InDesign's Edit Original command

Did you know that you can quickly edit placed artwork and images in Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs from within InDesign? Here's how:

Select a placed bitmap image (something you can edit in Photoshop) or placed vector artwork (something you can edit in Illustrator). Right click or ctrl-click on the image, and choose Edit Original from the context menu. If everything is configured properly on your computer, the program that created the image or artwork should launch, and the image will open. From there, you can edit the image to your heart's content. When you're finished, close the image, save your changes, and click back on your InDesign page. Your changes will be immediately visible on the InDesign page.

But what if this doesn't work? A common Macintosh problem is that you might choose the Edit Original command with an EPS file selected, and Preview will launch instead of Illustrator. Or you might have a JPEG selected and Edit Original will launch your Web Browser instead of Photoshop. If this happens, it's because InDesign defers to the operating system for the mapping between the file type (JPEG, PSD, TIF, EPS, etc.) and what program should be used to open that file type. This mapping can get messed up for any number of reasons. If so, it will be messed up in InDesign also.

Fixing this on the operating system level is a topic for another post. But InDesign CS4 offers an easy workaround. Instead of choosing Edit Original, choose Edit With, and choose the application you want to use to edit the file.

There are three alternatives to choosingEdit Original in the context menu:

1. You can option double-click (Mac) or alt double-click (Windows) on the image

2. You can click on the pencil icon at the bottom of the Links panel

3. You can choose Edit Original from the Links panel menu.