Working on Rotated Text Without Standing on Your Head

You’re making changes to a brochure layout that folds in half horizontally before folding vertically a couple of times. To assure that everything reads correctly as the brochure is unfolded, some of the panels had to be designed upside down in the layout. This can present some problems. Even InDesign users who will bend over backwards to do their best work, find working on text upside down to be quite challenging. So how can you do it without being thrown for a loop?

Easy. Marquee across all objects in your upside down panel using the Selection tool (V). In the far left side of the Control palette, click on the center Reference Point. This represents the exact center of all your selected objects. In the Rotation section of the Control palette, select the -180° Preset, which will Rotate all the selected objects as a unit around their center. Make your copy changes (without standing on your head), reselect all the objects from the panel, and Rotate them -180° again. The objects should be positioned exactly where they were before you made copy changes.

Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.