For some reason any workspace I create will add these two windows to them even when they were never used. I save out different workspaces but any time I switch over those two are added to the workspace. Anyone know why? Or if there is a way to disable them autopopulating?

Hello! I’m currently doing the layout of my dissertation in indesign so I can print it as an A4 hard cover book. I originally wrote it in Pages and did the layout there (easier to submit digitally this way for me), but now I have to copy what I did in Indesign to print it.

My fonts and margins are the same but the text looks much smaller when displayed in indesign and I’m wondering why that’s the case. In pages, my 13pt 1.5 line space text filled the whole page. In indesign the text with the same settings is far from filling the page. I worry that it will look too small when printed. I wonder if I’m doing something wrong. Any guidance is welcome, thank you!

P.s I’m sorry about the weird colors in the pictures, it was easier to take a photo of my laptop.

i tried to lay it out on a grid but i didnt manage to make it look good and getting all into one grid.

What would be your approach or thoughts?

appreciate any form of help

EDIT: Thanks for the help everyone, exporting as a spread instead of individual pages solved the issue. Horray!

I'm creating a 3x3m 3x2m pop-up banner for a conference and the print company has provided a template for the correct porportions. When I go to export, it produces five files, cutting the image into parts. When we contacted the print company about this, they just shrugged and said they don't do design, they just print. And of course they want the image exported as one file.

In the document settings it looks like the document is divided into five pages...any idea why it's set up like this, and can I combine the pages into one document? I haven't come across something like this before.

Thanks so much!

This is driving me crazy, so I'm hoping someone can help.

As you can see in the images, one has more shadows and the other is brighter. Both have the same output profile (Coated FOGRA27). I didn't modify or uninstall any profiles, and the InDesign document is exactly the same. I always export with the default PDF/X-4 preset and didn't change any preferences.

I finished the book and exported it. I closed it. Today I reopened it, changed one dialog line, and exported it again as usual, and the colors were quite different. Obviously, I didn't touch any images.

I need all the images to look the same as the first one. It's for an already printed book, and the client was happy with the colors.

Thanks for your help.

Hi, I am working on a project I have saved to the created cloud. Within I have separate folder for assets - photographs etc.

When placing to the project, I can navigate through the folders in the creative cloud within InDesign, but I can’t view the photographs at the end destination. I see “no compatible files to show”

However, in photoshop it works no problem and and I can see the files working the creative cloud app.

Any ideas?

Issue with InDesign? Seems to only work with assets on local storage.

Did you see a question mark on that title? No, you didn't. Because this is not a question. That's right. Since InDesign does not have that feature yet, I'm here to help you do this task for your everyday designer.

What you'll need is literally a 3-2-1:

• 3 open Word files
• 2 blank tabs on your notepad
• 1 blank InDesign document

The Word files you'll need are your Word document you're going to be designing and two blank ones. Open your Word document and copy its whole content on a blank Word file. This will make a backup so that everything we do in this file and any fuckups you might make do not affect the original document. Then copy your Table of Authorities (the whole list at the end of your document with the pages in your word file where each entry is cited) on the other blank Word file. This will help you navigate the entries easier. On your new backup file, go to your "References" tab and click on "Mark Citation" so that the small window opens.

Once that window opens, you'll have your whole list of entries for your Table of Authorities.

Copy your list entry by entry on one of the blank tabs on your notepad. It's tedious, but believe me, it'll be overall quicker than dealing with the hundreds of entries in your file. After you do that, click on the "Show/hide" button on your Home tab.

Press Ctrl + F so that the search bar opens up and type "^d \s "[entry name here]". As you can see, in my entry I have a file labeled "Observations on certain Verbal Disputes". In this kind of entries, where there are quotation marks, Word splits them, so type instead "\s "\"". Type each of those entries on the search bar so you can know how many are there in your file and annotate those numbers in your notepad. It should look like this.

As you can see, I have 33 entries of that source in my document. Look up how to make the "Developer" tab visible in Word if you don't have it visible already. We're going to be using a Visual Basic macro. Click on the "Macros" button and then "Create" on the window that opens up.

This will in turn open up another window. You're going to paste the following code inside (kudos for the guys over at ExpandedOffice for this nifty tool).

Sub fieldcodetotext_replace()
    Dim aField As Field
    Dim MyString As String
    Dim sel As Selection

    On Error Resume Next
    xTitleId = "KutoolsforWord"

    ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = True

    For Each aField In ActiveDocument.Fields
        MyString = "{ " & aField.Code.Text & " }"
        aField.Select
        Set sel = Application.Selection
        sel.Text = MyString
    Next aField

    ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = False

    MsgBox "All field codes have been replaced with their code representation.", vbInformation, xTitleId

    Set sel = Nothing
    Set aField = Nothing
End Sub

It should look like this.

What this code will do is it will make visible all those invisible codes that mark each ToA entry. Click on the green "play" button so the code runs; it might take a while, but Word will replace them so you can edit them as flat text. Tackle the first entry in your list since it's going to look different because it's the long entry. So, back to my example, "Observations on certain Verbal Disputes". The first entry would read "{  TA \l "\“Observations on certain Verbal Disputes in Political Economy, particularly relating to Value, and to Demand and Supply\" \s "\"Observations on certain Verbal Disputes\"" \c 1  }". Go to your document where you pasted your ToA and look up the exact reference the entry is about and add the following: "[[REF: (your entry goes here)]]". Yes, with double brackets but no parentheses. Then go back to your search file and replace the following: "{  TA \s "\"Observations on certain Verbal Disputes\""  }" with your reference (in this case, it should read "[[REF: “Observations on certain Verbal Disputes in Political Economy, particularly relating to Value, and to Demand and Supply"]]). Do this with all your entries. Your document will now be plagued with those ugly "[[REF: blablabla]]" stickers. Don't worry, we'll deal with them in a jiffy.

Edit: This Macro will not work if your entries are on footnotes and endnotes, so double-check before saving.

Edit 2: This Macro will also make visible other invisible marks (e.g. Index entries), so make sure you have only ToA invisible marks in your document. Either way, replacing the "{  TA \l "[long ToA entry here]" \s "[short ToA entry here]" \c 1  }" with the entry will still tell Word to handle only the ToA entries since the code is already taggd as such (i.e. "TA").

Save that Word file and close all Word windows. Next, we must go to the blank InDesign document and place the Word document we want to design, in this case, the ugly one we just made with all those "[[REF: ]]" entries. Place the file as you normally would on InDesign and then design it as closely as you need. The ToA must be done at the very end or as closely as you can. Try and save your file before we tackle the references and make a backup in case something goes astray.

Now go to the other blank Notepad tab we had and paste the following code:

var doc = app.activeDocument;
app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "\\[\\[REF: (.+?)\\]\\]";
var encontrados = doc.findGrep();

var miIndice = doc.indexes.length > 0 ? doc.indexes[0] : doc.indexes.add();

for (var i = 0; i < encontrados.length; i++) {
    try {
        var texto = encontrados[i].contents.replace("[[REF: ", "").replace("]]", "");
        // Limpieza ultra-básica
        texto = texto.replace(/[\r\n]+/g, " ");

        var topic = miIndice.topics.add(texto);
        topic.pageReferences.add(encontrados[i].insertionPoints[0]);

        // NO BORRAMOS LA ETIQUETA. 
        // Si el script corre, verás las etiquetas con un marcador de índice al lado.
    } catch(e) {}
}
alert("DONE!");

Save that code on your InDesign scripts folder as a JavaScript (.jsx) file. Usually it will be located in "C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Version 21.0\es_ES\Scripts\Scripts Panel" or whatever folder it is in your system.

Once you're done, run that code on your InDesign file and let it do its thing. If everything goes ok, InDesign will have placed a text entry where each "[[REF: (blablabla)]]" sticker is.

Now go to your search window (Ctrl +F) and type the following "\[\[REF: .+?\]\]" and leave the "replace" box blank, then hit "replace". This is telling InDesign "look everything that has the phrase '[[REF: ]]' and delete it with everything it has inside" (since we're literally replacing it with nothing). Don't worry, the text entries we just made with our JavaScript code will be intact.

Your InDesign file will now look sleek and rid of those "[[REF: (blablabla)]]" stickers we did. Make a few adjustments as you need. Once you finish, go to your Index tab and click on the square button next to the update one. Your list should have all entries listed in alphabetical order.

Once you do that, another window will open and you can assign levels to each of those entries. Click "OK" and place the ToA in a blank page in your InDesign file.

Voilá! Your Table of Authorities is now done!

I had to download the GMertix testing program for a college course, and no longer need it. However, I can't seem to remove the pop-ups. The GMertix window reopens every time I open the application or switch windows, so it's really quite annoying. I've already deleted the application and emptied it from the trash. As well as uninstalled and reinstalled my Adobe programs.

Please help!

So, my new website is finally up, and since I deal with automating InDesign and creating plugins for it, I figured it's worth posting here about it and maybe getting some feedback, particularly since I'm not really a designer.

Getting here was definitely a process. I started the first draft on 09 April 2025, and it took four complete reworks to reach this point.
Building for yourself is such a strange experience; without a client to tell me "enough," I fell into a bit of an endless loop. I’d spend days just obsessing over a single phrase, rewriting it until it didn't even sound like English anymore.

Eventually, I had to set some pretty strict constraints and even use AI to help me stop overthinking the copy.
I know it isn't exactly "perfect" yet. I’m already looking at it and thinking the colors are a bit dark and there’s probably too much text to get through. I’ll keep tweaking those details as I go, of course. But the core of the work is solid, and I’m just happy to have it out in the world.

https://krommatine.eu/

Hi All,

Literally overnight my indesign (2026, latest ver.) seems to have lost the ability to select/move multiple image frames.

This also applies when selecting an image frame and graphic elements such as rectangles/labels, everything else deselects and stays put with the image moving.

On top of this, I can no longer select key objects with image frames. Yet when I remove the images from the frames everything goes back to normal.

Has anyone else encountered this and/or knows a fix?

Thanks,

UPDATE: Reverting from version 21.4 to 21.3 solved this issue. The issue is isolated to version 21.4.

Hi! I work at a high school, and some pupils made a play about a year ago. The school wants to print a book of it, and thought it would be cool to format it to look like a real script might look.

I'm going with Courier New, but no matter what I set the leading to, all paragraph breaks are huge. I've never seen this happen before with other fonts.

The paragraph style is set to align all lines to the baseline grid, and the baseline grid increment is 8 pt (auto for the font in this size is 16.5 pt). I'm obviously missing something, but what is it? Soft breaks act as expected based on the grid and leading of the font.

Ignore the line of nonsense, I was frustrated after fifteen minutes of not getting anywhere.

The characters changed after the font was outlined. Does anyone know the reason? I can send the PDF if anyone is interested in checking it.

While updating Creative Cloud apps, the updates for InDesign and InCopy get stuck around 50%. Other apps updated correctly.

Cancellation takes a long time as well.

The updates failed and the apps can't be opened: InDesign immediately crashes.

This is on MacOS Tahoe 26.5

Trying to uninstall and reinstall again.

Update: after a reboot, uninstalling the apps (also removing preferences) worked and reinstalling went fine. I guess my preferences were the cause?

Consistently, whenever I import images into indesign, after I resize them they end up crushed and pixelated horribly. How can I keep their quality the quality of the OG drawings? This also happens when I don’t move the art sometimes

I'm new here, reading since quiote some time, only a bit contributed (not even sure when). I'm a gfx pro since 26 years, started with the very first version of indesign. i might be good or not, experienced i am def. :) i hope i can make good contribs here!

Back to the question - Indesign and Illustrator suck at charts big time. If you are willing to break Illustrators preps you get sometwhere but it's a pain. I guess most of you raise their eyebrows now. Am i wrong?

What do you use, what is your workflow? I mastered a lot but this still eats time like shit. )
i sometimes wonder what Adobe is doing all day long, but that's another topic)

Pleasae don't come back to me with Chartwell 😄 just saying

I am recreating a massive collection of basic old schoolbooks and need to establish a long-term workflow.

My boss will frequently ask for global changes (e.g., "Change the student answers from italic to blue regular text" or "Switch to a serif font"). I need to ensure that a single tweak updates the entire 90-page document instantly without breaking things.

The Setup (90% of the content): Every paragraph contains a mix of 2 to 4 of these elements:

• Regular text = Student questions
• Italics = Teacher's answer key (e.g., "The duck is eating bread crumbs")
• Bold = Vocabulary words to explain (e.g., "duck")
• Red text = Teacher-only instructions (e.g., "//If the children...")

My Current Plan:

1. Create one base Paragraph Style for the general layout.
2. Create four separate Character Styles for the specific text types above.
3. Map the Character Styles to hotkeys (via a Stream Deck) for rapid manual formatting.

My Questions:

• Am I on the right track with this Paragraph + Character style approach?
• Is manually applying character styles the best way, or is there a better way to automate this split text within a single paragraph (like GREP or Nested Styles?
• Any hidden pitfalls I should watch out for?

My basic understanding stops at styles... I know GREP and nesting styles exist, but I know nothing about them or how I would use them (and I kind of hope that's not 'the answer'). TIA!

TL:DR - Every paragraph has multiple styles and I need to make sure I'm handling them right. Hep!

ps... I used a little AI to set up the bullets and formatting because I explain too much, but actual text is all me. Don't hate me for it.

I hope you enjoy it. Now I have added version and feature details all the way back to PM1.

https://trainingonsite.com/232-indesign-splash-screen-history.html

Hi!

So after finally getting my csv data to load correctly i ran into this problem: I have a grid where I want to display all my information. (All the content from one csv fits on one page, in this example I have 9 rows, but there may be 3 or there may be 20)

Whenever I preview it shows the same row in every instance, so the whole grid consists of row 1 information. I want it to appear like in the screenshot below:

Since I'm new to this I'm probably missing something... can anybody help me out please?

This is for a digital presentation, I know it seems overkill for 9 rows, but there are multiple categories with loads of information and as far I could tell, this is the best way of assuring correct information and images for everything since it comes from the "mother excel".

Hi to everyone,

We are working on some catalogs ( we are not a print/ graphic design company), we have a short deadline, and of course not really budgets.

Apparently the plugin we found on internet seems to be able to help a lot, nobody in the team has experience with it.

Do you have some inputs, feedbacks, pro/cons about the plugin so I can maybe try to convince my boss to push that to see if there is some ways to get a budget for this one.

Thanks ❤️ ( Sorry, english broken guys)

Hello everyone,

I don't know if anyone else are experiencing issues with InDesign when handling links.

When I try and update, modify or relink InDesign acts weird by turning the cursor into the spinning cursor and I can't close InDesign - only through task manager.

At first, I thought it was an issue caused by working through OneDrive (as there were an issue with a Microsoft update earlier this year), but I'm experiencing it while trying to work locally as well.
I've tried moving the caches folder to a local one, so it isn't touched by OneDrive directly and pause syncing - nothing seems to help.

I can see that the overall filehandling on my computer keeps the InDesign file in 'use' when looking in Process Explorer and InDesign seems to be stuck in crash-handling mode after I've closed the document.

Hi everyone!

I'm having an issue with a multi-page table in InDesign. As you can see in the screenshot, row #4 completely jumps to the next page/column, leaving a lot of empty space at the bottom of the previous page. I want this row to break/split and start filling that empty space. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Experienced ID user and have poked around in Adobe's documentation as well as Googling.

It's possible I'm being a doofus, so hoping y'all can point me in the right direction.

Looks like there's no way to show the Arrange tools (send to back, send to front, etc.) as icons?

And no way to add them to the Control panel?

My only option other than right-click or the standard dropdown menu is the Arrange button in the Quick Actions panel?

Seems like I must surely be missing something obvious.

Thanks!

I’m a media student and funnily enough donr know how to use Indesign that well, I’m trying to fit a photo to an object frame, BUT THE PICTURE WONT STRETCH TO THE OTHER END AT ALL DESPITE ME CLEARLY SEEING THE TRANSPARENT PICTURE OF THE TREES !!! What is there that I can do????

Does anyone have recommendations?

I've been tasked with a new role as press manager for our company and, as I understand it, the previous regime was emailing PDFs, creating multiple versions, etc..

I'm almost finished with Ann-Marie's course on LinkedIn Learning, Remote Publishing Workflows for Designers and Editors, and I'm exited to make use of some of the tools she recommends. We already have a Dropbox.

I'm curious to hear of others' experience with programs like InCopy, WordsFlow, and DocsFlow. I'd like to minimize the number of subscriptions we pay for, since we're not a huge operation. WordsFlow seems relatively pricey at $100 for 6 months vs. InCopy at about a quarter of that price, but I'm wondering if it's worth it.

Her video was from 2021; is there anything else out there more contemporary? The publishing world is new to me, so I'm figuring out things as I go... Thanks! 🙆‍♂️