Recently, I trained a very knowledgeable group of magazine artists who were in the process of switching from QuarkXPress to InDesign CS2. Before training began, I was watching one of these artists work in Quark and was amazed at how proficient she was in the use of Keyboard Shortcut Commands. Of course, during training this same artist asked if I had a “cheat sheet” of Keyboard Shortcuts that she could use to learn InDesign’s Commands.
Here’s what I suggested to help her find any Command fast. Go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, which lists all Default Commands as well as Commands that have no Keyboard Shortcut assigned. If you click the “Show Set” button, all possible Commands and their Keyboard Shortcuts open up in a Text file. If you save this Default Set as a Text file, you can leave it open while working in InDesign. When you want to know a Command, activate the text file and use the text editing application’s Find feature (Edit > Find) to find the command you’d like in a fraction of a second – a lot faster than looking through 22 pages of printed Shortcuts.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
