Recommended Preferences & Setting Defaults

Free InCopy Tutorial

Understand the process of adjusting InCopy's preferences and default settings to enhance your workflow, including closing open files, accessing the preferences window, modifying units and increments, enabling dynamic spelling, changing display performance, and altering clipboard handling.

This exercise is excerpted from past InCopy training materials and is compatible with InCopy updates through 2021. To learn current skills in Adobe Creative Cloud and graphic design, check out our graphic design classes in NYC and live online.

Recommended Preferences & Setting Defaults

Setting Preferences

We like to change some of InCopy’s default Preferences. Before changing your default settings, you should check with a system administrator to see if they have specific settings they’ve chosen for your workflow.

  1. If you have any files open, close them all.

  2. To open the Preferences window, go into:

    Mac: InCopy > Preferences > Type
    Windows: Edit > Preferences > Type
  3. Check on Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs.
  4. On the left, click on the Units & Increments section.
  5. Change the Keyboard Increments to:

    Size/Leading: 1 pt
    Baseline Shift: 1 pt
    Kerning: 5

    NOTE: A Kerning and Tracking amount of 5 in InCopy and InDesign is equal to 1 in QuarkXPress. So Quark’s 1, 2, 3 is equal to InCopy/InDesign’s 5, 10, 15.

  6. On the left, click on the Spelling section.
  7. Check on Enable Dynamic Spelling if it’s not already checked.
  8. On the left, click on the Display Performance section.
  9. Change Greek Type Below to 0 pt.
  10. Next to Adjust View Settings, change the menu from Typical to High Quality.
  11. Again change Greek Type Below to 0 pt.
  12. On the left, click on the Clipboard Handling section.
  13. If you want to maintain formatting (such as bold, italic, etc.) when you copy and paste from Microsoft Word, then under Paste, check on All Information.
  14. Click OK.

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Changing Defaults (Such as Fonts, Hyphenation, etc.)

  1. If you have any files open, close them all.

    Any change you make now will be a default for future files you create. For instance, maybe you want to change your default font for the Layout view and turn on hyphenation. Here’s how…

  2. To change the default font, go to Type > Font and choose your desired font.

  3. To turn off hyphenation by default, go to the Paragraph panel (Type > Paragraph).

  4. Uncheck Hyphenate. (If you don’t see this option, go into the panel menu panel menu, choose Hyphenation, then uncheck Hyphenate.)

photo of Dan Rodney

Dan Rodney

Dan Rodney has been a designer and web developer for over 20 years. He creates coursework for Noble Desktop and teaches classes. In his spare time Dan also writes scripts for InDesign (Make Book JacketProper Fraction Pro, and more). Dan teaches just about anything web, video, or print related: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Figma, Adobe XD, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more.

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