This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Tools palette
The Tools palette provides all the tools you need for creating, selecting, and modifying QuarkXPress items and their contents. You will generally keep the Tools palette open at all times, but you can open and close it quickly by pressing F8 or choosing Window > Tools. Select tools with the mouse or with keyboard shortcuts.
Reviewing the tools
A small triangle in the lower-right corner of a tool’s box indicates a pop-out menu of additional tools. The default Tools palette provides the tools shown in Figure 2.3; the tools in the pop-outs are shown in Figures 2.4–2.7.
)
Figure 2.3: The default Tools palette.
){kind=small}
Figure 2.4: The Text Linking and Unlinking tools control the flow of text throughout a layout.
)
Figure 2.5: The box creation tools and the Composition Zones tool (far right).
)
Figure 2.6: The tools for manipulating Bézier points, the Scissors tool, and the Freehand Drawing tool.
){kind=small}
Figure 2.7: The Pan tool for scrolling among pages.
To select a tool in a pop-out menu, click the main tool, then drag to the right. The tool replaces the initial tool. Press Control as you select a tool to add it to the Tools palette. To move the tool back to its pop-out menu, Control+click it.
Selecting tools with keyboard shortcuts
Single-letter keyboard shortcuts let you quickly change tools. (If you’re using the Text Content tool, press Escape first.) When different tools have the same shortcut, press the shortcut key repeatedly until the tool you want is selected.
You can also gain “temporary access” to some tools by pressing a keyboard shortcut. For example, while editing text with the Text Content tool, you can press Command (Mac) Control (Windows) for the Item tool and move the box. When you release the key, the previous tool is still selected.
- Item tool: V or Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) for temporary access.
- Text Content tool, Text Linking tool, Text Unlinking tool: T or double-click a box with the Item tool for the Text Content tool.
- Picture Content tool: R or double-click a picture with the Item tool.
- Rectangle Box tool, Oval Box tool, Star Box tool, Composition Zones tool: B.
- Line tool: L.
- Bézier Pen tool, Add Point tool, Remove Point tool, Convert Point tool, Scissors tool, Select Point tool, Freehand Drawing tool: P.
- Table tool: G.
- Zoom tool: Z or Control+Shift (Mac)/Control+spacebar (Windows) for temporary access.
- Pan tool: X or Option (Mac)/Alt (Windows) for temporary access.