Phoenix InDesign User Group

06/25/2025

TIP OF THE WEEK:
Quick Access to Illustrator Tool Options
In Illustrator, you can press Return/Enter to display any tool’s Options dialog box.

—Tony Harmer

06/11/2025

Here is a tip from CreativePro Network's Mike Rankin

"Speed Up or Slow Down Scrubby Sliders in Photoshop:

When you're dragging a scrubby slider in Photoshop to adjust values, there are two keyboard shortcuts you can use to either speed up or slow down the rate of change.

Holding Shift as you drag will make the values change 10 times faster, so you can make big changes quickly.

Holding Option or Alt as you drag will make the values change slower, so it’s easier to make fine adjustments."

—Mike Rankin

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05/05/2025

Love InDesign but leery of Illustrator?

Join us Tuesday, May 6 at 10 am Pacific for our free 75-minute webinar to discover the time-saving tips and best practices every Illustrator user should know.

04/25/2025

A great InDesign tip from CreativePro Network's Mike Rankin:
�Swap the Position of Two Items

"Did you ever need to swap the position of two items in your layout? It only takes a couple seconds with this little trick.

With the Selection tool, select both frames.
Select both frames
In the Control panel make sure the reference point is sent to the center. Then click the Control panel button for Flip Horizontal and then the button for Flip Vertical.

Control panel button for Flip Horizontal and the button for Flip Vertical
At this point the frames will be in the correct positions, but they’ll be upside down and backwards.
Frame position
To fix that, keep them selected and choose Object > Transform Again > Transform Sequence Again Individually.

Ta da!
Object > Transform Again > Transform Sequence Again Individually
Hat tip to Martin Braun for sharing this idea.
—Mike Rankin"

04/12/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AbBtTsXp3/

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04/11/2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1BSq_IQT8&t=3s

In this CreativePro Week sneak peek video, Julie Shaffer shows how you can quickly format imported data in your InDesign files by using styles wisely. She de...

03/16/2025

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/indesign-tips-for-design-geeks/3-7-fixing-fuzzy-text-in-pdf-images

Surprisingly, saving your PSD files as Photoshop PDFs is key to crisp type throughout production. Learn how to fix fuzzy text in PDF images.

03/07/2025

This week's tip from Jamie McKee CreativePro Network

What’s That Override?
To see local overrides, hold your pointer over the name of a paragraph or character style in the Paragraph Styles and Character Styles panels.

02/28/2025

https://creativepro.com/how-to-identify-fonts-used-in-a-pdf/

Two tips for quickly identifying a specific font used in a PDF—or all of them.

02/12/2025

Hey fans and friends, here is a tip of the week from Nigel French @ CreativePro Network

Creating Color Palettes from Blends in Illustrator

For an old school approach to creating color palettes, use the Blend tool in Illustrator. Create your start and end colors, apply them to simple objects, then create a stepped blend between them. When you’re happy with the result, duplicate the blend object and choose Object > Blend > Expand to convert it to individual shapes, from which you can create a Color Group. Reuse the original blend object to repeat the blending process with different sets of colors to create multiple palettes.

01/25/2025

Hey fans and friends! Are you interested in professional development in accessibility design... the Brand Girls are here and ready to teach!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/baking-the-blueprint-for-accessible-design-tickets-1109722282219

Baking the Blueprint for Accessible Design crafts inclusive solutions with key principles and techniques for accessible, successful designs.

01/24/2025

Yall! this one was in the same CreativePro Network newsletter:

Multi-Find/Change!!
https://www.automatication.com/product/mfc/

Free Multi-Find/Change for Adobe InDesign and InCopy Multi-Find/Change (MFC) is an Extension for Adobe InDesign and InCopy and later to manage and execute batches of saved Find/Change queries. MFC is the ideal tool for those who rely on Find/Change queries to correct and/or format text.   Download ...