightful, well written, and highly recommended!

Tweaking the Selection tool shortcut in InDesign

When you're editing text in InDesign CS3, and you want to switch to the Selection (black arrow) tool, just hit the Esc key, and the Selection tool will be chosen. After using this for awhile, I became frustrated that the shortcut only works when you have the Type tool selected and have an insertion point in some text. This shortcut is so handy, I want it to work everywhere, no matter which tool I've selected and regardless of whether I have text selected or not. Here is an easy fix so that the Esc key will always switch to the Selection tool:

1. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts

2. Choose Tools for the "Product Area"

3. Choose Selection Tool in the list of commands

4. Click in the "New Shortcut" field, and press the Esc key.

5. Click the Assign button. You may be asked if you want to create a new set. If so, answer Yes.

6. Click the OK button.

If you've done this correctly, the Esc key should now always switch to the Selection tool, except when you have text selected in a table cell. In this case, the Esc key will switch between selecting the table cell and selecting the text in the cell.

Modifying InDesign's Preview Mode shortcut

Preview Mode is one of the best interface features of InDesign. Preview Mode hides all non-printing items such as ruler guides, hidden characters, frame edges and text threads. I love being able to layout pages with all of this helpful non-printing stuff displayed, but when it gets in the way of being able to visualize my design, I can hide it all with a single keystroke. Unfortunately, the default keyboard shortcut to switch into and out of Preview Mode is "w". Since this is a single-letter keyboard shortcut, it doesn't work if you are editing or typing text with the Type tool.

InDesign CS3 provides an entry point so that you can change this keyboard shortcut to something that will work all the time, even when you are editing text. Here's how:

1. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts

2. Choose Tools for the "Product Area"

3. Choose Toggle view setting between default and preview in the list of commands

4. Click in the "New Shortcut" field, and press the keyboard shortcut you want to use (I use option-shift-w on my Mac and alt-shift-w on my Windows computer).

5. Click the Assign button. You may be asked if you want to create a new set. If so, answer Yes.

6. Click the OK button.

Now, if your new keyboard shortcut includes modifier keys such as option, alt, command or ctrl, you will be able to use the keyboard shortcut even when you are editing text. Once you get used to this, you will find yourself switching between Preview Mode and Normal Mode quickly and easily whenever you feel the need.

Adobe's "Open Screen" project

Today Adobe announced the Open Screen project. I won't rehash the entire announcement here, but two key takeaways are:

1. Adobe is removing licensing restrictions from and opening up the Flash SWF and Flash Video FLV/FW4 specifications.

2. Adobe will provide the Flash Player and Adobe AIR free for makers of consumer electronic devices such as cell phones.

What does this mean to you, if you are designer who is (today) working mostly in print? As I've been telling participants in my training seminars recently, don't think of yourself as a "print designer" anymore. Yes, the bulk of your work this week may be printed on dead trees, but it is clear that more and more content is moving to other media. What that media will be 1,3, 5 or 10 years down the road no one knows for sure. But today's announcement by Adobe indicates that they want Flash and AIR to be a part of this future. I've also been preaching to whoever will listen that print designers should try to learn as much as they can about Acrobat, Flash and eBooks in the upcoming months, as these tools provide the foundation for the natural progression of print "pages" to other media.

I think we're in for a wild ride for the next few years!