How to Keep the Book Panel from Disappearing in InDesign

Mike Rankin

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In recent years, a number of visual glitches have crept into the InDesign interface. Sadly, none of them ever seem to get fixed, because, let’s face it, we’re at the point in InDesign’s history where if a bug doesn’t make the app crash, it probably ain’t gonna get fixed anytime soon.

So InDesign users learn to live with visual bugs. But here’s one that you can do something about: The Book panel will disappear if you have it docked with other panels and visit the Home screen.

It doesn’t matter if you visit the Home screen manually by clicking its icon, or if you have the General preference set to Show Home Screen When No Documents Are Open.

As soon as you open a document or hide the Home screen the Book panel will be invisible even though it is still open.

The only way you can show it is to choose it from bottom of the Window menu.

Even more annoying, when the panel reappears it will be undocked and in the top left of the screen.

If you had multiple books open and docked they’ll be grouped together, regardless of whether they were previously grouped or not.

How rude. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my panels to stay where I put them. This is like living with a poltergeist that takes the dishes out of your kitchen cabinet and stacks them in the corner of the floor every time you leave the room.

Fortunately, you don’t have to call Ghostbusters because the fix is simple: Never dock the Book panel. Keep it free floating and it’ll be back on screen where you left it when you get back from the Home screen. Or, if you’re feeling evil, dock your co-worker’s Book panel when they’re not looking. Knowledge is power. Buggy knowledge is a superpower.