Old habits do, indeed, take years to break. A creature of habit myself, I still prefer to access some commands using my mouse. I was reminded of this when I read an article recently listing 25 of the worst PC habits. These ranged from failing to take care of security software (careless) to using a laptop in bed (sad, but true). And then there was the bad habit that's a little too close to home - failing to use keyboard shortcuts. Yes, I am guilty of pointing - my mouse that is, usually at the toolbar to find the Print command and sometimes even the Save command if I am having a particularly stressful day. So when someone suggested that I use InDesign instead of my trusted word-based software to edit large documents, I decided to break the habit of many years.

And what I discovered was indeed a near revelation. InDesign comes with one of the most overlooked editing features of any design program - the Story Editor. The Story Editor can be accessed using the keyboard shortcut (yes, I am taking note of this myself) Ctrl+Y or via the Edit tab.

The Story Editor is a simple text editor for In Design text. You have the option to edit text in either the layout page or the Story Editor window. Some people find it easier to write and edit in the Story Editor window; where the entire story appears in the typeface, size and spacing you specify in Preferences, without layout or formatting distractions. Each story appears in a different Story Editor window and the text in the story appears in the Story Editor, including overset text.

You can open several Story Editor windows simultaneously, including multiple instances of the same story. A vertical depth ruler indicates how much text is filling the frame, and a line indicates where text is overset.

You can set different preferences in the Story Editor Display preferences to change the appearance of the Story Editor. Although the Story Editor suppresses all but the most basic text styling attributes, some objects and attributes are represented, including Text Display Options. Choose a display font, size, line spacing, text colour, and background. You can also specify a different theme, such as selecting Classic System to view yellow text on a black background. These settings affect the display of text in the Story Editor window, not how they appear in layout view. Within this panel you can change the font, size, spacing and colour to suit your needs. Once you are happy that all the preferences have been modified, you can see your changes reflected in the Story Editor panel.

This under-stressed feature in InDesign is also allows you to edit text easily and clearly without the constant distraction of any formatting. And if you need to manipulate text-heavy documents, instead of zooming and moving back and forth, the Story Editor has any easy to use text tool. When a text frame displays the symbol for overset text (a red box with cross) you don't have to fiddle with the layout to enlarge your frame to see exactly how much text is missing. Simply click inside the text frame and open the Story Editor. Immediately Story Editor will indicate how much text is missing. Now you can simply make your edits to eliminate the overset text and close Story Editor.

Even negotiating your way around the text panel is easy. When you have finished using Story Editor and you would like to go to a certain point within the text frame, select a word before you activate the Story Editor and then open Story Editor, Ctrl+Y. Now edit your text and select the word or words you want to jump back to; instead of closing Story Editor, use the shortcut Ctrl+Y again. The same word(s) will now be highlighted in your document.

Even working with tables is easy. Text is displayed in sequential columns and rows for easy editing and you can quickly expand or collapse tables, and decide whether to view them by row or column. It's easy to make amendments as you would with standard text and the table will update within the document. By default the table view is set to Arrange by Rows. You can change the view to be arranged by columns by right clicking on the table symbol and simply select Arrange by Columns.

With Story Editor you can show or hide the style name column and the depth ruler, expand or collapse footnotes, and show or hide paragraph break marks to indicate the start of new paragraphs. These settings affect all open Story Editor windows, as well as all subsequently opened windows.

By selecting the Enable Anti-Aliasing, you can smooth the jagged edges of type. Choose the Type of anti-aliasing from LCD Optimized, Soft, or the Default setting, which uses shades of grey to smooth text. LCD Optimized uses colours, rather than shades of grey, to smooth text, and works best on light-coloured backgrounds with black text. Soft uses shades of grey, but produces a lighter, fuzzier appearance than Default. You can even change the appearance of the text cursor so that you can easily spot your text insertion point. InDesign definitely offers a story with a more editable and a happier ending.