keyboard shortcut – The Graphic Mac

Quickly show hidden files in macOS

There was a time in the history of macOS (formerly known as Mac OS X) when you had to use a Terminal command or a third-party utility to show the hidden files and folders littered all over your storage drive. I won’t go down the rabbit hole of why you would want to see these hidden files and folders, but know that Apple has finally built-in a simple keyboard shortcut to do just that—and it works in the Finder as well as Open/Save dialog boxes.

Adobe Photoshop

Easily switch between Photoshop’s Layer Blend Modes

When you have a multi-layer Photoshop file and you want to set one of the layers to Multiply, Overlay or one of the numerous other Blend Modes, you can click the drop-down menu in the Layers panel, but that can be tedious.

Adobe InDesign

Quickly change InDesign’s Presentation Mode background color

You probably don’t think of Adobe InDesign as a presentation application like Keynote or PowerPoint. But the fact is, you can apply page transitions, embed movies, and more to your InDesign document and present it without the viewer having to look at object handles, panels or the rest of the InDesign interface.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop CS6 interface color keyboard shortcut

Photoshop CS6 introduced a new interface option which allows you to choose from four shades of brightness while working in the app. It was jarring at first, but once I got used to it I loved it. Still, there are times when I want to leave the new dark interface and use something a bit lighter. Adobe made it easy with a handy keyboard shortcut.

Simply hit Shift + Function + F1 to lighten the interface, or Shift + Function + F2 to darken it.

Adobe InDesign

How to quickly switch to any InDesign tool while…

When you’re editing text in Adobe InDesign, switching to a different tool cannot be done simply by hitting the keyboard shortcut for that tool because you’ll end up typing that letter in the text frame.

Instead, to switch to another tool, Command + Click on the text frame or hit Command + Shift + A to exit text editing mode. You can then hit the appropriate letter to switch tools, such as P for the Pen tool, or M for the Rectangle tool.

Adobe InDesign

Access InDesign’s Text Wrap panel with this shortcut

Even with a 30″ LCD screen, I prefer to not have any of InDesign’s panels open than is necessary. One panel I use often, but don’t keep open is the Text Wrap panel, which offers a few icons in the main Tools panel across the top of the Adobe InDesign application frame.

Rather than keep the Text Wrap panel open or (worse yet) keep opening and closing it as needed via the menubar, you can simply Option + Click the icon in the Tools panel. This will pop the panel open so you can access more of the Wrap features.

Apple | Mac

Paste text without formatting in OS X Lion

If you want to copy formatted text from one document into a new one but don’t want to keep the formatting, you can do so with a simple keyboard shortcut.

Simply copy the text as you normally would (Command + C), then move to where you want to paste the text and hit Command + Shift + Option + V. Your text will be pasted with no formatting whatsoever.

This is particularly useful when copying colored text with one font and pasting it into a new document that uses completely different fonts and colors.

Adobe InDesign

Auto-distribute InDesign objects with a keyboard shortcut

The Align & Distribute panel in Adobe InDesign is a handy tool for lining-up objects and distributing them equally in a specified space. But in order to distribute objects, you have to set the left-most and right-most objects exactly where you want them before using the Distribute icons in the panel.

Auto distribute objects — A simple keyboard shortcut allows you to "eyeball" the distribution of objects

If you would rather “eyeball it,” you can do so simply by selecting your objects, grabbing one of the selection handles on one of the objects and hold the space bar down as you drag the handle. Rather than resizing your objects, the space between the objects will increase or decrease accordingly.

It’s important to note that the objects don’t distribute EVENLY automatically using this shortcut. In other words, if you have a quarter inch between the first and second object, and a half inch between the second and third, it won’t re-distribute the objects giving them equal space between them, it will only adjust the spacing already there proportionately.

Adobe InDesign

Selecting cells with the keyboard in your InDesign table

Selecting InDesign Table Cells — Selecting individual InDesign Table cells, and the content in them, is easy with the keyboard

If you use Tables in your InDesign document, selecting individual cells with the mouse can make your fingers sore. Instead, use the Tab and/or Arrow keys to move between them. Maybe you already knew that. But did you know that you can click the cell you wish to work with and hit the ESC key to select the entire cell (perhaps to fill the cell with a color) and hit ESC a second time to select the content inside the cell (to change the font, for example).

Apple | Mac

Quickly check or uncheck items in your iTunes playlists

iTunes playlist shortcut — A quick shortcut to check and uncheck all items in your playlists

If you have a lot of items in a music playlist and you want to check or uncheck them all, you can save yourself the time and trouble of doing it one-by-one simply by clicking the checkbox of any song in the playlist while holding the Command key down. Doing so will check or uncheck all the items in the playlist at once.

Adobe InDesign

Quickly rotate objects in Adobe InDesign without using the…

One of the little features Adobe added to InDesign CS5 is something that’s been in Photoshop for a long time, and just makes rotating objects a little easier.

Rather than selecting your object and using the Rotate tool in the Tools panel, simply move your cursor to just outside the corner of your object with the Selection tool to reveal the hidden rotate icon – then just click and drag the mouse to rotate.

Of course if you’re looking for a keyboard shortcut, you can always just hit the R key to select the Rotate tool without visiting the Tools panel.

Either way, you can rotate multiple objects without grouping them – yet another time saver!