Easy-to-follow video tutorials help you learn software, creative, and business skills.Become a member
If you have been using InDesign for a while, you probably know that double clicking on a text frame with the Selection tool switches to the Type tool automatically and places the cursor where you double clicked. That's just one little way in which the folks at Adobe are trying to reduce the work it takes to get you where you want to go. Now let me show you a few other little shortcuts involving Selection tools. The first one has to do with how to switch back to the Selection tool itself. When your text cursor is inside of text frame, you can jump back to the Selection tool by pressing the Escape key. So the Escape key goes back to the Selection tool and double clicking goes back to the Type tool. Select some text, hit Escape and you are back to the Selection tool as though you had actually clicked on that object with that Selection tool.
If you double click on an image frame, a graphic frame, something different happens. Double clicking on a graphic frame switches between the Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool. Here, let me show you. I will click once on this image with the Selection tool and you can see that the whole graphic frame is selected but if I double click, it switches to the Direct Selection tool and selects the frame itself. Double click again and it switches back to the Selection tool. If I want to change that image inside the frame, I have to double click and then click once to select the image inside.
Now I can move that image around and then double click again and it switches back to the Selection tool as though I selected the entire frame. One more time. Double click and it switches to the Direct Selection tool. Now I can use that Direct Selection tool in various ways, maybe drag that little segment there. Double click and it goes back to the Selection tool. Now these are not life changing shortcuts but even if they speed you up just a little each day, it's worth using them.
Get unlimited access to all courses for just $25/month.Become a member
119 Video lessons · 50888 Viewers
117 Video lessons · 38593 Viewers
113 Video lessons · 81542 Viewers
65 Video lessons · 11529 Viewers
Access exercise files from a button right under the course name.
Search within course videos and transcripts, and jump right to the results.
Remove icons showing you already watched videos if you want to start over.
Make the video wide, narrow, full-screen, or pop the player out of the page into its own window.
Click on text in the transcript to jump to that spot in the video. As the video plays, the relevant spot in the transcript will be highlighted.
Your file was successfully uploaded.