Setting Preferences | Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible

Preferences are settings that affect an entire document ‚ such as what measurement system you're using on rulers, what color the guides are, and whether substituted fonts are highlighted. In InDesign, you access these settings through the Preferences dialog box (choose InDesign ‚ Preferences on the Mac or Edit ‚ Preferences in Windows, or press z +K or Ctrl+K). They are stored in the InDesign Defaults files in your InDesign application folder.

InDesign has two methods for changing preferences: You can change preferences when no documents are open to create new settings for all future documents, or you can change preferences for the active document, which affects only that document. Your strategy for changing preferences depends on the way you work and the needs of specific documents. For example, if you generally prefer to work in points, you might change the default measurement system to points with no documents open. However, you might have a design such as an envelope that makes more sense in inches, so you can change the measurement system for that specific document.

The Preferences dialog box provides ten types of settings divided into panes: General, Text, Composition, Units & Increments, Grids, Guides, Dictionary, Spelling, Story Editor Display, and Display Performance. The steps for setting preferences stay the same, regardless of the changes you need to make.

New Feature ‚

The Workgroup preferences pane no longer exists in InDesign CS. Its functions ‚ which involve managing documents in a workgroup environment ‚ are now part of the Open and Save dialog boxes. The new Updates pane is essentially the same as the old Online Settings pane; you use it to set how often InDesign automatically connects to Adobe's servers to get product updates. Finally, the Spelling and Story Editor Display preference panes are new.

When using the Preferences dialog box:

Determine whether the change is for a specific document or for all future documents, then open or close documents accordingly . If no documents are open, the changes are stored in your preferences file and will be remembered for all new documents. If a document is open, the changes are in effect for that document only.
Choose InDesign ‚ Preferences on the Mac or Edit ‚ Preferences in Windows, or press z +K or Ctrl+K, to open the General pane. Alternately, you can choose a specific command from the Preferences submenu of the File menu. For example, you might choose File ‚ Preferences ‚ Composition. (There are no shortcuts for these submenus.)
To switch to a specific pane, choose an option from the list at the left of the dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1: The General pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Change any settings in any of the panes, and then click OK. The changes are saved with the active document or in the InDesign Defaults file.

Note ‚

This section takes a comprehensive look at all the preferences in InDesign. Preferences that affect specific features are often discussed again in the relevant chapters. For example, Dictionary preferences are covered in the section on spell-checking in Chapter 15.

Caution ‚

Unlike most actions you perform in InDesign, you cannot reverse changes to preferences using the Undo command (Edit ‚ Undo, or z +Z or Ctrl+Z). If you change your mind about a preference setting, open the Preferences dialog box and change the setting again.

General preferences

Options in the General pane (refer to Figure 3-1) affect the way several features in InDesign work.

Page Numbering area

In the Page Numbering area of the Preferences dialog box, the View pop-up menu controls how page numbers display in the fields such as the page-number field on the document window. (See Chapter 2 for information about the difference between section page numbers and absolute page numbers .) Here are the controls:

The default setting, Section Numbering, means that InDesign shows the page numbers according to the information in the Section Options dialog box accessed via the Pages pane's palette menu. When Section Numbering is selected, by default you need to enter section page numbers, such as "Sec2:3," in fields.
The Absolute Numbering option, which I prefer, shows page numbers according to each page's position in the document. For example, the first page is 1, the second page is 2, and the third page is 3, even if the pages display the Roman numerals i, ii, and iii. When this option is selected, you can always jump to the first page in a document by entering 1 in the Page Number box.

General Options area

InDesign has two options in the General Options section over tool display. The Tool Tips pop-up menu has three options: Normal, Fast, and None. None turns off tool tips, the labels that pop up when the mouse hovers over a pane's icons. Fast makes the labels appear faster, which is best for new users learning the interface. Normal is the default setting and is the best for experienced users, since it waits a bit before displaying the label so they don't pop up if you're just moving the mouse slowly.

The second option is the Tools Palette pop-up menu, which lets you set the Tools palette as single-column width or the default double-column width. This is a matter of personal preference.

Print Options area

By default, Overprint Black is checked so that any black text, strokes, or fills overprint. This usually results in clearer text and lines. (This option applies to the Black color in the Swatches pane, rather than say a black swatch that you create.) If you uncheck Overprint Black, all black text, strokes, and fills knock out of their backgrounds, which results in a lighter black and could cause some misregistration when printing. (See Chapters 8 and 29 for more details on creating colors and trapping colors, respectively.)

Font Downloading and Embedding area

The Always Subset Fonts with Glyph Counts Greater Than field is used for OpenType fonts that have many special characters , such as accented letters , symbols, and diacritical marks. To prevent output files from getting clogged up with very large font files, this option lets you set the maximum number of characters (glyphs) that can be downloaded from a font file into an output file. Any characters actually used are always downloaded; the reason you might want to download an entire font is so someone could edit the file as a PDF or EPS file and have access to all characters in the proper fonts for such editing.

New Feature ‚

The Always Subset Fonts with Glyph Counts Greater Than field is new to InDesign CS.

Clipboard area

The Clipboard area controls how image and text formatting are handled when copying elements to the Clipboard (through Edit ‚ Copy, or z +C or Ctrl+C, and Edit ‚ Cut, or z +X or Ctrl+X). There are three options:

The Prefer PDF When Pasting check box converts items copied from Adobe Illustrator into PDF format so that transparency objects, blends, and patterns are preserved during the paste operation into InDesign.
The Copy PDF to Clipboard check box creates a temporary PDF file when you copy items from InDesign for pasting into applications such as Illustrator.
The new Preserve Text Attributes When Pasting check box preserves formatting such as italics and bold when text is copied. This can be helpful or a pain, depending on whether you want copied text to preserve its formatting or you prefer copied text to take on the formatting of the destination location's text. The right answer will depend on your specific layouts.

New Feature ‚
The Preserve Text Attributes When Pasting option is new to InDesign CS.

Reset All Warning Dialogs button

Use this button to turn on warning dialogs you may have turned off. Most warning dialog boxes have an option to turn off future warnings, and this resets them so they all display again.

Text preferences

Options in the Text pane of the Preferences dialog box, shown in Figure 3-2, affect how several character formats work, whether you use typographer's quotes, and how text displays on-screen.

Figure 3-2: The Text pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Character Settings area

The palette menu on the Character pane (Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Character, or z +T or Ctrl+T) lets you format highlighted characters as Superscript (reduced and raised above the baseline), Subscript (reduced and dropped below the baseline), or Small Caps (reduced versions of capital letters). Note that Superscript, Subscript, and Small Caps characters do not need to be reduced ‚ they can actually be enlarged instead. The controls in the Character Settings area govern precisely how these characters are placed and resized.

The Size fields in the Superscript and Subscript areas let you specify how much to scale these characters. The default is 58.3 percent, but you can enter a value between 1 and 200 percent. I prefer 60 or 65 percent, depending on the type size and font.
The Position fields let you specify how much to shift Superscript characters up and Subscript characters down. The default is 33.3 percent, but you can enter a value between ‚ 500 and 500 percent. I prefer 30 percent for subscripts and 35 percent for superscripts.
The Small Cap field lets you specify the scale of Small Caps characters in relation to the actual capital letters in the font. The default is 70 percent, but you can enter a value between 1 and 200 percent.

Cross-Reference ‚
See Chapter 40 for information about using the "true small caps" variation of a typeface, when available, rather than the Small Cap character format.

Type Options area

The first four of the five Type Options, which control different aspects of InDesign's character handling, are all checked by default.

When you press the quote key on the keyboard with Use Typographer's Quotes checked, InDesign inserts the correct typographer's quotes (often called curly quotes ) for the current language in use. For example, for U.S. English, InDesign inserts typographic single quotes (' ') or double quotes (" ") rather than straight quotes. For French, InDesign inserts double angle brackets ( ‚ « ‚ »). InDesign knows what language's characters to use based on the Language pop-up menu in the Character pane (Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Character, or z +T or Ctrl+T) or in the Paragraph Style and Character Style dialog boxes' Advanced Character Formats pane (Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Paragraph Styles, or F11, and Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Character Styles, or Shift+F11, respectively).
Automatically Use Correct Optical Size, when checked, automatically accesses OpenType and PostScript fonts that include an optimal size axis, which ensures optimal readability at any size.
Triple Click to Select a Line, if checked, lets you triple-click anywhere in a line to select the whole line. This used to be a standard shortcut in Mac applications but had fallen into disuse recently.
Adjust Text Attributes When Scaling, if checked, lets InDesign change text size and proportional scaling when you resize the text box or path that contains the text. Unchecked, the text formatting is untouched. It makes sense to check this option if you're working on display ads and other materials where you are sizing text visually and interactively; it does not make sense in magazines, books, and other more-structured projects where the text attributes are standardized and changes to objects' size are meant to change the containers' size, not the text's size.

Apply Leading to Entire Paragraph, if checked, applies leading changes to the entire paragraph as opposed to the current line. In most cases, you want the leading to be applied to all paragraphs, so I recommend that this box be checked (it is not checked by default in InDesign).

QuarkXPress User ‚

Like other layout programs, QuarkXPress rightfully treats leading as a paragraph attribute, so be sure to check the Apply Leading to Entire Paragraph option in InDesign to make it work like it should. But note that InDesign does not support QuarkXPress's additive leading capability (where you enter +2 pt to make the leading two points more than whatever the current point size is), so leading in InDesign will never exactly match the QuarkXPress approach.

Links area

The Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files creates links to your source text files, so InDesign can alert you when those files change so you can reimport them if desired. (InDesign always does this for graphics files.) Check the box if you want InDesign to track such links.

New Feature ‚

The Create Links check box is new to InDesign CS.

Input Method Options area

The Use Inline Input for Non-Latin Text check box enables input method editors (IMEs) from Microsoft, Apple, or other companies, if installed on your computer, for entering Asian language characters on a non-Asian operating system. It's meant for the occasional use of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters. If you publish regularly in these languages, you should use the appropriate Asian version of InDesign instead.

New Feature ‚

The Use Inline Input for Non-Latin Text check box is new to InDesign CS.

Composition preferences

In general, preferences in the Composition pane, shown in Figure 3-3, affect entire paragraphs rather than individual characters.

Figure 3-3: The Composition pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Highlight area

The Highlight check boxes control whether InDesign calls attention to possible typesetting problems by drawing a highlighter pen effect behind the text.

Keep Violations, which is unchecked by default, highlights the last line in a text frame when it cannot follow the rules specified in the Keep Options dialog box in the Paragraph pane's palette menu (Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Paragraph, or Option+ z +T or Ctrl+Alt+T). For example, if the Keep Options settings require more lines to stay together than fit in the text frame and thus bump all the text in a frame to the next text frame in the chain, the Keep Options rules are violated and the last line of text is highlighted so you know to change the frame size or the Keep Options rules for that text.
When checked, H&J Violations uses three shades of yellow to mark lines that might be too loose or too tight due to the combination of spacing and hyphenation settings. The darker the shade , the worse InDesign considers the problem to be. H&J Violations is unchecked by default; you might want to check it while fine-tuning type, then uncheck it when you're finished.
Custom Tracking/Kerning, if checked, highlights custom tracking and kerning (essentially, anywhere you overrode the defaults) in a bluish green. It's handy for copy editors to quickly find such overrides to make sure they're not too tight or loose for readability reasons.
Substituted Fonts is checked by default and uses pink highlight to indicate characters in fonts that are not available to InDesign. InDesign actually uses Adobe Sans MM or Adobe Serif MM to create a replacement for missing fonts, so the text looks close to the actual font. For editing purposes, the substituted fonts work fine, although the pink highlight can be distracting. But for output purposes, it's important that you have the correct fonts, so you may want to live with the irritation and have InDesign highlight substituted fonts for you.

Substituted Glyphs highlights in pink any glyphs (special characters) that were substituted. This usually occurs when you have multiple versions of the same font, with different special characters in each version. For example, a file using the euro ( ) currency symbol might have been created in the newest version of, say, Syntax. But a copy editor working on the same file may have an older version of Syntax that doesn't have the euro symbol in it. Having Substituted Glyphs checked would ensure that such a problem were highlighted. I recommend you have this option checked.

Note ‚

InDesign is hypersensitive to fonts (see Chapter 15), so you'll get such highlighting even when you have the correct font installed but the wrong face applied to it (such as Normal rather than Regular); in these cases, the font style will have brackets ([ ]) around it in the Character pane.

Text Wrap area

As the label makes clear, the three options here affect how text wraps:

Justify Text Next to an Object, if checked, overrides any local justification settings to make text wrapping around an object be justified. That means the text will smoothly follow the object's shape, rather than keep any ragged margins that can make the wrap look strange . This option comes into play when you wrap ragged (left-aligned or right-aligned) text around objects; I recommend that you avoid wrapping text on its ragged side, because it looks awkward . Although this option eliminates the awkwardness of ragged text that wraps around an object, it presents a different awkwardness: having some text ragged (that which is not wrapping) and some text justified (that which is wrapping).
Skip by Leading, if checked, uses the text's leading to determine how much space follows an object that it is wrapping. This has an effect only if you choose the Jump Object text-wrap option in the Text Wrap pane. (See Chapter 25 for more on text wrap.)
Text Wrap Only Affects Text Beneath, if checked, has only text below an object wrap around that object. This lets you have some text overlap an image and some text overwrap it, depending on the text's location in the stacking order.

New Feature ‚
The Skip by Leading and Text Wrap Only Affects Text Beneath check boxes are new to InDesign CS.

Units & Increments preferences

The measurement systems you use for positioning items and the way the arrows on the keyboard increase or decrease settings are controlled by settings in the Units & Increments pane shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4: The Units & Increments pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Ruler Units area

The Ruler Units area affects three things: the origin point (by page, by spread, or by the spine) and the measurement system displayed on the horizontal and vertical ruler on the document window and the default values in fields used for positioning objects.

The Origin pop-up menu determines the zero point (typically, the upper-left corner of the page) for object positions. If you choose Page, objects' positions are relative to each page's upper-left corner. If you choose Spread, objects' positions are relative to the current spread's upper-left corner. If you choose Spine, objects' positions are relative to the binding spine of each spread ‚ the very top and center of where the two pages meet.

With the Vertical and Horizontal pop-up menus , you can specify one measurement system for the horizontal ruler and measurements, and specify another measurement system for the vertical ruler and measurements. For example, you might use points for horizontal measurements so you can use the rulers to gauge tab and indent settings, while using inches for vertical measurements. For example, if you choose Inches for both the Horizontal and Vertical Ruler Units, not only will the rulers display inches, but the X, Y, W, and H fields on the Transform pane (Window ‚ Transform or F9) display values in inches as well.

Note ‚

To display the document ruler, choose View ‚ Show Ruler, or press z +R or Ctrl+R.

Tip ‚

The default horizontal and vertical measurement system is picas. If you aren't accustomed to working in picas, be sure to change the default Horizontal and Vertical Ruler Units when no documents are open. This ensures that all future documents use your preferred measurement system. (If you make the change with a document open, the change will only apply to the open document.)

To specify the measurement systems you want to use, choose an option from the Horizontal pop-up menu and from the Vertical pop-up menu. You have the following options:

Points: A typesetting measurement equal to ¹ / ₇₂ of an inch. To enter values in points, type a p before the value or pt after the value (p6 or 6 pt, for example).

Tip ‚

InDesign doesn't care if you put spaces between numbers and the abbreviations in your measurements ‚ 3 p is read the same as 3p , and 0.4 inch is read the same as 0.4inch , for example.

Picas: A typesetting measurement equal to ¹ / ₆ of an inch. To enter values in picas, type a p after the value (for example, 6p).
Inches: An English measurement system, which is divided into 16ths. To enter values in inches, type i in , inch , or " after the value. For example, 3i, 3in, 3 inch, and 3" are all read by InDesign as "3 inches."

New Feature ‚
The use of QuarkXPress's " to indicate inches is new to InDesign CS.
Inches decimal: Inches divided into 10ths on the ruler rather than 16ths. To enter values in inches decimal, include a decimal point as appropriate and type i , in , inch , or " after the value.
Millimeters: A metric measurement that is ¹ / ₁₀ of a centimeter. To enter values in millimeters, type mm after the value. For example, 14mm.
Centimeters: A metric measurement that is about ¹ / ₃ of an inch. To enter values in centimeters, type cm after the value. For example, 2.3cm.
Ciceros: A European typesetting measurement that is slightly larger than a pica. To enter values in ciceros, type c after the value. For example, 2c.

Custom: This option lets you set a customer number of points as your measurement unit, placing a labeled tick mark at every point increment you specify. You get to customize the number of tick marks between the labeled marks by entering a value in the Points field. For example, if you enter 12 in the field, you'll get a tick mark at each pica, because there are 12 points in a pica.

Tip ‚

Despite the Ruler Units you specify, you can enter values in any fields using any supported measurement system. For example, if you're working in picas, you can enter an inch value in the Width field by typing 1 in InDesign will automatically convert the value to picas for you. You can enter values in picas and points by placing a p between the two values. For example, entering 1p2 indicates 1 pica and 2 points.

Keyboard Increments area

The arrow keys on the keyboard let you move selected objects right, left, up, or down. You can also use the arrow keys and other keyboard shortcuts to change some text formatting. You can customize the way these shortcuts work, for example by specifying how far each click of an arrow key moves an item.

Note ‚

These preferences are not used consistently to modify the arrow keys or keyboard shortcuts. Basically, the Cursor Key field works with all four arrow keys. The Size/Leading value works with the up and down arrow keys for leading, while the Kerning field works with the left and right arrows. Meanwhile, the Size/Leading value works with a regular keyboard shortcut, and the Baseline Shift field works only while clicking the arrow keys when the Baseline Shift field is highlighted on the Character pane.

The options are

Cursor Key field: When you select an object with the Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool, you can move it up, down, left, or right using the arrow keys on the keyboard. By default, the item moves 1 point. You can change the increment to a value between 0 (which would be useless) and 8p4 (1.3888 inches). For example, if you're using a document grid, you might change the increment to match the grid lines.

Tip ‚

If you press the Shift key while you press an arrow key, the object moves ten times the amount specified in the Cursor Key field. Holding the Option or Alt key while you press an arrow key creates a copy of the selected object at the distance specified in the Cursor Key field. Holding the Shift key with the Option or Alt key while you press an arrow key creates a copy of the selected object at ten times the amount specified in the Cursor Key field. This last combination is a very simple and quick way to create a grid of text or image boxes with equal spacing between them.

Size/Leading field: The value you enter in this field, which is 2 points by default, specifies how much point size or leading is increased or decreased when implemented with keyboard commands. You can enter a value between 1 and 100.

Tip ‚

To increase the point size of selected text, press Shift+ z +> or Ctrl+Shift+>; to decrease the point size, press Shift+ z +< or Ctrl+Shift+<. Add Option or Alt to the combination to multiply the increment by five. To modify leading for selected text, Option+click or Alt+click the up or down arrow on the keyboard.

Baseline Shift field: You can shift the baseline of highlighted text up or down by clicking in the Baseline Shift field on the Character pane, then clicking the up or down arrow on the keyboard. You can change the default value of 2 points to any value between 1 and 100. If you press the Shift key while clicking, the increment is multiplied by five.
Kerning field: To kern text with keyboard commands, you position the cursor between two letters, then Option+click or Alt+click the right arrow button to increase kerning or the left arrow to decrease kerning. By default, each click changes kerning by ²⁰ / ₁₀₀₀ of an em. You can change this value to anything between 1 and 100. Hold the z or Ctrl key to multiply the increment by five.

Grids preferences

Grids preferences let you set up a baseline grid, commonly used to space text evenly across columns , and a document-wide grid, which you can use for positioning or drawing objects. If you're planning a structured design that will use a grid, you'll want to set it up before you start working in the document. It's likely that each design you create will have different grid settings based on its individual content, so you probably won't change Grids preferences with no documents open. The Grids pane is shown in Figure 3-5.

Figure 3-5: The Grids pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Note ‚

By default, both the baseline grid and the document grid display on every spread behind all objects; the document grid displays on the pasteboard as well. Both grids cover the entire document and cannot be associated with a specific master page or layer. You can have grids display in front by unchecking the Grids in Back check box.

Baseline Grid area

You can specify the color of the baseline grid, where it starts, how far apart each grid line is, and when it displays. To display the baseline grid for a document, choose View ‚ Show Baseline Grid, or press Option+ z +' (apostrophe) or Ctrl+Alt+' (apostrophe). You have the following options:

Color pop-up menu: The default color of the baseline grid is Light Blue. If this color is difficult for you to see, or if you're accustomed to the pink lines in QuarkXPress, you can choose a different color from the Color pop-up menu. Choose Other to access the system color picker and create your own color.
Start field: This value specifies how far down from the top of the page the grid starts. The Start value, which defaults to 3p0, usually matches your top margin.
Increment Every field: The amount of space between grid lines is specified in the Increment Every field. The default value of 1p0 is usually changed to match the leading of your body text so text aligns with the grid.

View Threshold field: You can prevent the baseline grid from displaying when you decrease the view percentage. If you're using the default setting, the baseline grid will not display at views below 75 percent. You can enter a value between 5 and 4,000 percent.

Tip ‚

You might want to change the View Threshold to match the document's most common Fit in Window view. For example, a magazine page on a 15-inch monitor in a full window might display at around 65 percent when you choose View ‚ Fit in Window. Usually you use Fit in Window to get an overall look at the page, and the baseline grid would simply be in the way.

Document Grid area

The document grid consists of intersecting horizontal and vertical gridlines, forming a pattern of small squares that you can use for object placement and for drawing symmetrical objects. You can customize the color and spacing of the grid lines. To display the document grid, choose View ‚ Show Document Grid, or press z +' (apostrophe) or Ctrl+' (apostrophe). You have the following options:

Color pop-up menu: The default color of the document grid is Light Gray. Although this light shade is unobtrusive , you might want to change it to something brighter or darker so you can see it better. You can choose a different color from the Color pop-up menu or choose Other to create your own.
Gridline Every field: The major grid lines, which are slightly darker, are positioned according to this value. The default value is 6p0; in general, you'll want to specify a value within the measurement system you're using. For example, if you're working in inches, you might enter 1 inch in the Gridline Every field. That way, the gridlines match up with the major tick marks on the ruler. You set the horizontal and vertical settings separately.
Subdivisions field: Although this is a number and not a measurement, it ends up specifying the amount of space between grid lines. The major grid lines established in the Gridline Every field are divided according to the value you enter here. For example, if you entered 1 inch in the Gridline Every field, and you enter 4 in the Subdivisions field, you will get a gridline at each quarter-inch. The default number of subdivisions is 8. You set the horizontal and vertical settings separately.

Guides & Pasteboard preferences

When you create a new document, you set up margins in the New Document dialog box (File ‚ New, or z +N or Ctrl+N). For more alignment options within a document, you can create guidelines by dragging them off the rulers or using the Layout ‚ Create Guides command. Settings in the Guides & Pasteboard pane, shown in Figure 3-6, controls the color and other attributes of the margins and guides.

Figure 3-6: The Guides & Pasteboard pane of the Preferences dialog box.

New Feature ‚

This pane had been called simply Guides in previous versions of InDesign. InDesign CS also adds the new Pasteboard Options section, as well as more guides for which you can select the colors.

Color area

In the Color area, the Color pop-up menus for Margins, Columns, Bleed, Slug, and Pasteboard let you choose a color other than the defaults. If you want to make your own color, choose Custom to access the system color picker. The Margins color, Magenta by default, displays on all horizontal guides; the Columns color, Violet by default, displays on all vertical guides. To display guides in a document, choose View ‚ Show Guides, or press z +R or Ctrl+R.

Guide Options area

Although this is a new area in the InDesign CS Guides & Pasteboard dialog box, its options are the same as in the InDesign 2 Guides pane:

The Snap to Zone field value specifies how close you need to drag an object to a grid line or guide line to make it snap (think of it as the line's magnetic field). The default Snap to Zone value is 4 pixels, but you can enter a value between 1 and 36. You enable snapping to the grid via the Snap to Document Grid and Snap to Guides commands in the View menu.

By default, margins and guides display in front of all objects. If you prefer to have objects obscure margins and guides, check Guides in Back in the Guide Options area. Note that baseline grids and document grids always display behind all objects, regardless of this setting.

QuarkXPress User ‚

This Guides in Back feature is for those QuarkXPress 3.3 users who never figured out how to change the unfortunate default of placing guides in back, and are therefore accustomed to working with guides this way

Pasteboard Options area

The new Pasteboard Options area has the new Minimum Vertical Offset field, where you specify the amount of pasteboard to display above and below your pages. The default is 6p0 (1 inch).

Dictionary preferences

The Dictionary pane, shown in Figure 3-7, sets options related to hyphenation and spelling dictionaries, as well as to quotation marks.

Figure 3-7: The Dictionary pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Cross-Reference ‚

See Chapter 15 for more information about the default dictionaries that ship with InDesign.

Language area

The Language area begins with a pop-up menu that lets you choose a language for which you want to choose a different hyphenation or spelling dictionary:

The Hyphenation pop-up menu lets you choose from any hyphenation dictionaries installed for the selected language. Typically, there is only the default dictionary, such as Proximity, in this pop-up menu.

The Spelling pop-up menu lets you choose from any spelling dictionaries installed for the selected language. Typically, there is only the default dictionary, such as Proximity, in this pop-up menu.

Note ‚

To install different dictionaries, place them in the Dictionaries folder inside the Plug-ins folder (inside your InDesign folder). Press Option+ z +/ or Ctrl+Alt+/ to update the pop-up menus in the Dictionary pane without restarting InDesign. (In a workgroup, it's important that everyone use the same dictionary.) Eventually, you may be able to purchase third-party spelling or hyphenation dictionaries for InDesign ‚ although no third-party commercial dictionaries have been released since InDesign was created in 1999. For example, you might be able to purchase a different Traditional German dictionary with more words than the one InDesign has. In that case, when you check the spelling of a word with Traditional German as its language format, InDesign would consult the third-party dictionary rather than the default.

The Language area also lets you set the quotation marks you want use. Different languages use different quotation marks, and InDesign adjusts the quotation marks automatically when you switch the language. However, there may be some cases where you might want to override the languages' default quotation-mark settings, which you can do in the Double Quotes and Single Quotes pop-up menus.

Note that changing the quotation-mark options for one language does not affect the settings for others. Each language can have independent settings for the quotation marks used.

Caution ‚

After you change a language's quotation-mark settings, there's no way to reset them to the language defaults except to choose the proper options from the pop-up menus. That means you need to remember what the original, correct setting was.

Hyphenation Exceptions area

The Compose Using pop-up menu has three options that specify what to use for hyphenation exceptions, which are overrides to the language dictionary's hyphenation rules. For example, you may choose not to hyphenate a short word like preset that has a legitimate hyphenation ( pre-set ). And you may correct the hyphenation of specialized terms not in the language's dictionary.

The options here dictate how you manage those exceptions. By default, InDesign stores hyphenation exceptions in an outside file, so multiple users can standardize on the same exceptions list. But you can also store exceptions in a document, perhaps for unique needs. The Compose Using pop-up menu lets you select from Document, User Dictionary, and User Dictionary and Document options. Choose User Dictionary if you want to override any exceptions stored in the document ‚ perhaps they're wrong or the copy editors want to rely only on a standard exception list. Choose Document if you want to ignore exceptions stored in an outside file. Choose User Dictionary and Document if you want to use both.

User Dictionary area

This area has two options that are checked by default and should stay that way:

Merge User Dictionary into Document, if checked, copies the user dictionary file into the document, so if the file is sent to someone else who doesn't have access to that dictionary, the hyphenation in the document will be preserved. The main reason not to check this box is if you need to keep your files to a minimum size; otherwise , checking this box prevents reflow when you pass a document to a service bureau or another designer, especially if you have any custom hyphenations.
Recompose All Stories When Modified, if checked, redoes the document's hyphenation to reflect the changed user dictionary.

Spelling preferences

The Spelling pane, shown in Figure 3-8, lets you control what the InDesign spell checker examines when it checks spelling in a document. There's little reason not to check all four options ‚ Misspelled Words, Repeated Words, Uncapitalized Words, and Uncapitalized Sentences. Note that Uncapitalized Words checks for known proper nouns that aren't capitalized.

Figure 3-8: The Spelling pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Story Editor Display preferences

The Story Editor Display pane controls how the Story Editor displays text and the text cursor. Figure 3-9 shows the pane.

Figure 3-9: The Story Editor Display pane of the Preferences dialog box.

New Feature ‚

The Story Editor Display pane is new to InDesign CS, as is the Story Editor, a mini word processor that Adobe has long had in its PageMaker product. Chapter 15 covers the Story Editor in detail.

Text Display Options area

The Text Display Options area determines how text displays in the Story Editor. All are meant to make it easy to edit text on-screen.

Two pop-up menus control the basic display: Text Color and Background. You'll rarely want to change either of these from the default of black for the text color and white for the background. (You might want to choose a light yellow or green as a background color to be a bit easier on the eye.) The Theme pop-up menu has four predefined text color/background combinations that will override any changes you make to the Text Color and Background pop-up menus. Of those four themes, you'll want to keep Ink on Paper, which is simply black text on a white background. The other three options provide hard-to-read displays modeled after the very first computer displays in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The next set of options let you customize the text itself in the Story Editor. The Display Font pop-up menu lets you choose a font that is easy to read ‚ you can use any active font available on your computer ‚ as well as a point size (the default of 12 points is usually quite readable, but you may want to enlarge or reduce that in specific cases). The Line Spacing pop-up menu lets you change the default of single- spaced presentation to 150%, Doublespace, and Triplespace. You may prefer 150% or Doublespace if you have a wide Story Editor window to help make reading the text easier. Finally, the Enable Anti-Aliasing check box lets you smooth on-screen font display, which can make text hard to read for some fonts, especially at small sizes, or make it easier to read for some fonts, especially at medium and large sizes.

Cursor Options area

InDesign gives you a choice of the text cursor that displays in the Story Editor. In the Cursor Options area, choose whichever looks best on-screen and is easy to find without obscuring the text under it. That will vary based on the font and point size chosen . If you want the text cursor to blink ‚ that helps some people find it more easily ‚ be sure to check the Blink check box.

Display Performance preferences

The Display Performance pane, shown in Figure 3-10, controls how images and text display on-screen.

Figure 3-10: The Display Performance pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Default View Settings area

In the pop-up menu in the Default View Settings area, you can choose from three view settings: Typical, Optimized, and High Quality. These affect only what is displayed on-screen, not what is printed. The three options correspond to how you set the options in the Adjust View Settings area of this pane.

The Preserve Object-Level Display Settings check box overrides any view settings for specific images (which you set by choosing Object ‚ Display Performance for a selected picture).

Adjust View Settings area

Use the sliders in the Adjust View Settings area to determine what Typical, Optimized, and High Quality should mean in your copy of InDesign. First, check the button for the quality level you want to set, then move the sliders for each of the three graphical aspects (Raster Images, Vector Images, and Transparency). Each slider bar has tick marks to show the available options. You have to move the slider all the way to a tick mark; you cannot choose a setting in between tick marks.

For raster (bitmap) images and vector images, you have three options: Gray Out, Proxy, and High Resolution. Proxy means a low-resolution version (72 dpi). For transparency, there are three quality levels available ‚ Low, Medium, and High ‚ as well as Off, which doesn't display objects behind transparent portions of an image.

The Adjust View Settings area also has two controls for text:

The Enable Anti-Aliasing check box that, if checked, smoothes text display.
The Greek Type Below field in which you set at what size text displays as gray lines rather than as actual characters.

Saved Files preferences

The Saved Files pane, shown in Figure 3-11, controls how recovery files and document previews are handled.

Figure 3-11: The Saved Files pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Document Recovery Data area

In this area, InDesign lets you specify the folder that contains autorecovery files, which lets you recover most or all of your work in case of a program or system crash. Click the Choose button to choose an alternate directory. There's really no reason to change the default, which places the recovery folder inside the current user's Documents folder (Mac) or My Documents folder (Windows).

Saving InDesign Files

The Save Document Preview Image check box, if checked, makes InDesign save a thumbnail view of the document's first page. That preview appears in the Open dialog box instead of the InDesign logo, when you select a file. It's handy when you've got a ton of files in a folder and can't remember which is which.

New Feature ‚

The Saved File pane is new to InDesign CS, though the autorecovery option existed in InDesign 2's General pane. The document preview, though, is completely new in InDesign CS.

Updates preferences

The Updates pane, shown in Figure 3-12, lets you set how often InDesign connects to Adobe's servers over your Internet connection to download and install product updates. The Check for Updates pop-up menu's options are Never, Weekly, and Monthly.

Figure 3-12: The Updates pane of the Preferences dialog box.

The pane also has a button that displays Adobe's privacy policy (all the ways Adobe and its partner companies can use your customer registration information).

New Feature ‚

The Updates pane is new to InDesign CS, replacing the previous version's Online Settings pane.