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How do you hide the "blue outlines" around objects in InDesign?

Every new object I create on an InDesign board is surrounded by a thin blue outline. I don't know what these are called as I'm a newbie so I am unable to locate instructions on how to toggle their display. I am sure there must be a way to toggle this outline off and on.

I am aware of the following keyboard shortcuts:

  • Ctrl+' to display/hide the document grid
  • Ctrl+; to display/hide guides

But I can't figure out how to remove the blue outlines around objects and I can't see an option under View → Grids & Guides that seems applicable.

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    I rejected the suggested edit of replacing "blue outlines" with "selection marks" because, as a new user of InDesign, I had no idea that this is what they were called. I believe similarly inexperienced users will likely also be searching using terms such as "blue outlines".
    – Luke
    Dec 22, 2016 at 1:18
  • I would be interested in knowing why this question has been down-voted.
    – Luke
    Dec 22, 2016 at 1:19
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    Understandable, just thought I'd try to clarify since the blue outlines would only be on Layer 1 in a new document by default.
    – zeethreepio
    Dec 22, 2016 at 1:45
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    FYI: They are only blue because your default layer color is blue. This can be changed to a number of other colors by double-clicking the layer name (Layer 1), in which case your blue outlines will change to another color. So blue outlines does not describe the concept correctly, they are called frame edges as others have mentioned.
    – Lucian
    Jan 4, 2017 at 7:09
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    Thank you! I also am a new user and searched for blue lines. This really helped me.
    – jenni
    Aug 22, 2018 at 13:50

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The "blue outlines" are known as 'Frame Edges' and their visibility can be toggled using either:

  • Ctrl+H
  • Main menu → View → Extras → Show/Hide Frame Edges
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A nice simple way to do this is to toggle between Normal View and Preview Mode by hitting W on the keyboard. This will also hide the bleeds, margins, and slug guides in your document. Just be careful not to press Ctrl+W as this is the Close Document shortcut.

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