A random guy at a coffee shop in Austin showed me a shortcut that changed my whole workflow

I was working on a poster in Illustrator at a cafe, and this guy next to me saw me manually adjusting a bunch of text boxes. He leaned over and said, 'You know you can just hold Option and click the align tool to align to a key object, right?' I had no idea. I was aligning everything to the artboard like a chump. That one tip saved me probably an hour a week. What's the best random tip you've ever gotten from a stranger?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey_campbell9d ago

That step and repeat trick is wild, I never would have thought to ask a barista about InDesign. It makes you wonder how many people are just sitting on those little bits of gold. What's the most random place you've learned a useful tip like that, like not from a tutorial or coworker, but just some person in public?

margaret_lane9d ago

So @casey_campbell, what was the barista's exact tip?

dixon.nathan10d ago

Oh man, that's a huge one. I was doing the exact same thing for years. A barista who used to do layout work saw me making a grid in InDesign by hand and showed me how to use the step and repeat function with the transform tool. My mind was blown, I must have wasted so many afternoons. Those little hidden features are lifesavers.