Using Quick Apply with InDesign

If you have an InDesign document that needs to be formatted, like, yesterday, then Quick Apply is about to become your best friend. It’s a huge time saver that might just be one of the most useful things to include in your toolkit.

I’ve heard it called “the Google of InDesign”, since you just need to start typing the name of a style, preference or command to get access to it.

Let’s have a look at how Quick Apply works. InDesign has a Quick Apply dialog box that stores all these goodies.

How to Use Styles with Quick Apply

1. Start with an InDesign document open or create a new one.
2. Click into a paragraph where you want to apply a style.
3. Open the Quick Apply dialog box by pressing Ctrl + Enter.
4. Start typing the name of a style in the list of Character and Paragraph Styles.
5. When your style is highlighted, press the Enter key to apply the style.
   
   

That’s nice! Now, you can always just stick to the basics with Quick Apply, but there’s more good stuff here, so let’s check it out.

Setting Preferences

You can use Quick Apply to access InDesign Preferences. For example, let’s say you type that word you always spell incorrectly, again! All you need to do is copy the misspelled text, open Quick Apply and start typing “correct”. Once the Autocorrect preferences is highlighted, press the Enter key to open the Autocorrect dialog box and add your misspelled word.

Note: This will only work if you have Include Menu Commands selected in the Quick Apply panel menu.

Changing Quick Apply Settings

There are lots of choices in the Quick Apply dialog box, so along with using it to apply styles, you can use it to find obscure menu commands, run scripts and more. But if you only use some of them, you might want to turn off the rest.

1. Open the Quick Apply dialog box.
2. Click on the triangle at the top left of the text field
3. Deselect any options you don’t want to use.

Tip: If you want to close the Quick Apply dialog box without selecting anything from the list, just press the Esc key, or click anywhere else in the document window.

That’s it, a nice, quick way to find stuff and apply styles, preferences and more. Do yourself a favour and have a look at this feature. It could save you loads of time.