Since my exquisite training in inDesign at Shillington, I have become somewhat of an inDesign nazi.
- Keyboard shortcuts (it’s called a shortcut for a reason, now)
- Paragraph styles (name them, not Paragraph Style 1, Paragraph Style 33)
- Character styles (and no, silly, silly, designers, they are not the same)
- Soft returns (don’t try and dupe me with multiple tabbing to drop a word to the following line. I will apple+option+I to see your hidden characters and the jig will be up)
- Boxes, lines and text boxes do not make a table. Make a table.
- Clean up your goddamn swatches. If you’re not using a swatch, delete it. If you’re using it, name it. This was the straw that spawned this post. I took a file over yesterday and get a load of these swatches. Christ almighty, save their souls. Pantones, CMYK, RGB, named, unnamed – I almost blew an artery. Even the registration black was used as a colour!
And this is what my swatches look like. Co-ordinated and organised.
Maybe next time round, I’ll talk about the power of nested styles or other interesting goodies. No, not really.