Tips & tricks for Adobe InDesign: Set default values - this saves a hell of a lot of time

You want a cool trick? Then so be it!

When I create a new document - what annoys me? Exactly, every time I have to change the font because I'd rather have Futura Light.

Another thing that always bothers me is that I often need a path gradient or a gradient field. And I have to redo this every time:

I then go to Create new grad ient field, type in "gray gradient" under Color field name and usually set the Type to Radial.




And only then can I apply it.

How do I save time? These settings should be available automatically when I create a new document.

Step 1

I close all documents. Then I have the option of changing the default settings. No document must be open. Only then does it work.

I now create a new gradient field and call it "Gray gradient" again. I set the type to Radial. I go from black to light gray by dragging the black slider slightly to the right out of the white.

I confirm with OK...

Step 2

... and now I have the "gray gradient".

Sometimes I also need a different color, so I create a new color field and set it to a nice blue.

That already looks very good.

Step 3

And what about the font?

I click on the text tool and then I can change my default font to Futura LT Light.

Step 4

Of course, I can also create paragraph formats.

I create a new one, call it "Futura 14 Pt" and set the size, style etc. accordingly.

Step 5

Then you can also specify that the font should be blue.

To do this, I go to the Character color option and select my blue. Now I confirm with OK.

Step 6

I rename this paragraph format and add the "blue".





You can now also set character formats and, and, and. You can now do everything the way you need it.

Step 7

And if I now create a new document, you can see that the values have all remained the same.

This also remains when I close InDesign and restart it. Then I open a new document and use Window>Color>Color Swatches to see what the color swatches are like.

As you can see, all the values are still there. The paragraph format is also there.





I can now activate everything without having to set anything. This of course saves a lot of time.

The only important thing is that you have closed all documents and only then change or add the default values.

That's pretty cool, isn't it?