Controlling the Control Palette

Transcription

1 Controlling the Control Palette By Olav Martin Kvern Presented at the PageMaker Conference, Dallas November 11 13, 1996 Click here to return to the Thunder Lizard Productions home page /

2 Controlling the Control Palette Displaying the Control Palette Press Command-' (Macintosh) or Ctrl-' (Windows) to display or hide the Control palette. What Is all this Stuff? The Control palette can be a little overwhelming, at first. The first thing we need to do is let you know what everything is or at least what we call it. Close box Proxy Horizontal position (of the point selected in the proxy) Nudge arrows Horizontal scale Rotation angle Apply button Title bar Vertical position (of the point selected in the proxy) Height Width Vertical scale Skewing angle Reflection buttons Highlighted Title Bar means that the Control palette is active. Solid bar shows you which field (or button) is selected. Scaling button Proportional scaling button 1 Apply button changes to show what sort of object you ve selected (a TIFF, in this case). Scale to printer resolution (appears for TIFFs only) Cropping button

3 Control Palette Modes What you see in the Control palette depends on what you ve got selected. Nothing selected Horizontal guide selected Text selected, character view Text selected, paragraph view Rectangle selected TIFF image selected EPS selected 2

4 Moving to the Control Palette Press Command-~ (Macintosh) or Ctrl-~ (Windows) to move your cursor to the last-selected field of the Control palette. Moving Through the Control Palette Press Tab to move forward a field in the Control palette, press Shift-Tab to move back a field. Understanding PageMaker s Coordinate System PageMaker s coordinate system is the key to precise positioning of objects on your pages. Here s the traditional two-dimensional coordinate system you learned in junior high school geometry class. PageMaker s coordinate system works the same way it s just that the Y axis has been flipped. -x As Y increases, plotted points move up on the Y axis. +y As X increases, plotted points move to the right along the Y axis. +x In PageMaker, the zero point in the coordinate system is the zero point on PageMaker s rulers. -x -y As Y increases, plotted points move down on the Y axis. +x -y 0x, 0y +y This means that you enter larger (or more positive) numbers in the Y field of the Control palette to move an object down on the page. 3

5 Understanding the Proxy The Proxy, and the points on the Proxy, represent the object or objects you ve selected. Or, more accurately, they represent the object s bounding box a rectangular area on the page. This handle of the selected object is represented by this point on the Proxy. Selecting Proxy Points When you have the Proxy selected, you can select points on the Proxy by pressing keys on the numeric keypad 7 select the upper-left corner, 8 selects the top, 9 selects the upper-right corner, and so on. Just think of the keypad as a small version of the Proxy, and you ve got the idea. 4

6 Move and Stretch When you click on a point in the Proxy, PageMaker shows that you ve selected the point by highlighting it. Now you re in move mode changes you make in the X and Y fields move the selected point to the specified location. Click on the point again, and arrows appear around the point. This means that the palette is in stretch mode, and changes you make in the X and Y fields resize the selected object by stretching the selected point to a new location. Move mode Stretch mode Moving Between Buttons When you re moving through the Control palette using the keyboard, you can move between different buttons in a group using the arrow keys. As you press the arrow keys, PageMaker displays a bar at the bottom or top of the active button. Pressing Buttons with the Keyboard To press an active button in the Control palette without taking your hands off the keyboard, press the Spacebar. Overriding Units of Measurement As in any other field in any of PageMaker s dialog boxes, you can enter measurements in any measurement system you want, without changing the settings in the Preferences dialog box or switching the field to a different measurement system. 5 When you want Type 6 picas 3 points 6p3 113 points 0p inches 2.4i 31 millimeters 31m 2 ciceros 1 didot 2c1 You can t, however, mix units of measurement and do arithmetic at the same time. You can t, for example, type +3.5i in a field containing 2p6 you ll have to switch the field to inches before entering the arithmetic.

7 Changing Units of Measurement for a Field If you want to change one of the fields so that it always works in a particular system of measurement, move the cursor to that field and press Command-Option-M (Macintosh) or Shift-F11 (Windows) to cycle through PageMaker s measurement systems. As you press the shortcut, the measurements in the field change (in the following order: picas, inches, millimeters, and ciceros). Mixing measurement systems Once you find the measurement system you want, press Enter or Tab out of the field PageMaker uses the units you specified for that field until you close the Control palette or quit PageMaker. Doing Arithmetic in the Control Palette Typing absolute coordinates such as 3.75 inches in the Control palette s text edit fields is great, but what can you do when you want to move an object a specific distance from its current position? What if you need to specify a new horizontal position for an object that s 2p5 to the left of the current position? Position your cursor to the right of the value in the x position text edit field and type -2p5. Press Enter (or Tab out of the field), and PageMaker subtracts 2p5 from the object s x position moving the object to the left. (Remember, in PageMaker s coordinate system, horizontal coordinates increase as you go farther to the right; vertical coordinates increase as you go farther down on the page.) You can add (+), subtract (-), multiply (*), and divide (/) in the Control palette s fields. 6

8 Switching Between Character and Paragraph Views You can switch between palette view modes by pressing Command-Shift- (Macintosh) or Ctrl-Shift- (Windows) when the Control palette is active. Text selected, character view Text selected, paragraph view Where s my Cursor? The Cursor Position field in the Character view of the Control Palette keeps track of your cursor s position (relative to the left edge of the text block. This makes it easy to set a tab or an indent at a specific cursor location. The Cursor Position field displays the current cursor position. Edit Style Shortcut Hold down Command (Macintosh) or Ctrl (Windows) and click on the style name displayed in the paragraph section of the Control palette to edit that style. PageMaker displays the Edit style dialog box. This is the same shortcut you d use to edit a style displayed in the Styles palette it s just another way to get there. 7

9 Change Style Shortcut Sometimes, you want to replace a style s specifications with the formatting of a paragraph. While there are tricky ways to do this using the Styles palette, you can do it with a single keystroke using the Control palette. 1. Position the cursor in the paragraph that has the formatting you want. 2. Switch to the Control palette. 3. Change to the Paragraph section of the Control palette (if it s not already visible). 4. Select the Styles field and type the name of the style you want to change. 5. Hold down Command-Shift (Macintosh) or Ctrl-Shift (Windows) and click on the style name in the field. PageMaker displays a prompt asking if you want to override the style s definitions with the current formatting. You do, so press Enter (or click OK). PageMaker updates the style with the formatting of the selected paragraph. Proportionally Scaling Rectangles and Ellipses Try this: Hold down Shift and drag a corner handle of a rectangle. What happens? Does it make the rectangle scale proportionally? Nope it just produces squares and circles. Using the Control palette, on the other hand, is easy. Select the object you want to resize, and enter a new percentage in one of the percentage scaling fields or in either of the W or H fields in the Control palette. If the palette is already set to scale the object proportionally, all you need to do is press Enter. If the palette s not set up to do proportional scaling, click the Scale Mode button. PageMaker scales the selected object proportionally. 8

10 Click here to return to the Thunder Lizard Productions home page /