Datasheet

Part I: Before You Begin

Using the Selection tools

To work with objects, you have to select them. InDesign provides two tools

to do that, letting you select different aspects of objects.

Selection tool

The Selection tool is perhaps the most-used tool in InDesign. With the

Selection tool, you can select objects on the page and move or resize them.

You may want to think of this tool as the Mover tool because it’s the only tool

that lets you drag objects around on-screen.

After you’ve selected the Selection tool, here’s how it works:

✓ To select any object on a document page, click it. If you can’t seem to

select it, the object might be placed by a master page (a preformatted

page used to format pages automatically), or the object might be behind

another object.

✓ To select an object placed by a master page, press Shift+Ô or Ctrl+Shift

while you click.

✓ To select an object that is completely behind another object, Ô+click

it or Ctrl+click it. For graphics frames, you can also click the “doughnut

hole” icon — formally called the content grabber — that appears over the

center of an object when you hover over any portion of it.

The content grabber is new to InDesign CS5. You can turn it off and on by

choosing View➪Extras➪Show/Hide Content Grabber.

Direct Selection tool

The Direct Selection tool is what you use to work on the contents of a frame,

not the frame itself. For example, you can use the Direct Selection tool to

select individual handles on objects to reshape them or to move graphics

within their frames.

Here’s how the Direct Selection tool works:

✓ To select an object to reshape it, click the object to display anchor

points on the edges (the anchor points are hollow handles that you can

select individually, as shown in Figure 1-3). You can drag the anchor

points to reshape the object.

✓ To select objects placed by a master page, Shift+Ô+click or

Ctrl+Shift+click, as with the Selection tool. The Direct Selection tool lets

you easily select objects behind other objects and select items within

groups.

✓ To move a graphic within its frame, click inside the frame and drag the

graphic. The new content grabber is also available when using the Direct

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