The Mac Experience in Business & Home: Help, Tips, Discussion & Radio Show Notes

We have a caller tonight that is having problems opening Pagemaker files, from OS 9, in InDesign.

InDesign CS 2 should open Pagemaker files from 6.x -7.x. If you have InDesign CS (not version 2), and you have a version of Pagemaker between 6.0 and 6.5, you may have to update to InDesign CS 2 to open those files.

Other things you might try include standard operating procedures:

Open a document as a copy:

A. Start InDesign & choose File > Open.
B. Select Copy & find your file.
C. Select your file & click Open.

I was working on a calendar in InDesign recently. I pasted my text into a text frame and wanted to fill the frame with a swatch color. To do that, I needed to switch from the Type tool to the Selection tool. But there’s a problem using the keyboard shortcuts.

Since I had been using the Type tool, pressing V (the keyboard shortcut for the Selection tool) added an extra letter to my text. The trick: press the command key and click on the frame. Now press V to switch to the Selection tool.

Pop quiz, hotshot. You’ve got to create a product catalog in InDesign. The product name has to be bold and small caps. The product code uses a smaller font and is in color. What do you do?If you’re thinking character styles, you’re getting warm. Character styles let you apply all kinds of formatting to selected text in a paragraph with just a click. Best of all, you can save and change the formatting. It’s a nice timesaver. But before you can apply your styles you still have to manually select the text to be formatted, which is a pain. A better answer is InDesign’s nested styles. This powerful feature, when used properly, can save you hours and hours and hours of work. What’s that? You say you haven’t used them? Well what are you waiting for?