When I first saw the new and very improved Control panel in InDesign CS3, I was amazed at how many more settings it contains to help speed work along. Here’s a quick example. In CS2, if you’re formatting text and the Character Formatting Controls button is selected, you’ll see only Character Formatting controls. In CS3, the left side of the panel is filled with all the Character controls, but the right side of the panel also shows the most used Paragraph Formatting Controls.
I just started preparing for my first InDesign CS3 training session and noticed a major difference between the Control panel on my laptop screen as compared to the Control panel on the larger screen that I use for freelance. All of the extra controls for formatting type (and other controls in this contextual panel) were missing. What’s up with this? A different version of InDesign? No! A bug? No! Different Preferences? No! It seems that the contents of the Control panel depends on the resolution of your monitor. The higher the resolution, the more “extras” the panel contains. I increased the resolution of my laptop, problem solved!
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.
