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August 9, 2009
Answered

Hotkeys for Bold and Italic?

  • August 9, 2009
  • 3 replies
  • 87677 views

I'm sure this easy and I'm dumb for not knowing it, but is there a hotkey for making selections bold or italic?  I do a lot of that and it would save my wrist many hours to find a way to do this.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Peter Spier

Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + B and Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + I.

You'll find a nicely organized listing for all the default keyboard shorcuts as the second-to-last item listed in the contents for InDesign Help.

3 replies

Scott Citron
Legend
May 22, 2018

Here are threeother solutions:

  1. Create Bold and Italic Character Styles with Shortcuts (see screen shot).
  2. Use QuickApply Ctrl (Cmd) + Enter (Return)
  3. If the same text or text string always needs to be bold or italic, the easiest solution is to set up a GREP style that will automatically apply the specified character style.
August 9, 2009

Yup, that works like a champ.  Now if I could only select a word or series of words using only key strokes I stop using the mouse entirely.  Thanks for the help.

Peter Spier
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 9, 2009

Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + leftor right arrow keys, depending on which way you want to move through the text.

New Participant
August 10, 2009

You rock Peter.

Peter Spier
Community Expert
Peter SpierCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 9, 2009

Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + B and Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + I.

You'll find a nicely organized listing for all the default keyboard shorcuts as the second-to-last item listed in the contents for InDesign Help.

BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 9, 2009

Note: this won't work if there's no bold or italic variant installed.

Bob

TJenningsFineArt
Known Participant
May 21, 2018

Yeah, back in the day, it would do a faux italic or bold (I forget the term that was used), and that was a bad thing. Now you have to have the actual variant font.