Resolved Drag and drop InDesign help

[eyoungren]

Need a little help on this.

Previously (for the last three or so years) I've been using InDesign CS4. When I drag a single image into a document IDCS4 will automatically place the image wherever my cursor happens to be.

Recently (last week) I managed to move on to InDesign CS6 and this behavior is now very different.

When I drag a single image into a document in CS6, InDesign now loads it on the cursor and I have to actually go back into the app and then click somewhere before the image is placed.

I asked elsewhere but did not get a response.

Is there any way to force CS6 to use the old method of automatically placing an image when I drag and drop or is this just the way it works now?

Please note, I am speaking of a SINGLE image only. I understand that the cursor will load if it's multiple images at once.

And yes, I know CS6 is old (and so is CS4). I've only been on CS4 to maintain compatibility with one other person (who has a PowerMac G5). I actually have CC2017, but the ram on this MacPro is only 3GB so the program is dog slow.

Can anyone help with this question?

 

[organicCPU]

Is there any way to force CS6 to use the old method of automatically placing an image when I drag and drop or is this just the way it works now?

Drag the image into an already existing frame for the graphic element. Works from Finder and Minibridge.

 

[eyoungren]

Drag the image into an already existing frame for the graphic element. Works from Finder and Minibridge.

Yes, that works.

But in IDCS4 you don't have to do that. It will automatically create the frame (at the size of the image) and place it.

Additionally, I have one document template I use every week to create a new newspaper file. I drop our editorial images into frames that are still attached to the master page.

In CS4 the frame will detach from the master and the image will place in the frame. In CS6 I drag and drop, have to go back into the app and then click on the frame (still attached to the master) and then it will detach and place.

Your method only works if there is an unlocked, detached from the master page frame.

Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[organicCPU]

I don't even remember that this worked in CS4.

I'm used to the "Place..." menu and usually don't place images via drag and drop feature at all. Maybe there's a hidden gem to revert to old behaviour. There are definitely some other differences in CS6 compared to CS4 that I had to adapt to.

Close to the workflow you know from CS4 comes to drag and drop from another InDesign CS6 document. No "Place Cursor" will appear, image and the frame will be carried over.

To automatically detach graphics frames from a master page while inserting images, AFAIK you are forced to do the click into the frame like you described. The "Place Cursor" and the "Content Placer" tool (b) would work. Picking up images from another document with "Content Conveyor" was a new feature in CS6.

 

[organicCPU]

My final thoughts on this...

The intended "Place cursor" behaviour was already changed in Adobe InDesign CS5.

Place cursor when dragging from Adobe Bridge

In previous versions, dragging an image from Adobe Bridge or the desktop inserted the image on to the page, creating a frame the size of the image. In InDesign CS5, this action loads the place cursor, letting you drag a proportionally sized frame for your image

There might be some way to change this back to the old style, but that would be a question for a coding thread. I think it's easier to change habits. If you really want to dig into this, here are some references of place, the PlaceGun and a somehow related script that could help to bring you on track.

 

[eyoungren]

My final thoughts on this...

The intended "Place cursor" behaviour was already changed in Adobe InDesign CS5.


There might be some way to change this back to the old style, but that would be a question for a coding thread. I think it's easier to change habits. If you really want to dig into this, here are some references of place, the PlaceGun and a somehow related script that could help to bring you on track.

Thank you!

That's all I needed to know. I can't beat my head against something that has been changed, but I did not know if it had been changed or if I had missed some default setting.

Looks like I will have to deal with it.

I use drag and drop because I have three displays and when I paginate our newspaper document I am dropping PDFs of our advertisments on to those pages. It's much easier to just grab the PDF from my left monitor and drag it in versus nagivating folders through the place command.