Adobe® InDesign® CS5 Bible

Chapter 11. Transforming Objects

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Resizing and scaling objects

• Rotating, shearing, and flipping objects

• Controlling how InDesign displays transformation values

• Repeating transformations

• Undoing transformations

• Replacing object attributes

One of the wonders of desktop publishing is how you can make fundamental changes to objects. You can make them smaller, bigger, and wider. You can rotate them, flip them, and skew them. Try that with a printed photograph or strip of type.

The most common transformations include resizing frames and resizing (scaling) their contents. The other basic transformations — rotating, shearing, and flipping — are used less often, with rotation being the most widely useful and the other two usually limited to special effects.

For all of these controls, InDesign offers multiple ways to achieve the desired transformation: menu options, tools, panels, and dialog boxes. When you have a choice, pick whatever is most convenient at the moment.

Note

Chapter 10 covers how to select objects, as well as how to move, copy, delete, and align them. Chapter 12 covers special effects such as adding strokes and lighting effects.

The Control panel contains all sorts of transformation controls. Figure 11.1 identifies them.

Figure 11.1. The Control panel's transformation controls

Resizing and Scaling Objects

Two closely related transformation features are resizing and scaling. ...