November 28, 1999

Navigating the Document Inspector

Using the Document Inspector palette is really nice when working with multi-page documents. This was first introduced in version 4 but it was really difficult moving around in the palette window to move pages around and get them into place.

Macromedia added one little feature since version 5 that makes navigation in the palette window much easier.

Version: 5 and above

 
 


Above is the Document Inspector palette. As many of you know there are 3 magnification levels located at the top of the palette when viewing the mini pages.

 

Watching the animation above, this is what some people may do when trying to get pages to line up correctly with each other. Switching between magnifications to center the page, then moving it into place. This can be frustrating and takes way to many mouse movements to accomplish a simple task.

 

The tip to easy navigation is to press and hold the Space Bar when the mouse is in the Document Inspector. This turns it into a Grabber Hand which you can use to drag the view around.

Watch the animation above to see how much easier it is to move pages around.

Although this tip is mentioned in the manual and the FreeHand online help system, it is one of those often overlooked mini-features that can make your day so much easier. Now if they only added a snap to grid feature in the Document Inspector, life would be complete.