Join David Blatner for an in-depth discussion in this video 315 Streamline placement of auto-formatted images, part of InDesign Secrets.
- [Instructor] Here's a neat trick to help you streamline the placing of lots of images into a layout and have them automatically formatted the way that you'd like as soon as you place them. That would be cool, right? Let me show you how to do that. First of all, you apply formatting to a sample image as I've done to this one here. Let me zoom in a bit. You can see that it has a text wrap applied. If I open up the text wrap panel, you see there's a text wrap applied. It also has a thin key line stroke of half a point around it and of course we have the required drop shadow.
Now, if I bring in another image, let's bring this back out and I'll go to File Place and yeah, I guess this honeybee will be fine. Let me make sure in options I'm not going to replace a selected item. Okay, good. Choose Open and then let's drag it say right here. Well, of course, it doesn't come in looking like this one. There's no stroke. There's no text wrap. It comes in by default. If we look in Object Styles, it has none is the style applied to it.
So, I know what you're saying, you're saying, "Well, let's just create a style for this image "and then we'll apply that object style to this image." And we can except that doesn't mean that as soon as we place a third image into this layout that it's automatically going to get that, right? We have to always apply the new style. So, I'm going to show you this cool trick that's been around for a number of versions that will let you do exactly what you want to do. First, we start out by creating an object style from a manually formatted object as you usually do.
So, I've selected that object. Go to Object Styles. Hold down Option or Alt. Click on New Style and give it a name and I'll just call it My Images. Oh wait, no I'm not going to give it just any name. I have to give it a special name for this trick to work. We're going to call it Place Gun Frame with a capital F. As long as you name an object style exactly this with the same upper and lowercase, then that becomes the default style for all newly-placed objects.
Isn't it cool? So, I'll click OK and let's get rid of this guy. There's our Place Gun Frame style. I'll go ahead and choose File Place again and there's the honeybee. We'll click Open and then I'll place it just by dragging it here and voila, it automatically gets Place Gun Frame styled. Now, that doesn't happen with any other object style with any other name, default image, the basic graphics frame really doesn't apply to these.
This is not a graphics frame. Graphics frames are the frames that have no content and they're just being used as graphics. So, it's weird that there is no default image frame style, but by creating a style called Place Gun Frame, you can then edit it as much as you want. If we wanted to get rid of the shadow for example then that would remove the shadow from all the placed images. They still retain their text wrap of course. Ain't it cool? Place Gun Frame, it's been around for a number of versions so even if you're not using the latest version of InDesign, give it a try.
Updated
12/23/2020Released
8/25/2011New techniques will be added to the collection every other week, so check back early and often. Find more tips and tricks at indesignsecrets.com.Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?
A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.
Related Courses
-
InDesign CC 2018 Essential Training
with David Blatner6h 30m Beginner -
InDesign: Interactive PDFs
with David Blatner2h 27m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2018: EPUB
with Anne-Marie Concepción4h 35m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2019 Essential Training
with David Blatner5h 23m Beginner -
InDesign Quick Start
with David Blatner22m Beginner
-
This Week's Secret
-
Introduction
-
Welcome to InDesign Secrets1m 10s
-
-
December 2020
-
November 2020
-
October 2020
-
September 2020
-
Use one frame, not many4m 37s
-
August 2020
-
July 2020
-
June 2020
-
May 2020
-
Threading filled frames3m 14s
-
Custom page numbering tricks5m 13s
-
November 2012
-
October 2012
-
061 Embedding images7m 44s
-
-
September 2012
-
057 Text wrapping6m 54s
-
-
August 2012
-
July 2012
-
June 2012
-
May 2012
-
April 2012
-
March 2012
-
January 2012
-
April 2020
-
Making speech bubbles3m 32s
-
Working with ligatures5m 9s
-
February 2012
-
December 2011
-
016 Running a script9m 33s
-
November 2011
-
October 2011
-
August 2011
-
September 2011
-
March 2020
-
February 2020
-
Auto-expand acronyms4m 39s
-
-
January 2020
-
December 2019
-
November 2019
-
October 2019
-
409 Copy and paste effects4m 39s
-
-
September 2019
-
408 The master page trick1m 46s
-
August 2019
-
July 2019
-
June 2019
-
May 2019
-
April 2019
-
March 2019
-
February 2019
-
376 Make cast shadows3m 35s
-
-
January 2019
-
November 2018
-
December 2018
-
369 Shared CC Libraries tips5m 15s
-
October 2018
-
360 Find spacing problems4m 50s
-
363 Export all text8m 16s
-
-
August 2018
-
351 Change default fonts5m 51s
-
352 Best default RGB4m 45s
-
-
September 2018
-
July 2018
-
May 2018
-
343 Border spacing fix4m 59s
-
June 2018
-
346 Export to HTML55m 38s
-
April 2018
-
February 2018
-
March 2018
-
January 2018
-
325 Link text frames6m 10s
-
December 2017
-
November 2017
-
September 2017
-
October 2017
-
313 Quick Apply preferences6m 35s
-
August 2017
-
July 2017
-
May 2017
-
290 Work with scripts3m 35s
-
June 2017
-
April 2017
-
286 How to format ellipses5m 39s
-
March 2017
-
281 Share a CC library7m 10s
-
January 2017
-
February 2017
-
December 2016
-
271 Add images to an index4m 39s
-
November 2016
-
September 2016
-
October 2016
-
260 Batch process images7m 33s
-
263 Sync master pages5m 51s
-
-
August 2016
-
July 2016
-
June 2016
-
April 2016
-
May 2016
-
240 Side-by-side tables5m 35s
-
March 2016
-
February 2016
-
228 Setting text at an angle6m 24s
-
December 2015
-
January 2016
-
222 Adding paragraph shading1m 50s
-
October 2015
-
November 2015
-
September 2015
-
July 2015
-
August 2015
-
204 Creating a8m 14s
-
205 Managing scripts5m 38s
-
May 2015
-
189 Placing InDesign files5m 14s
-
-
June 2015
-
193 Printing tracked changes5m 41s
-
-
April 2015
-
186 Making long shadows5m 41s
-
February 2015
-
March 2015
-
January 2015
-
December 2014
-
November 2014
-
October 2014
-
September 2014
-
August 2014
-
July 2014
-
148 Cropping with paste into5m 18s
-
-
June 2014
-
May 2014
-
141 Inserting glyphs6m 42s
-
April 2014
-
March 2014
-
February 2014
-
January 2014
-
December 2013
-
November 2013
-
October 2013
-
September 2013
-
August 2013
-
105 Working with MiniBridge5m 45s
-
106 Customize your QR codes6m 17s
-
July 2013
-
June 2013
-
May 2013
-
April 2013
-
March 2013
-
February 2013
-
December 2012
-
069 Ten uses of the Story Editor11m 39s
-
-
January 2013
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: 315 Streamline placement of auto-formatted images