Change is good
StevePerry (33 points) | Tue, 2006-06-13 14:13
Just a quick tip this time round, changing something slow into something quick. Most of you are probably aware that Adobe's InDesign has an 'autocorrect' feature right? Right, well don't forget that you can also add your own entries to this.
For example...
If you are typing some copy and you have to keep typing in someone's name, which happens to be very long with an awkward spelling, or an extra long url. Temporarily add it to the autocorrect list in your prefs and associate it with something that you wont type by accident like zzzweb.
To do this, go to Preferences > Autocorrect. Tick the autocorrect box to switch it on, click 'add' at the bottom of the dialog box, then enter your 'trigger text' into the top box and your 'destination text' into the bottom box. Click ok! That's it. Now, when you type your 'trigger text' InDesign will change it automatically to your 'destination text'.
In my example of changing 'zzzweb' to 'www.reallylongwebsiteurl.com' I saved around about 80% of my time by using the autocorrect feature, not to mention that I am guaranteed to get the url correct every time. I think I'll go and make a coffee with the time I just saved.
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Evolution in Progress
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Old, excusez le mot, MS Word trick. It only works if you have to repeat that word very often. The time to implement it cost at least 3 normal entries ;)
And while I'm typing this comment I could have typed the full word 5 times I bet!
Still a nice tip!
Design Management is soooo 2006
With Textpander (or Textexpander) you can do this in every app over your OS X: http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?section=textpander
I for example type j--s to get the URI of my website: http://julianschrader.de
http://maasda.de
Another way to make out lives easier. I swear, at least once a week a find another feature in InDesign that makes my job flow easier. Great tip.
Textpander is awesome for exactly this! (And it is useable in other apps as well, not limiting it to InDesign.)