Reply To: Deselecting highlighted text

There is a shortcut key for Deselect All (look in your Edit menu), but then you cannot modify it anymore. Way smarter to use Character styles; just create any blank one and apply it to the text. Then go to the definition of that character style, check the Preview box, and start a-modifying. When done, you can OK the character style; or, when you have changed a bit too much, hit the “Reset to Base” button (make sure it's based on [None] for that) and start over with your tinkering.

Another nice feature of ID is that you can open an additional window on your text. Although the 'other' window does not show the selections, it will be updated live while you are changing stuff in the other window!