I’m sitting here working on a job that has text flowing from page to page. I’m changing the size of text frames and the text just sits there. No text reflow. When I make the frame bigger, there is suddenly a large blank area in the frame where the text should be. Why?
Yes, I know it could be text wrap, or any number of other things. But it’s not. In fact, if I make the text frame smaller, the extra text just hangs outside the frame.
In this case, it’s just InDesign forgetting to reflow the text. You see, it’s really, really early in the morning. I often work far-too-early in the a.m. because it’s quiet and my boys haven’t woken up yet. But obviously, InDesign hasn’t woken up yet either. Pouring coffee onto the keyboard isn’t an option. So how do I get this program to wake up and flow the text properly?
Double-clicking in the text frame generally works as a little goose. If that doesn’t, then typing a letter (like a space) in the text flow should do it. But there’s an even easier way that most people don’t know about: Command-Option-/ (slash) or Ctrl-Alt-slash. That’s the shortcut for “Recompose All Stories” — in other words, “HEY! InDesign! Wake up and do your job!”
You need that sometimes. I don’t know why. But it’s a good shortcut to have in your arsenal on those early mornings (or late evenings, if you’re a night owl).
By the way, just for the sake of completeness, I should mention that in this particular document I’m working on, all kinds of things had stopped working. For example, Undo and Redo were grayed out, no matter what I did. Weird stuff. I’m pretty tolerant, but that got old quick. Fortunately, saving, closing, and re-opening the document got InDesign working properly. Even my text flow seems looser now.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on January 3, 2009
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