ellwoodje01: Restore behavior in the InDesign polygon tool

Monday, 13 June 2011

Restore behavior in the InDesign polygon tool

Here's how to restore the old method of adding sides and changing star inset to the Polygon Tool in InDesign CS5.

I have previously used the Polygon Tool to create star shaped objects in InDesign, and I like the old way of changing the number of sides and the star inset of the shapes dynamically while drawing the shape.

In every version of InDesign until version 7 included in the CS5 package, you could change the number of sides by pressing the up- or down-arrows on the keyboard, and change the star inset by pressing the left- or right-arrows.

Adobe, however, in InDesign version 7 introduced the very clever option of drawing multiple shapes simultaneously by using the arrow keys while drawing a shape, and the only official way to change the polygon is to double click the Polygon Tool before drawing or with the polygon selected. While this is useful, you have no preview of the result before applying.

Today I got annoyed enough to start looking for ...