inDesign Tip #16 Creating your own shortcuts

What we are accomplishing: Creating custom keyboard shortcuts.

Many of your day to day tasks require that you know keyboard shortcuts to get work one faster.  Sometimes though, you find a command that you use all the time and there is no shortcut assigned to it.  This is an instance where you will need to create your own keyboard shortcut, so you can make your work-flow as effective as possible.  To do this, go to “Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts..” to open the shortcuts dialog box.  Once here, you need to find the command that you wish to add or change the shortcut command for.  After selecting the command, you can type in a new shortcut at the bottom of the dialog box.  Just hit “Apply Shortcut” and voila, you now have assigned that shortcut to the appropriate command!  You can add as many shortcuts as you want, as long as that shortcut is not already in use.

inDesign Tip #15 Converting shapes

What we are accomplishing: Using the convert shapes command to create new shapes from existing ones.

This is one that I don’t think I could live without.  Converting shapes is essential tool for any designer in need of a new shape fast.  To change the shape, first make sure you have the shape you want to change highlighted.  Then, you can go to “Object>Convert Shape”.  Here, you will be presented with a decent list of shapes, such as rectangles, ellipses and triangles.  Just click on the shape you want and voila, you now have a new shape!  Now, for most designers, this would suffice, I however take this a step further. 

To make changing shapes easier (and because I measure shapes easier using rectangles) I set the main 4 to my numeric pad keys 0, 1, 2 and 3. 
0-circle
1-rectangle
2-polygon (which changes according to your current polygon settings)
3-triangle
If you wish to know more about making your own shortcuts, be anticipating next week’s post.