Hi there!
In this video we’ll be talking about optimizing our preferences, for a better workflow in
InDesign, so let’s get started.
You’ll find the ‘preferences’ option on a PC under ‘Edit’ menu, somewhere towards
the end, and on a Mac, it sits under ‘InDesign’, so let’s click ‘General.’
The first one is this option that says ‘show Home Screen when no documents are open.’
If you find the welcome screen confusing, and want to straight away land to the screen
from where you can select the new document, you can uncheck this box, so next time you
double-click the InDesign icon, you’ll land here, and from here you can then go to file,
and then new, and click document, to create a new document, and then hit create.
Since I love my welcome screen, I’d check the box.
The next one is this ‘content-aware fit’ option.
By default it is unchecked, and let me show you what it does.
Let’s grab a rectangle frame tool, and make a rectangular frame here.
Now let’s go to file, and then place, and locate an image on the computer, and then hit open.
Once your image is placed into the frame, you’ll find that it’s not the complete
image, so particularly when I’m working on a document where I have to place lots of
images, it’s better to have the content-aware fit option checked.
So, let’s undo the last action, and go to preferences, and then general, and check the
content-aware fit option, and hit okay.
Now let’s go to file, and then place, and locate the same image on the computer, and
hit open, and you shall find that this time the image has been placed perfectly into the frame.
Please be aware that this is still not the entire image.
Let’s right-click, and go to fitting, and select ‘fit content to frame’ option,
and you shall find the image resizing itself slightly.
So what content-aware fit does is, it automatically scales, and repositions the image into the
frame, based on the context and focal point of the image, which is why the subject is
enhanced, and the unnecessary corners are shed, using content-aware fit.
Let’s move on to the next one.
Let’s go to the Interface tab, under preferences.
From here you can change the color theme of InDesign.
If you prefer a darker theme, select the one on the left.
If you prefer a lighter theme, you have two nice options to chose from, so it’s entirely
up to your choice here.
I’m going to stick to the default option.
The next one is units and increments, so let’s move to that tab, and in here the ruler units
are set to picas, so let’s change it to millimeters, and hit okay, and the rulers
will be set to a more familiar unit.
You can chose millimeters, or inches, or centimeters, depending upon your comfort zone with them.
For the next one, let’s make a rectangle, using the rectangle tool.
Now when you click, and move it, it moves in certain preset increments.
If you want to reduce or increase the size of the increments, go to preferences, and
then units and increments, and you see at this point it is set to .353 millimeter, which
means with every click it moves .353 millimeter, so let’s change it to .1 millimeter, and
hit okay, and now when you move it, using the arrow keys, it will move as per .1 millimeter increments.
It’s an option used more when precision is required, in terms of alignment.
Let’s move on to the next one, and it’s spelling.
Here you can check ‘enable dynamic spelling’ option, and it shall work much like the ‘spell
checker’ of MS Word.
Now if you move on to ‘autocorrect’, you’ll find quite a few misspelled word list on the
left, and their correction on the right.
So basically this is for people that have a trend in misspelling words, so instead of
typing in ‘about’, they tend to type in ‘abbout’, so InDesign corrects it, when
it comes across a word like this, but you’ll have to add such words to the list, for it
to trigger a correction, so let’s hit okay, and see how it works.
Let’s select the type tool, and make a text box.
Let’s type in ‘abbout’, and the moment you enter another space, InDesign will trigger correction.
You may also have noticed the green underline, and that’s because we have activated dynamic
spelling, so InDesign will give you red lines under incorrect spellings, and green lines
if the sentence is incomplete.
Now you see if I type in ‘aboout’, it’s an incorrect spelling of the word ‘about’,
so InDesign has alerted us with the red underline, but it hasn’t autocorrected the word, because
we never added this word to be autocorrected.
So let’s add it now.
Let’s go to the autocorrect option, and click the ‘add’ button.
In the ‘misspelled word’ bar, type in ‘aboout’, and in the ‘correction’
bar, add the right spelling of the word, and hit okay, and come out of the preferences panel.
Now if you misspell the word ‘about’, adding two ‘o’s, InDesign will auto correct it.
Let’s misspell the word ‘favorite’, and you shall find the red underline.
Correct it, and the underline will be replaced with green.
It’s because it’s a stand alone word.
It will not happen, if you type in a complete sentence.
Let’s type in ‘I love Adobe’, and you shall find no green underline.
Let’s delete the text, and get back to preferences.
Let’s move to ‘clipboard handling’, and we have already covered this option earlier
during one of the tutorial sessions, but let’s discuss it once more.
So this one is particularly useful when you’re pasting text or tables from other applications,
so if you want them to come to InDesign along with the styles, and swatches etc., you should
chose the ‘all information’, option from here, else, you can select the ‘text only’ option.
In which case you’ll have to style everything on InDesign, as per your choice.
Do go through other options in preferences, and see what you can further customize according
to your working style, and something you feel can add on to your workflow efficiency, and
I’m sure it will speed up your work, and make life simple for you.
Alright guys!
That concludes our session, and I’m going to see you in the next one momentarily.
Good bye!