The new, streamlined interface in QuarkXPress 8 and 9 makes this already efficient program even more efficient to use. I’ve developed a new habit of pressing V and T to access the Item and Text tool, respectively.
When I’m editing the content of a box (text or picture), and I want to switch to the Item tool — say, to move a bunch of items around — I just click away from any item, and then press V. By clicking away from items, I deselect all items. Then by pressing V, the Item tool is activated.
To edit some text, you can just double-click on the text box. But if the text box is grouped with other items, that doesn’t work — a double-click brings up the Modify Group dialog box. Instead, just press the T key. This switches you to the Text tool, and you can just click on any text box in the group to edit the text in it!
To recap: click-then-V to get the Item tool. Double-click a text box to get the Text tool, or just press T.
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15. April 2009 at 4:24 pm
One of our readers had this request:
“Of course, even better would be if there were a Keyboard command to “click away from any item” or deactivate the box that is currently being typed in. Our fingers are already on the keyboard because we are in a text box and it is a pain to go to the mouse for one click.”
Indeed! I should have mentioned that the Escape key will deselect all selected items. A real timesaver for keyboard jockeys (like me).