InDesign tip : #25

InDesign’s print dialog offers more information than you may first think.

here’s a screen grab of what your print dialog might look like by default — this one shows a tiled job previewed in the bottom left corner :
screen grab of standard print dialog

if you click on that preview you’ll be given some handy specs. particularly useful is the number of pages your tiled job is going to print on — something which is often hard to easily see in the first preview :
screen grab of second print dialog window

click the preview again and you get the last screen which can be useful if you’re using custom paper sizes or other media :
screen grab of third print dialog window

that preview also has an icon at bottom left showing the currently selected colour output mode :
composite grey previewGrayscale
composite c m y k previewCMYK
composite r g b previewRGB
separations previewSeparations

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InDesign tip : #11

a brilliant little feature in InDesign is screen mode. it lets you quickly get a clean preview of a page — with all hidden characters, guides, grids, frame edges and the pasteboard hidden. in other words, you can go from this (normal screen mode) :

screen garb of page in normal screen mode

… to this (preview screen mode) :

screen grab of page in preview screen mode

… in an instant. there are also options for both bleed and slug screen modes.

you can access this from the view menu or, even easier, from the bottom of the tool panel (this grab is from CS2, other versions are similar) :

screen grab of tool panel showing screen mode button at bottom

but by far the easiest way is with the simple keyboard shortcut ‘W’. just make sure you’re not editing text when you use it. you can have the text tool selected, no worries, just don’t have it active in a text frame.

but wait, there’s more…
the default background colour is light grey — a good, all-purpose colour — but you can change it to anything you like, in your preferences :

screen grab of Guides & Pasteboard preferences showing preview background option

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