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michaljanata
Inspiring
January 28, 2026
Question

File-Open Copy without checkbox clicking

  • January 28, 2026
  • 6 replies
  • 86 views

I'm dealing with opening many file copies on daily basis and clicking on checkbox with mouse is very slowing me down.

Is there any other way how to open copy? I have tried modifier keys on keyboard while clicking to Open, but no success. 

    6 replies

    Inspiring
    January 30, 2026

    not tested:

     

    tell application "Finder"
    set selectedItems to selection
    if (count of selectedItems) = 0 then
    display dialog "No file selected." buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" with icon stop
    return
    end if
    set filePath to (item 1 of selectedItems) as alias
    end tell

    tell application "Adobe InDesign 2025"
    activate
    open filePath with options {opening as copy:true}
    end tell

     

    rob day
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 29, 2026

    Is there any other way how to open copy?

     

    This script will open a copy:

     

     

    try {
    app.open(File.openDialog("Open"), true, OpenOptions.OPEN_COPY)
    }catch(e) {
    alert(e)
    }

     

     
    leo.r
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 28, 2026

    Try this:

     

    First, make sure to enable System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard navigation.

     

    Now, when you open the Open dialog:

     

    Press Tab > Tab > Arrow down > Arrow down

     

    This sequence can also be automated one way or another.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 28, 2026

    Well, I’m sure you know this... but if you save a file as a template—which simply means use .indt vs .indd as the file extension—InDesign will automatically open a copy.

    InDesign templates are identical to InDesign documents—the only difference is that .indd defaults to open original, and .indt defaults to open copy. 

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    michaljanata
    Inspiring
    January 28, 2026

    thanks, but this is not the way, see my explanation in answer to Conrad

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 28, 2026

    I don’t know of a way to do this from inside InDesign, but there may be a way to do it from the desktop.

     

    Based on your screen shot, it looks like you’re on a Mac. That provides some potential solutions from the macOS side. 

     

    If you start from the Finder instead of inside InDesign, you could select an InDesign document, press Command-D (keyboard shortcut for the File > Duplicate command), and then press Command-O (shortcut for File > Open). That will open the duplicate in InDesign .

     

    Another option: When a file is selected in the macOS Finder, one of its properties in the File > Get Info window is Stationery Pad. That marks it as a template (using a macOS template property, not the InDesign template format). So if you need to open a lot of files, you could set them all to Stationery Pad and when you select them all and double-click them in the Finder, they will all open in InDesign as copies of their original files. However, a couple of disadvantages are that you might not want to leave all of them marked with the macOS Stationery Pad property, and also to mark multiple selected files at once you have to change the File > Get Info command to File > Show Inspector by holding down the Option key as you click the File menu. So maybe it’s easier to use the Duplicate shortcut.

     

    (edit: If you got a notification that this was marked Best Answer, I accidentally selected that and then removed it, sorry)

    michaljanata
    Inspiring
    January 28, 2026

    thanks for tip, at least for my new mac knowledge… 

    but making physical copies is no way to go for me, I open many files a day and deleting them then is another useless work

    probably for explanation - i edit images linked to indesign documents sitting on dropbox… i could for sure open original file, but i dont want to accidentaly save original file (which I'm use to do sometimes unthinkingly) and then restore it, it is same complication

    i just need simply open copy as quckly as possible, edit image and then close copy without saving, deleting etc.

    it reminds me that macOS is not as perfect as sometimes seems to be - I can do this on PC very simple without using mouse, just hitting Alt+C and it selects right checkbox… this Alt key functionality I'm missing most of all on my mac across whole system and also dialog windows in apps, much more work and slowing down workflow because having to use mouse 

     

     

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 29, 2026

    @Conrad_C I can do this on PC very simple without using mouse, just hitting Alt+C and it selects right checkbox… this Alt key functionality I'm missing

     

    No, you’re not really missing it, it just isn’t turned on. Based on what you said, I think Leo R. has a good suggestion in his reply: Enable the Keyboard Navigation option for macOS. If you do what he says (in System Settings > Keyboard, enable Keyboard Navigation), then you can do what you want as shown in the demo below where I keyboard-navigate to the Copy button. 

     

    In the demo, the purple box shows my keystrokes, and you can also see that the pointer does not move because I’m selecting the Open Copy button only with the keyboard. I chose to Shift-Tab because that took fewer keystrokes to get to Open Copy than pressing the Tab key. 

     

     

    There is no direct access to that button with the keyboard, unfortunately. But if you use third-party macro software, you could automate pressing the correct number of Tab or Shift-Tab keystrokes to select Open Copy. 

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 28, 2026

    My guess is that it could be scripted but natively, no.

    Participating Frequently
    January 29, 2026

    This seems to work.

    It would need to be saved as an AppleScript file and given it a keyboard shortcut to use instead of Command-O

     

    use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
    use scripting additions

    ignoring application responses
    tell application id "com.adobe.InDesign"
    activate
    invoke menu action id 259
    end tell

    end ignoring

    delay 0.1 -- This may need to be longer depending on how fast the Mac is

    tell application id "com.apple.systemevents"
    tell application process "Adobe InDesign 2024"
    click radio button "Open Copy" of radio group 1 of window "Open"
    end tell
    end tell