Chapter 10: Manipulating Objects
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The first four options let you select another object relative to the currently selected object:
l
First Object Above selects the topmost object.
l
Next Object Above selects the object immediately on top of the current object.
l
Next Object Below selects the object immediately under the current object.
l
Last Object Below selects the bottommost object.
If no objects are selected, InDesign bases its selection on the creation order.
Tip
You can also access these four selection options by Control+clicking or right-clicking an object and choosing
Select from the contextual menu. n
The Select submenu has four other options:
l
If an object has content (text or graphic) and you’ve selected that content, choose Object ➪
Select ➪ Container to choose the frame (the container). This is the same as selecting it with
the Selection tool.
l
If an object has content (text or graphic) and you’ve selected its frame (the container),
choose Object ➪ Select ➪ Content to choose the content within the object. This is basically
the same as selecting it with the Direct Selection tool.
l
If you have selected an object in a group of objects, using the Direct Selection tool, choose
Object ➪ Select ➪ Previous Object in Group to navigate to the previous object in the group.
l
Similarly, if you have selected an object in a group of objects, using the Direct Selection
tool, choose Object ➪ Select ➪ Next Object in Group to navigate to the previous object in
the group.

move or modify all the objects at one time, saving you the time and drudgery of selecting and per-
forming the same modification to several objects one at a time. You have several options for select-
ing multiple objects. You can:
l
Choose the Selection tool and press and hold Shift while clicking in succession the objects
you want to select.
l
Choose any of the selection tools and then click in an empty portion of the page and drag
a rectangle (called a marquee) around any portion of each object you want to select. Make
sure you don’t click an item (which selects it) or you’ll move it when you drag.
l
If you use the Selection tool, the bounding box of each item is selected. You can resize
any of the bounding boxes, but the anchor points and direction lines of the shapes
within are not selected and cannot be moved.
l
If you use the Direct Selection tool, the anchor points and direction handles of the
shapes in the bounding boxes are selected. You can change the shape of any of the
objects by dragging an anchor point or a direction handle.
l
If you want to select all items on a page or spread, choose Edit ➪ Select All or press Ô+A
or Ctrl+A. (If the Type tool is selected and a text frame is active when you choose Select
All, you highlight all the text, if any, in the frame.) If the Direct Selection tool is selected
when you choose Select All, the anchor points and direction handles of the shapes in the
selected objects’ bounding boxes are selected. If any other tool is selected when you
choose Select All, the bounding boxes of the objects are selected.
Deselecting objects
A selected object remains selected until you cause it to become deselected, and there are many rea-
sons you might want to deselect an item. For example, you might want to deselect a text frame if
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direction in which you’re moving your mouse. n
l
Pressing any of the arrow keys: Each time you press an arrow key, the object is nudged
by the distance specified in the Cursor Key field in the Units & Increments pane of the
Preferences dialog box (choose File ➪ Preferences ➪ Units & Increments or press Ô+K on
the Mac, or choose Edit ➪ Preferences ➪ Units & Increments or press Ctrl+K in Windows).
The default nudge value is 1 point. If you press and hold Shift when using arrow keys, the
nudge increment is 10 points.
l
Selecting it with the Selection or Direct Selection tool and then double-clicking the
tool to open the Move dialog box: You enter the desired horizontal (X) and vertical (Y)
coordinates, or the distance from the current location and the angle of the new location
from the existing one.
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Part III: Object Fundamentals
258
l
Selecting it with any of the selection tools, then choosing Object ➪ Transform ➪
Move or pressing Shift+Ô+M or Ctrl+Shift+M: You enter the desired horizontal (X)
and vertical (Y) coordinates, or the distance from the current location and the angle of
the new location from the existing one.
l
Changing the X and Y values in the Control panel or in the Transform panel: These
values determine the distance between an object’s control point and the ruler’s zero point,
where the horizontal and vertical rulers intersect (usually the upper-left corner of a page
or spread). (If the Control panel is not open, activate it by choosing Window ➪ Control or
pressing Option+Ô+6 or Ctrl+Alt+6. If you want to use the Transform panel, activate it by
choosing Window ➪ Object & Layout ➪ Transform.) Figure 10.4 shows the Control panel
and Transform panel and their controls. If you want, change the object’s control point —

that spread, not the one that takes up the bulk of your screen area. Thus, you may think the object didn’t actu-
ally get pasted when in fact it was pasted in the spread above the one you’re focused on. n
l
Duplicate command (choose Edit ➪ Duplicate or press Option+Shift+Ô+D or
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D): The Duplicate command is quicker than using copy and paste. When
you duplicate an object, the copy is placed one pica below and to the right of the original.
Note
InDesign offsets a duplicate by whatever settings are in the Step and Repeat dialog box or by the distance and
direction of the last Option+drag or Alt+drag copying of an object — whichever was done last. n
l
Manual cloning: When you drag and drop an object while pressing and holding Option
or Alt, a copy of the selected object is created. If you’re a drag-and-dropper, you may pre-
fer this manual method to the Duplicate command.
l
Cloning with the transform tools: If you press and hold Option or Alt while using any
of the transform tools (Rotate, Shear, Scale, and Free Transform), a copy of the selected
object is transformed. The selected item remains unchanged.
l
Control panel and Transform panel cloning: If you press and hold Option or Alt when
you exit the Control or Transform panels (by pressing Return or Enter or releasing the
mouse after choosing an option from a menu), the transformation is applied to a copy of
the selected item.
l
Step and Repeat command (choose Edit ➪ Step and Repeat or press Shift+Ô+U or
Ctrl+Shift+U): Think of the Step and Repeat dialog box (shown in Figure 10.5) as the
Duplicate command on steroids. It lets you create multiple duplicates of selected objects
and specify the horizontal and vertical offset of the duplicates. Note that if the horizontal
offset is 0, the copies have the same X coordinate as the original; if the Y offset is 0, the
copies have the same Y coordinate. To avoid the copies overlapping the original object
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capability explained in Chapter 9.)
New: Gridified Step-and-Repeat
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Chapter 10: Manipulating Objects
261
Copying objects between documents
Occasionally, you’ll want to use something you’ve created in one InDesign document in another
document. For example, maybe you need an ad that ran in last month’s newsletter again for this
month’s edition; or perhaps you created a small illustration for an ad that you want to use in a
companion brochure. InDesign offers several options for moving objects between documents.
You can:
l
Open the document that contains the objects you want to copy, select the objects, and
then copy them to the Clipboard by choosing Edit ➪ Copy or pressing Ô+C or Ctrl+C.
Open the target document and choose Edit ➪ Paste or press Ô+V or Ctrl+V, to place the
copied objects. You can also choose Edit ➪ Paste in Place or press Option+Shift+Ô+V or
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V to paste the object at the same X and Y coordinates as the original.
l
If you need to use the objects in more than one document, you can copy them into a
library, which lets you place as many copies as you want in any document. (Libraries are
covered in Chapter 7.)
l
You can open the source document (the one that contains the objects) and the target doc-
ument and drag-copy the objects from the source document to the target document.
(Choose Window ➪ Arrange ➪ Float All in Windows and then choose Window ➪
Arrange ➪ Tile to display both document windows side by side; Chapter 2 covers working
with multiple document windows in detail.)
l
A very easy way to share parts of your document is to select the desired objects and drag

There are several ways to delete objects in InDesign. Most people either have a favorite method or
use one that’s easiest to adopt in their current state (such as using a mouse action to delete a frame
when they’re using the mouse already to size frames). No matter what your preferred approach, be
sure you select an object with the Selection tool. The methods are:
l
Choose Edit ➪ Cut or press Ô+X or Ctrl+X to cut objects; or choose the Cut command in
the contextual menu you get when Control+clicking or right-clicking an object.
l
Choose Edit ➪ Clear or press Ô+Delete or Backspace to delete (clear) the object.
l
Drag the object to the Mac’s Trash or the Windows Recycle Bin; this clears the object.
Note
If you use the Direct Selection tool instead of the Selection tool for these deletion actions for a frame contain-
ing a graphic, the graphic is removed from the frame but the frame itself remains. (By contrast, if you use the
Selection tool, both the graphic and the frame are deleted.) n
Note
Cut objects can then be pasted elsewhere, at least until the time an object is cut or copied. Cleared objects
cannot be pasted back. n
Preventing Objects from Printing
InDesign lets you prevent an object from printing. To do so, select the object, open the Attributes
panel (choose Window ➪ Output ➪ Attributes), and then select the Nonprinting option. (The other
settings in this panel control stroke settings, which Chapter 12 covers.)
You would use this feature for comments and other elements that should not print but that you
need to have visible on-screen. Another approach to nonprinting objects is to place them all on a
layer and make the entire layer nonprinting.
Cross-Reference
Chapter 6 covers layers. Chapter 31 covers printing. n
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Chapter 10: Manipulating Objects

placed items at least align to your desired X or Y coordinates, as Chapter 7 explains.
l
The smart-guides feature is particularly suited to visually oriented designers: It shows you
on-screen — as you size, move, and rotate objects with the mouse — when the object
you’re working with aligns to nearby objects and when it is spaced equidistantly to other
nearby objects. This feature provides the precision you want while you are doing actual
work, saving you from having to fix alignment and spacing after the fact, which is what
you have to do when you use the Control, Transform, or Align panels.
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Part III: Object Fundamentals
264
Working with the Align panel
The Align panel (choose Window ➪ Object & Layout ➪ Align or press Shift+F7), shown in Figure
10.6, has several iconic buttons that let you manipulate the relative position of multiple objects in
two ways. (The buttons show the alignments they provide.)
FIGURE 10.6
The Align panel
Tip
The Align panel’s iconic buttons may also be available in the Control panel if you’ve selected multiple objects
with the Selection tool, depending on how wide your screen is and how many buttons you’ve set the Control
panel to display. (See Chapter 1 for how to customize the buttons it displays.) n
With the Align panel, you can:
l
Line up objects along a horizontal or vertical axis. For example, if you’ve randomly
placed several small graphic frames onto a page, you can use the iconic alignment buttons
in the Align panel to align them neatly — either horizontally or vertically.
l
Distribute space evenly among objects along a horizontal or vertical axis. Here’s a
typical problem easily solved by using this feature: You’ve carefully placed five small

ute objects, choose Show Options from the flyout menu or click the double-arrow icon to the left of the panel
name. n
Working with live distribution
InDesign CS5 lets you redistribute the spaces among objects as you drag the mouse using its live-
distribution capability. Normally when you select multiple objects and begin moving one of the
control points for the selected objects’ marquee, each object is resized based on the direction and
length you move the mouse. However, if you press and hold the spacebar shortly after beginning
that mouse movement, InDesign instead redistributes the object within the area defined by the
marquee. (Release the spacebar and the mouse button to apply the new spacing.) The new mar-
quee shape determines the space within which the objects are equally redistributed.
Figure 10.7 shows the live-distribution capability in action (the rightmost portion), and compares
it to the normal resizing behavior (the middle portion).
New Feature
The live-distribution capability is new to InDesign CS5. n
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Part III: Object Fundamentals
266
InDesign has two little-known methods to get dimension information about objects: the Measure tool
and the Info panel. Because so much information about object size and position resides in the Control
panel, these methods are little used. They’re more vestiges of InDesign’s pre-Control panel era, but they
can be useful on occasion.
Available through the Eyedropper tool’s pop-out menu or via the shortcut K, the Measure tool opens the
Info panel and lets you draw a line whose dimensions appear in that panel (look for D1 in the upper
left) so you can measure an arbitrary distance. You can measure the distance of two segments if you
press and hold Option or Alt when dragging the tool for the second segment. Note that the second
measurement must start where the first measurement left off — the two measurement lines must share
a corner. That second measurement appears in the D2 area, as shown in the figure.
Although you can see objects’ dimensions in the Control, Transform, and Info panels, the value of the
Measure tool is that it enables you to determine the distance between objects rather than the dimen-

an existing object):
l
The top sequence shows me adding a second frame. The mouse pointer is near neither the
nearby object’s centerpoint nor its edge, so no smart guide appears.
l
The middle sequence shows what happens as the mouse pointer moves near the edge of
the nearby object: InDesign displays a smart guide to let me know that if I want the bot-
tom edge of the new frame to align with the bottom of the nearby object, all I have to do
is let go.
l
The third sequence shows me moving a circular frame from the bottom to the upper right
of the page. You can see the smart guide that indicates the mouse is aligned to the center-
point of the second object, and if I let go here, the circular frame’s centerpoint aligns to
that other object’s centerpoint.
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Part III: Object Fundamentals
268
FIGURE 10.8
Smart guides in action. At top is a new frame being added (at right). The middle sequence shows a smart
guide that automatically appears indicating an edge alignment, and the third sequence shows a smart
guide indicating a centerpoint alignment, as well as two smart-spacing indicators that show the spacing
between the three objects is now equidistant.
Working with smart spacing and measurements
You probably noticed additional visual indicators in the third sequence of Figure 10.8: the spacing
indicators between each set of objects. This visual indication is called smart spacing, which you also
turn on in the Smart Guide Options section of the Guides & Pasteboard pane of the Preferences
dialog box, following the two alignment options. When smart spacing is on, InDesign looks at the
relative spacing of nearby objects as you work with one and highlights when the spacing is the
same, or close to being the same (in which case it moves them for you).

If you press and hold Ô or Ctrl, dragging the mouse changes the gap’s width. Dragging
to the right on a vertical gap widens the gap (and narrows the objects on either side to
make room); dragging to the left on a vertical gap narrows the gap (widening the objects
on either side to take up the extra space). Dragging up on a horizontal gap widens the
gap, and dragging down on a horizontal gap narrows the gap. The lower-left corner of
Figure 10.9 shows the vertical gap being narrowed.
l
If you press and hold Option or Alt, dragging the mouse moves all the items on either side
of the gap in the direction you move the mouse, as the lower-right corner of Figure 10.9
shows.
Tip
You can combine the keyboard shortcuts when using the Gap tool. Thus, Shift+Ô+dragging or Shift+Alt+dragging
a gap moves just the gap’s immediately adjacent objects, not all the objects that border the gap. n
Note
The Gap tool ignores locked items and master page items. n
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Part III: Object Fundamentals
270
FIGURE 10.9
The Gap tool in action. Top left: Dragging the mouse repositions the selected gap, resizing the adjacent
objects accordingly. Top right: Shift+dragging the gap repositions the selected gap for just the nearest objects,
resizing just those objects. Bottom left: Ô+dragging or Ctrl+dragging the gap resizes the gap, resizing the
adjacent objects to make room or take up the freed space. Bottom right: Option+dragging or Alt+dragging
the gap moves all the adjacent objects.
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Chapter 10: Manipulating Objects
271
Summary

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273
CHAPTER
Transforming Objects
IN THIS CHAPTER
Resizing and scaling objects
Rotating, shearing, and
flipping objects
Controlling how InDesign
displays transformation
values
Repeating transformations
Undoing transformations
Replacing object attributes
O
ne of the wonders of desktop publishing is how you can make fun-
damental changes to objects. You can make them smaller, bigger,
and wider. You can rotate them, flip them, and skew them. Try that
with a printed photograph or strip of type.
The most common transformations include resizing frames and resizing
(scaling) their contents. The other basic transformations — rotating, shearing,
and flipping — are used less often, with rotation being the most widely use-
ful and the other two usually limited to special effects.
For all of these controls, InDesign offers multiple ways to achieve the desired
transformation: menu options, tools, panels, and dialog boxes. When you
have a choice, pick whatever is most convenient at the moment.
Cross-Reference
Chapter 10 covers how to select objects, as well as how to move, copy, delete,
and align them. Chapter 12 covers special effects such as adding strokes and

Click and drag the control handles on an object’s bounding box using the Selection tool. To
change the width and height, drag a corner handle. To change only the width or height, drag a
midpoint handle. If you press and hold Shift as you drag, the object’s original proportions are
retained.
Tip
If you drag immediately after clicking a handle, only an object’s bounding box is displayed as you drag. If you
click and then pause until the pointer changes, the contents within are displayed as you drag.
n
Here’s how the various selection tools act on objects — frames, paths, and lines — when you
resize them via the mouse:
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