Adobe® InDesign® CS5 Bible

Chapter 3. Setting InDesign Preferences

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Knowing where preferences are stored

• Setting preferences for documents and the application

• Customizing keyboard shortcuts and menu options

• Setting defaults for documents, text, and objects

• Creating default colors and styles

Although you may not realize it, Adobe has made a variety of educated guesses about the way you work. For example, it assumes you work in picas, that you prefer low-resolution previews of images, and that you use typographers' quotes. Adobe has also made decisions about the default properties of text, the default color swatches included with documents, and the default attributes of some objects. In all cases, Adobe tried to make the defaults appropriate for most publishers.

But no matter how much thought Adobe put into making these educated guesses, they don't work for everybody. In fact, it's unlikely that every single setting is appropriate for you. That's why InDesign lets you set dozens and dozens of preferences, to make the program work the way you do.

So no matter how tempted you are to jump in and start working, take a minute to prepare InDesign for the way you actually work.

Working with Preferences Files

InDesign stores preferences in several places. Some are stored in the documents themselves, so they work as expected as they are moved from user to user. Others are stored in files on your computer and affect only you.

Setting universal defaults

One of InDesign's best features is its ability to set universal ...