The Mystery of the Missing Menu Items Contest Answer and Winner

It’s time to reveal the solution—and the winner—for this month’s InDesignSecrets contest!

Here’s the scenario: 

You’re asked to give a demonstration using someone else’s computer on the new feature in InDesign CC 2017 that allows footnotes to span multiple columns of text. But when you go to the Type menu to access Document Footnote Options, you see something rather…unusual. All the footnote commands are missing, as well as a bunch of other commands.

At first, you’re a little confused, but then you notice the Show All Menu Items choice at the bottom. You select that, and instantly you can see the full Type menu.

But each time you go back to the Type menu, the list is truncated again.

Why is the Type menu not showing all the items it normally does by default?

The answer is that someone customized the menu by choosing Edit > Menus, and turning off the visibility for several items in the Type menu.

Note that you can save multiple customized sets of menu configurations, and then apply them by choosing Edit > Menus again.

If you’ve ever felt InDesign’s interface was cluttered with too many commands you don’t use very often, you might consider using this ability to edit menus. Just be sure to inform anyone else who might be using your machine, so they don’t wonder where everything went.

And the winner of this contest is…

Kathy Freund

Kathy wins full access for 3 months to the video archives for PePCon 2016 or the CreativePro Conference (up to $495 value!).

Thanks to everyone who entered, and be on the lookout for another contest with a new great prize next month!