Claudia McCue

If you’re a longtime user of Adobe products, you’re probably accustomed to using Command-Spacebar (PC: Control-Spacebar) to zoom in. It works in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and other apps.

But it seems (initially) to be broken in Acrobat X. Since you’re already traumatized by the radically-changed interface in Acrobat X, you may just assume that the old zoom shortcut is broken. You press Command+Spacebar, and nothing happens. You just figure, well, it was fun while it lasted.

All is not lost, however; you just have to use a bit of finesse. It’s a one-two punch: press and hold the Spacebar first, then — a half-second later — press and hold the Command or Control key. Voilá (which is French for “Zoom tool”), you can now click and zoom. It’s still the same combination of keys; you just have to press them in order (then hold) rather than simultaneously.

And no, I don’t know why. It’s one of those Great Mysteries.

You may not have considered this, but software has to be regionalized to accommodate multiple languages. As you might expect, translating technical terms and interface components can be a challenge. But it’s important to make it easy for end-users to interact with the software.

In that spirit, I propose this change to the Buttons panel in InDesign, to be deployed in the Southeast U.S., where I live:

(We don’t click buttons down here in Georgia. We mash ‘em.)

If you haven’t already, download the 10.1 update for Acrobat X on the Mac. Now you can use the TouchUp Object tool to edit images and vector content. Have no idea why this was broken when Acrobat X shipped (see my earlier post here). But it’s all better now. You may commence to fixing all those problem PDFs your clients are sending you.