Section 5. Customizing Toolbars


#5. Customizing Toolbars

Although you may be accustomed to the default setup of the Tools palette that's common in CS2 applications, InDesign and GoLive do offer options to change them a bit to complement your work style. This makes it possible to adjust the layout and orientation of some of the tools.

You may value the Tools options available in InDesign whether you're a recent QuarkXPress switcher or just trying to eke out every last piece of screen real estate. Within InDesign access the Preferences dialog. On the General pane, General Options contains the Floating Tools Palette menu (Figure 5a). Here you can adjust the Tools palette to be a single vertical column, a standard double column, or a single horizontal row (Figure 5b).

Figure 5a. The Floating Tools Palette option in InDesign's General Preferences allows you to lay out its Tools in three different formats. You can even emulate the single column toolbar available in QuarkXPress.


Figure 5b. In InDesign, you can adjust the format of your Tools palette. Choose from Single Column, Double Column, or Single Row.


Longtime GoLive users might miss the stand-alone Objects palette now that objects are combined with the Tools palette. You can bring GoLive back to its roots by clicking the Separate tools and objects button located at the bottom of the Tools palette (Figure 5c). Click the Join object and tools button found at the end of the separated Objects palette to combine them again.

Figure 5c. If you want your objects in a standard palette and not part of the Tools palette, click the lower-left icon in the Tools palette to separate the objects from the tools. Once separated, click the icon where it appears in the Objects palette to rejoin the two.


Tearing Off Tools

Yet another way you can customize your tools palette is by tearing tools off. Any tool in Illustrator or ImageReady that includes hidden tools can be torn off and made into its own convenient, dedicated tool palette. Hidden tools are additional tools residing underneath the visible tool icon. These are indicated by a small triangle in the lower-right corner of the visible tool. To tear off hidden tools into a separate palette, click and hold on the visible tool and then drag to the arrow at the end of the toolbox and let go. The Pen tool in Illustrator, for example, is ideal for tearing off.


If you want GoLive to only make available the objects allowed in your working markup language, click the Palette Options button, also at the bottom of the Tools palette (Figure 5d). Choose Configure and then the markup language you're working with (e.g., XHTML 1.0 Transitional).

Figure 5d. You can have GoLive filter out objects from the Tools palette that aren't valid with your working markup language. Click the Palette Options icon that appears in the lower-right corner of the Tools palette and choose Configure > your markup language of choice from the menu to hide the inappropriate objects.





Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos(c) 100 Essential Techniques
Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
ISBN: 0321356748
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 143

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