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Comments

Everybody and his brother speaks of "trashing" preferences rather than
restoring them. It would be good if a search of the Help system for Trash
Preferences turned up this page. It actually fails to turn up any page.

Of course, they're talking about the Preferences files rather than the
preferences themselves, but nonetheless, the terminology in Help ought
to recognize the way people speak/write about the product.

The instructions above for using the keyboard to replace preferences at application startup can be quick and effective, if you are fast with the fingers, but they can also be destructive, particularly in cases where it turns out that the problem was something else. That method replaces, without backing up, all of the customizations you've accumulated and leaves you with a "factory fresh" set of defaults.

My preferred method, which saves your old prefs in case you want them back, is to close ID, open Explorer and make sure you are set to show hidden and system files, then navigate to (for CS and CS2) C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\Version [no.] and rename the two preference files: InDesign Defaults and InDesign
SavedData. In CS3 the SavedData file has been moved to \Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\Version 5.0\Caches. The preferences will be replaced with a fresh set of factory defaults when you relaunch ID, but if that doesn't solve your problem you can always go back to explorer and throw out the new set and name the old ones back again, restoring any customizations. If new prefs solve your problem you should delete the renamed files.

It's a good idea to also export any custom document and printer presets from the appropriate Preset > Define dialog prior to doing a preference replacement. Then you can just go back to the dialog and select "load" and you won't have to recreate all those wonderful things you've made and saved, and that will be wiped out with the old prefs files.

Once you have a customized set of preferences which work, make a copy and store it somewhere on your system for easy retrieval and you can simply replace the two files with your good copies when things get funny. Saved Preferences can even be used to bring another computer to the same condition as a starting point, but preferences are saved at exit so they will diverge quickly with use.

It was not at all intuitive to me that changing settings when all documents are open would be the way to change defaults.

I have several times wasted time hunting through Preferences, expecting that I would find a default font setting in a drop down, or at least some explanation for how to set it.

I went to Help and searched for "default font." This gave me a page called "About preferences and defaults." This page explained the difference between preferences and defaults, and even said "For example, you can specify the default font and other type specifications for all new documents or text frames." It did NOT however say anything about HOW default settings are made. As I read the page, it looks like defaults are a special kind of preference, and should be accessed and set the same way.

Each time I did this I gave up, deciding that it was better to walk on with this stone in my shoe rather than waste any more time figuring it out. Today I finally took the time to come to the support pages online.

Bad UI.

--Jim

I have just started working in InDesign on a PC (from Quark on a Mac), and find it pretty painful (I hated PageMaker back in the day).

Problem of the moment: opening a photo for editing opens Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

Two questions: Is there a keyboard shortcut (like double-clicking) to open a pic for editing? And how do I change the default app to Photoshop and not Picture Viewer?

Thanx --

In CS3, the operating system determines which program opens the photograph as the default; there is no shortcut that lets you change the program to Photoshop. In Windows XP, open the folder containing the photo, select the photo, hold down Ctrl and right-click the photo, choose Open With > Choose Program, and select the application you want to make the default (also select the "Always use..." option). If you're using Windows Vista, there should be an option for changing the default program. Good luck with the transition!

The fix posted by Peter Spier on Jan 13th, 2008 worked fine, except that one of the files listed was in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\Version 5.0\Caches

"Local Settings" was left out of the long string of subdirectories. This is where you will find the Caches subdirectory. Thanks Peter, your post saved the day and restored my links palette!

So I'm using InDesign CS3 on an iMac G5. Like the comment above, I'm wondering how I set the default program to be Photoshop instead of Preview. I don't know if it's possible, but my Yearbook class would be very helpful if we can get it to work.

As I mentioned, the operating system determines which program is used to open that file type. On a Mac, Ctrl-click a file (such as a JPEG), and then choose Get Info. From the "Open With" menu, choose the application that will open that file type. By the way, InDesign CS4 will have an Open With menu option that lets you specify the program.

Using CS3 on G-5 PowerPC... Have read the forum on default settings.
Small town newspaper making the transition from old time paste-up
newspaper to full pagination. So, YES some of us are struggling. In
particular, our editor. I need to do as much as possible to make his usage of
In-Design painless and goof proof. I said all of that to ask if there is
anywhere to set default SAVE locations. I have always gone into his Word
and set his preferences to point to a specific folder so that I could always find
stuff when he lost it. I can't find the option of setting a default location in CS3
and have read all help files but can't find the correct one. Thanks!