Section 3. Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

#3. Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

InDesign provides literally hundreds of keyboard shortcuts to streamline your work. The shortcuts do you little good, however, if you can't remember them. Fortunately, you can change the keyboard shortcuts to better suit the type of work you do and your manual dexterity. For example, if you frequently use the Change Case commands or the Insert Placeholder Text command in the Type menu, you can create keyboard shortcuts for those commands. Or, if a command you use frequently has a finger-contorting shortcut, you can replace it with an easier one.

InDesign stores keyboard shortcuts in sets. You can create your own sets of keyboard shortcuts and select a different set at any time while you're working.

Selecting a Shortcut Set

To specify a shortcut set to use, choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. Choose an option from the Set menu. If you're switching to InDesign from QuarkXPress 4 or PageMaker 7, you can use that program's keyboard shortcuts for similar features. The selected shortcut set is in use for your copy of InDesignit is not saved with the active document.

Editing Shortcut Sets

You can edit the shortcuts for any command in any seteven the Default, QuarkXPress 4 and PageMaker 7 sets. However, it's a good idea to keep these default sets intact. Instead of editing them, create a new set based on one of them, and then edit it. To edit shortcut sets:

1.	Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.
2.	Click New Set. Enter a name for the set and choose an option from the Based on Set menu to specify a source for the initial list of keyboard shortcuts. You can also choose an existing set from the Set menu to edit.
3.	To locate the command whose shortcut you want to edit, choose an option from the Product Area menu. For example, if the command is in the Type menu, choose Type Menu.
4.	Scroll through the Commands list to locate the individual command and select it. For example, if you want to edit the Show Hidden Characters shortcut, select it (Figure 3). Figure 3. The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box lets you select a set of shortcuts to use, create new shortcut sets, and edit the shortcuts for individual commands.
5.	If the command already has a keyboard shortcut, it's displayed in the Current Shortcuts field. Select it and then click Remove.
6.	Click in the New Shortcut field, and press the new keyboard shortcut you'd like to use for the command. A note under the field lets you know if that shortcut is already in use.
7.	If you want the shortcut to only work in certain situationssuch as when working with textchoose an option from the Context menu. (Otherwise, leave it at Default.)
8.	Click Assign.

While you're working in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box, you can click Save at any time to preserve your changes.

Printing Shortcut Sets

If you want to print out a list of shortcuts for the selected set, click Show Set. A list of commands and their shortcuts displays as a text file in a text-editing window. You can save or print this information.