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mebamo
mebamo
Inspiring
December 4, 2018
Answered

alt drag duplicate makes the page view zoom out!

  • December 4, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 554 views

Hey everybody, I have a really annoying problem with my alt drag duplicating in InDesign.

I create recipes and in my files I start out by having 4 different recipes (4 pages) in my InDesign file. I then need to create 3 more variants of each of these 4 recipes so I end up having 16 recipes/pages in my file.

When I have a recipe, lets say on page 1, I use alt drag duplicate to make the second version of that recipe to be after page 1. Then I change the measurements of the ingredients and then do the same thing to get a third version of the recipe where i change the measurements again. And same with the fourth version. I do this for all 4 recipes.

If I right click duplicate, the page will go to the end of the document, and I am not interested in having it do that. Maybe only for the 4th and last recipe since it is the last one anyways.

Anyways.. when I am working on my pages I am maybe zoomed in about 100-125 % but then, when I use alt drag duplicate on a page and let go of the copy, it zooms the page view out to 78%. I know it's not much but every time it zooms out by itself, I have to zoom back in again to see the text properly! It's beginning to annoy me.

I have Creative Cloud and the newest version of InDesign and as far as I remember, it started happening after the big update there was a month or 2 ago?

What to do?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Randy Hagan

You can get past this. It's a matter of sequencing.

1) Select the item you want to duplicate and start dragging it toward its new position, then ...

2) Hold down the Alt/Option key. You should then get the two-arrow cursor and when you release the mouse button, then the Alt/Option key, you'll get the copy of the original item(s).

I know this is contra-intuitive, since you need to hold down the modifier keys first to, say, adjust the size/contents of an image frame. But using the drag-first exception for this instance should get you the results you're looking for.

1 reply

Randy Hagan
Community Expert
Randy HaganCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
December 4, 2018

You can get past this. It's a matter of sequencing.

1) Select the item you want to duplicate and start dragging it toward its new position, then ...

2) Hold down the Alt/Option key. You should then get the two-arrow cursor and when you release the mouse button, then the Alt/Option key, you'll get the copy of the original item(s).

I know this is contra-intuitive, since you need to hold down the modifier keys first to, say, adjust the size/contents of an image frame. But using the drag-first exception for this instance should get you the results you're looking for.

mebamo
mebamoAuthor
Inspiring
December 5, 2018

Thank you so much That was simple

Randy Hagan
Community Expert
Randy HaganCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 5, 2018

Well, not all that simple when it's contrary to how much of the rest of InDesign's user interface works. So please don't take that on yourself.

But I'm happy I could help. Please come back here when you encounter problems/issues. There are a lot of sharp people here who can help.

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