Go to InDesign's Preferences
(InDesign > Preferences > File Handling… ⌘K)

You can select between Small, Medium (Default), Large and Extra Large. We found that going from a Medium preview for our single-page, 8-1/2" x 11" sample to Large only added about 59KB and from Large to Extra Large another 427KB. Your results may vary, but you may want to start off by storing the Large preview depending on your needs.

Here are a few samples to show what we found:

1. 1,024 Pixel Preview - Extra Large
2.    512 Pixel Preview - Large
3.    256 Pixel Preview - Medium (Default setting in InDesign)

(download)

Click here to download:

better-adobe-indesign-previews-with-sneakpeek-pro-wzrAdshIkoajFmaFHzct.zip (639 KB)

That's all there is to it. This, of course, won't affect your previously saved documents. But moving forward, this should give you a better experience working with InDesign.

If you'd like to download the demo files we used for this test, you can download a .zip file here. But make sure you have a copy of SneakPeek Pro installed, so you can preview the items in Quick Look.

Oh… Just one more thing. In case you've forgotten what Quick Look looks like without SneakPeek Pro, here it is:

SneakPeek Pro and SneakPeek Photo are Quick Look plugins for the Mac.

SneakPeek Pro allows you to preview graphic design files from within any application that supports Quick Look. That means you can preview the contents of an Illustrator file someone just emailed you without ever having to leave Mail. And Pro goes beyond just displaying previews. It also lets you know what fonts, images and swatches were used in many file types. SneakPeek Pro supports Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Swatch Exchange, EPS and Freehand MX files.

SneakPeek Photo is the Quick Look plugin for digital photography. Photo's previews don't just show you previews of image files. It digs deep to display the digital photograph's metadata, histogram, camera settings and more. No longer do you have to open a JPG for PSD file in a photog app to find out what f-stop you used on a particular shot. Just pop open a Quick Look preview window and the information is presented neatly along with the photo.

Lion Compatible
Our SneakPeek line for Mac has been updated for Lion. That means both SneakPeek Pro and SneakPeek Photo are working just fine under Mac OS X 10.7. But unlike Snow Leopard, Lion introduced some changes to Quick Look. We, in turn, updated our SneakPeeks.

Grey is the New Black
First off, we updated our skins to match the new Lion Quick Look. I actually like the way this worked out. The original Quick Look’s black always seemed a little harsh to me. In either case, whether your preview windows are black or grey, SneakPeeks know which outfit to wear.

Quit Mousing Around
Lion’s Quick Look no longer responds to mouse moves and hovers. That means you’ll need to do some clicking and dragging to recreate some of the old functions, like view metadata in Photo and using the updated Loupe in Pro. But rapid clicks can lead to accidentally “opening” the preview document, so hold down “Command” (⌘) to avoid that.

Free Update
Version 1.6 of SneakPeek Pro and 1.1 of SneakPeek Photo are free updates for current users. These versions are recommended for Mac users with Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion.

For more information, to download a demo, or to purchase our SneakPeek line of Quick Look plugins, visit our website at code-line.com.