Quick Tip: Quickly Switch Between Open Tabbed Documents

Quickly Switch Between pen Tabbed Documents in Illustrator

I’m sure some of you already know about this, but if you don’t, you can save some time while working tabbed documents in Illustrator CS4 and CS5. Press Command (Control on Windows) and the ~ (the tilde key) to switch between open tabbed Illustrator documents. Pretty nifty!

Press Command (Control on Windows) and the ~ (the tilde key) to switch between open tabbed Illustrator documents.

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Design Float
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • TwitThis

48 thoughts on “Quick Tip: Quickly Switch Between Open Tabbed Documents

  1. Switching between open documents (in multiple tabs) in InDesign is done with Command+‹ (key left of z) in right direction if you hold Shift you change direction. Mac OC X.

  2. Yes! Thank you!

    I love working fullscreen, and I usually have 3-4 documents open at once. It was annoying having to exit fullscreen mode just to move between them.

  3. Thank you “:)” for clarifying how to edit the next document keyboard command.

    I like to set move to next document as CMD+< and move to prev as CMD+SHIFT+< (as the tilde shortcuts etc. don´t work here as well, in Finland).

    BR,
    J

  4. thanks… I am new to using mac… and was not feeling really good about it (due to some basic features un available in mac) i guess it will take some time till i get my hands on…thanks for the great tip… I was confused with how to toggle windows as i pressed cmd+tab, shift, alt every thing i could think of….

  5. I have tried several times but can’t seem to get the command + ~ to work for me to switch between open word documents in word for Mac 2008.

    Any advice?

  6. For those of you who don’t have a tilde key or all the shortcuts above didn’t work for you.

    You can set your custom keyboard shortcut for this command by…

    – Go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’
    – On drop down menu, go to ‘Menu Command’
    – then scroll down to the end, go to ‘Other Misc’

    – And notice the ‘Navigate to Next Document’ command right here.
    – Click on the Symbol’s column first, and press ` (tilde key) or F6 into the blank box to set a shortcut key.
    – Then click on Shortcut’s column, and press Cmd+` (tilde key) or Cmd+F6 into the blank box.

    – For ‘Navigate to Previous Document’
    – Click on Symbol’s column first, and press ` (tilde key) or F6 into the blank box.
    – Then click on Shortcut’s column, and press Cmd+Shift+`(tilde key) or Cmd+Shift+F6 into the blank box.

    – For ‘Navigate to Next Document Group’
    – Click on Symbol’s column first, and press ` (tilde key) or F6 into the blank box.
    – Then click on Shortcut’s column, and press Cmd+Opt+`(tilde key) or Cmd+Opt+F6 into the blank box.

    – For ‘Navigate to Previous Document Group’
    – Click on Symbol’s column first, and press ` (tilde key) or F6 into the blank box.
    – Then click on Shortcut’s column, pand press Cmd+Opt+Shift+`(tilde key) or Cmd+Opt+Shift+F6 into the blank box.

    – Click Save > Enter file name > OK > OK
    – Your new Keyset’s name should be appeared at ‘Set’s droup down menu.
    – All done!

    Hope this help! =)

  7. I was using windows, and now switching to mac, I figured out many options including this one too, and that was I pressed accidently the tilde key during undoing,
    but the only shortcut that was very useful in windows was using alt key to reach menu bar and opening commands with it, like if I want to export some thing, I simply press combination alt+F then E.
    here in mac I have explored too much and got the option that you press option + F2 which puts you to menu bar and then explore it using cursor and first names of words.
    I guess anyone knows better option than this…

  8. I have to use ctrl tab in windows 7 to make this work for me, but it keeps giving me full screen mode on one tab, because i press tab to many times.
    Any way to make ctrl tilde work on a pc?
    Hope somebody have a trick up their sleeve…

    • HOW????? How the hell do you do that, please? I desperately need the Cmd+< back to switch between my windows. I do it all the friggin time and now I need three clicks and to move my mouse!!!! How do I assign this function again in OSX please

  9. It’s a great short cut! the only thing is people on the mac that use Quicksilver will find that this is the same short cut to open quicksilver and there for cannot use this function 🙁 that’s me…but Quicksilver is worth it.

  10. This tab works with most OS X applications. Let you cycle through the application windows. I just wish there was a way to make the tabs separate in Expose.

    • Isn’t there an expose setting that only shows the windows for the current app? I could swear there was. I would check but I’m currently on my work PC… (yuck.)

  11. Same for spanish keyboard here… tilde key don´t exists (i think this key is only for US keyboards). Anyway i never found tabs in Adobe application useful, instead i prefer the old school method: simply switch off tabs feature via illustrator/ preferences/ user interface/ open documents as tabs. Then in Mac preferences panel, under keyboard, just search for the “focus on next application window” field (under menu, keyboard and text) and assign a shortcut if the default option does’t fit you. And there is now you can easily switch between open documents!.

    The best part of this is that it can be used in all mac applications, not only Adobe ones. And remember, if you want this working on Indesign, Photoshop, etc be aware of first switch off the tab features so that the system could “see” multiple documents opened not only one single tabbed document.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *