Five Shortcuts Every InDesign User Should Know

Who doesn’t love a good shortcut?

Sometimes a simple change in the way you do things can save you minutes or hours in your production workflow.

We’ve curated some of our favorite InDesign shortcuts for you below.

How to Toggle Find/Change Direction With Your Keyboard:

With the release of InDesign CC 2014 came the ability to reverse direction of Find/Change search. While this can be done via the Find/Change dialog box, you can also do this via the following keyboard shortcut:

Command+Option+Return (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+Enter (Windows) to switch between Forward (Find Next) and Backward (Find Previous) searches

Turn Off Multiple Layers Simultaneously

To instantly hide all layers except one, hold the Option/Alt key and click the eye icon of the layer you want to remain visible.

A Shortcut to Constrain Transformations

Want to constrain transformation proportionally even when the chain button in the control panel is unselected (shows a broken chain)? Hold Command/Ctrl while you apply new width, height, or scale values.

Quickly Jump to Specific Pages in Long Documents

Use the “Go To Page” shortcut: Command+J (Mac) or Ctrl+J (Windows). This will allow you to “Jump” to any page in your file.

If you’ve jumped to a page and you want to quickly return to where you were, use the shortcut: Command+PageUp (Mac) or Ctrl+PageUp (Windows). Please note, this keyboard shortcut doesn’t work if you have a text insertion point active.

Get more tips for jumping around in long documents in Keith Gilbert’s article for InDesignSecrets: “Quick Navigation in a Long Document.”

Apply Character Style [None] with a Keyboard Shortcut:

If you like to use custom keyboard shortcuts for applying paragraph and character styles, and wish you could create one for the default character style [None], this handy tip from Anne-Marie Concepción is for you! It’s extracted from her original post on InDesignSecrets.com.

Select some text that is already set to Character Style: [None] and has no local overrides applied — that is, when the text is highlighted, no plus symbols appear next to the paragraph style that the text is formatted with. (Newbies: plus symbols mean the selection has locally-applied formatting.)

Now hold down the Option/Alt key and click the New Character Style button at the bottom of the Character Styles panel. InDesign picks up the fact that it’s based on the [None] style, and that you have no local formatting in the selection, so the Character Style Options dialog box says this style will do nothing other than apply [None]. Nothing! Perfect! Go ahead and add your shortcut in the appropriate field.

Your new “None” style appears in the Character Styles panel just line any other style, along with its keyboard shortcut. Now when you want to change a character-styled selection back to [None], just use the keyboard shortcut for your new “None” (or whatever you named it) style. The character style’s formatting is removed and the text reverts to whatever the paragraph style says it should be.

But wait, there’s more!

Hungry for more InDesign shortcuts every power user should know? You’ll love the InDesign Power Shortcuts session, presented by Michael Ninness, Adobe Sr. Director of Product Management for the Design Products. Here’s the description of Michael’s session:

Featured Session:
InDesign Power Shortcuts

Learn the secrets of the InDesign power users in this short, fast-paced, fun-filled session presented by an expert who has the inside scoop on how this program really works! This session includes dozens of InDesign tips, including:

Placing all the pages of a PDF on a single InDesign page
Top InDesign shortcuts every user should know
Setting frame-fitting options before starting work
Getting object styles to work even when placing images

Learn more about Michael Ninness. View the full InDesign Conference line-up.