Moving around a document in Layout by Zaweba
Zoom, the Hand tool, the Navigator panel, the pasteboard and Go back and forward in Layout by Zaweba, for getting round long documents quickly.
Getting around a document is half the work in any page layout job, and Layout by Zaweba gives you several ways to do it. Some are for close work on a detail, some for seeing the whole spread, and some for jumping between pages you visited a minute ago. Knowing which to reach for saves a surprising amount of scrolling.
Zooming to what matters
The Zoom tool zooms in and out on the page. More useful day to day are the fixed zooms: zoom to page, zoom to spread, zoom to selection, actual size and zoom to pasteboard.
Zoom to spread is the one for judging a layout, since a magazine or brochure is seen two pages at a time. Zoom to selection takes you straight to a frame you've picked, which is ideal for checking a caption or a small logo. Actual size shows the page as near as the screen can to its printed size, which is a good check on whether body text is comfortable to read. Zoom to pasteboard pulls right out so you can see everything parked around the spread.
The Hand tool
The Hand tool moves the view without moving anything on the page. Hold Space to borrow it from whatever tool you're using, drag, then let go to carry on. This is quicker than scroll bars and much safer than dragging with the Selection tool, which moves frames.
The Navigator panel
The Navigator panel shows a small view of the spread with a box marking what's on screen. Drag the box to move around. It's useful at high zoom, when you're working on a corner of the page and want to go to the opposite corner without zooming out and in again.
The pasteboard around every spread
Every spread has a pasteboard around it: space off the page where you can park things. Drop a picture there while you decide where it goes, keep spare captions or alternative headlines to hand, or build a complicated group off the page before moving it in.
Things on the pasteboard aren't part of the page, so they don't appear in Preview and stay out of the way of the design. They are still in the document, though, so tidy them away before you hand the file to someone else.
Going back and forward
Go back and Go forward step through the pages you have visited, with Alt+Left and Alt+Right. Think of it as the back button in a web browser. Check the contents page, jump to page 40 to fix a heading, then press Alt+Left to go straight back to where you were.
In a long document this is often faster than the Pages panel, because it remembers the order you went in rather than making you find the page again.
Navigation habits worth building
Use zoom to spread as your home view and dip in and out from there. Hold Space to pan rather than reaching for scroll bars. Use Go back after any detour. And use the Navigator when you're zoomed in close and need to cross the page.
One mistake is to work at high zoom for too long. Details look fine close up, but the balance of a spread only shows at a distance, so zoom out regularly. Another is leaving clutter on the pasteboard; it's a working space, not storage, and an orphaned frame there can confuse whoever picks up the document next.
Once these moves become automatic, you stop thinking about where you are in a document and start thinking about what's on it, which is how Layout by Zaweba is meant to feel.
