I was able to change the language, everything worked/īut i wasnt able to put back the keyboard shortcuts. Hey david, thanks a bunch, this is a life saving feature for those of us working out of our home countries. Here’s a (geeky, technical) way to do it manually.
Update 3: If you’re using CS3, CS4, or CS5 with a new Mac OS, the app itself may not work. Update 2: If you’re using CS6 or CC or later, you’ll need this newer technique. Here is an updated version that should work!
Update: Some users have had trouble with that app in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Let me know (below) what works and (if anything) what doesn’t.
If you decide you want to use it, you can download it from here. (Yes, there is an “Other” field, so I felt compelled to try.) For example, you can change the UI to Japanese, but that won’t give you any of the cool Japanese features (rubi, vertical text, and so on). And I found it interesting that you can not change the language to Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Chinese, or Klingon. Oh, that reminds me of something else: Changing the user interface language doesn’t add any additional features. (Quark Passport used to have a menu item right in the program that let you do this. So I’m not encouraging you or inciting you to do this! But I have to tell you that it’s dang cool that this little app works at all, as it’s something I’ve wanted to be able to do ever since I started demoing InDesign to groups overseas.
One person I talked with also pointed out that changing your version of InDesign may break the terms of your license agreement with Adobe. From what I’ve heard from other users, this may not be exactly the same as the versions that Adobe ships in other countries, but it’s pretty close. So I cannot pass judgement on how good these translations are.
My foreign language experience is limited to high school Spanish and the ability to order a beer in Germany and Japan. Use that same name in the Presets locations above!įortunately, you only have to do this once for each language you want to use. Look inside that folder and you will see how InDesign named the folder. Here is the trick to finding out: After you switch to a language and launch InDesign, the program creates a new folder inside the Home/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 6.0 folder. For example, if you switch to German, it should be de_DE, Korean is ko_KR, and Finnish is he_IL… I think.
Of course, the tricky thing is to figure out what the duplicate folder should be named. When you click OK, the KBSC should work again. Then, after launching InDesign, you have to choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts (using whatever language you’re in now) and choose Default from the Keyboard Shortcut set popup menu. Similarly, you can get your keyboard shortcuts by duplicating the en_EN folder inside Presets/InDesign Shortcut Sets (and then renaming it, of course). Then, when you launch InDesign, you have to choose one of the workspaces (such as “Advanced”) from the Window>Workspace menu:
You need to duplicate the folder you have and call it ru_RU. Tell me if it works in other languages.įirst, note that in Applications/Adobe InDesign/Presets/InDesign Workspaces there is a folder called en_US. Let’s say you are switching to Russian.
At least this worked for me on my US English version. Note that at first, most of the panels are docked into a single panel:īut there appears to be an easier way to “reset” the panels. But CS4 seems to be different, and it opens with no panels at all–not even a Tools panel! Fortunately, I found that you can manually choose each of the panels from the Window menu (or whatever that menu is called in the language you’re using). When I tested this in CS3, the panels and shortcuts all worked without a hiccup. For example, sometimes text gets cut off weirdly:īut in general, all the languages I tried seem to work okay. Not all the interface elements work perfectly. But first, check out these two screen shots from my (US) copy of InDesign: But I poked around for a while and found a workaround. One person on the InDesign team at Adobe who saw it said, “this is totally a ‘use at your own risk’ scenario.” But I was so excited that I went and tried a bunch of different languages, and it seems to work fine… with one significant exception: In CS4, all my panels and keyboard shortctuts disappeared! That’s bad. Look, I have no idea if this causes any other weirdness with InDesign. But the next time you launch InDesign, it’s in the different language! If you run the app again, it says it can restore you back to your original language, which is very handy. More after the jump! Continue reading below↓įree and Premium members see fewer ads! Sign up and log-in today.