InDesign Quick Tip: Disable Content Grabber

If you’re like me, and you were used to the way Adobe InDesign handled images within the bounding box, the addition of the Content Grabber feature might be annoying. InDesign CS5 introduced the “Content Grabber”, which was described on their website like this:

The content grabber appears as a circle when you hover over an image using the Selection tool. Use the content grabber to select and move the content of a frame with the Selection tool still selected. This behavior effectively replaces that of the Position tool, which is removed from InDesign CS5. If you rotate the content with the frame, a horizontal line appears in the center of the content grabber. This line mirrors the rotation angle of the content. The content grabber draws over each frame that is part of a group. Use the Selection tool to reposition content within a frame that is part of the group.

It’s useful to the beginner, I suppose. But too often I found myself clicking and dragging on a bounding box expecting to move the object, only to move the content within the object instead.

Disabling content grabber
To disable content grabber altogether, simply go to to “View -> Extras -> Hide Content Grabber”.

Disable Content Grabber in InDesign CS5

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