Top 10 Adobe Creative Suite Keyboard Shortcuts

By popular request, the top 10 Adobe Creative Suite Keyboard (and other) shortcuts allowing you to boost your productivity and impress your friends.

Note: these shortcuts are guaranteed to work with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign 24/7, 365 days a year, Christmas and holidays included, unless otherwise noted.

10: Copying a graphic or object: select the graphic/object, hold down the alt key (option key on a Mac) and drag;

9: Zooming Out with the Zoom Tool (Magnifiying Glass Tool): hold down the alt key (option key on Mac) and click with the Zoom Tool selected.

8: Displaying a page or document at 100%: A: Hold down the Control Key and the "1" key; or, my favorite, double click on the Zoom Tool (Magnifiying Glass) in the Tool box.

7: Displaying a document within the existing monitor screen (Fit in Window): Hold down the Control Key and the "0" (zero) key on the keyboard or double click on the Hand Tool in the Tool box.

6. Temporarily displaying the hand tool to scroll around the page: hold down the spacebar and click and drag the mouse; let go of the spacebar to return to the previous tool you were using.

5. Hide all panels and toolbars: hold down the Tab key.

4: Hide only the panels on the right hand side of the screen: hold down the Tab and Shift keys.

3: Cycle through the screen modes (Photoshop and Illustrator only) : hold down the F key on the keyboard. (Note: this single-key keyboard short cut is also a "gotcha" one that you can very easily accidentally implement in the normal course of working in Photoshop and Illustrator.) The various screen modes in Photoshop and Illustrator are also accessible by clicking and holding down the mouse on the icon at the bottom of Tool Box. (Gotcha Alert: all the tools in the Tool Box in both Photoshop and Illustrator have single-letter keyboard shortcuts, so if you're not careful you can easily and accidentally trigger one of these shortcuts.)

2: Draw a perfect circle or square (depending on what tool you use) hold down the Shift key and keep it held down while drawing.

And the number one Creative Suite Keyboard Shortcut:

1: To draw a shape or selection from the center out (instead of the default upper left corner): select the desired drawing tool (rectangle, ellipse, etc, or rectangular or elliptical selection tools) hold down the alt key and click and drag the mouse.

Bonus Keyboard Shortcut: Control - Z (Windows; Command -Z on the Macintosh) is Un-Do.
Photoshop has only one level of Un-Do, that is you hit Control Z you go back on step. Illustrator has multiple levels of Un-Do, every time you hit Control Z you go back another step, same with InDesign. However Photoshop has another feature: Step Backward, keyboard shortcut is Alt-Control-Z. Every time you use it you go back another step. This feature ties in with the History Panel in Photoshop (which is sort of a super Un-Do). More on the History Panel in Photoshop later.

Next month: silly (but interesting) Photoshop tricks.