*** From the Archives ***
This article is from December 9, 2006, and is no longer current.
The Missing Keystrokes Mystery
Almost everyone loves a good mystery…except when it interferes with their daily work! One of the biggest mysteries which pops up regularly in Macintosh user forums is missing keystrokes, which disappear, sometimes regularly, sometimes sporadically. (I haven’t seen this in the Windows forums, but, being more of a Mac guy, I don’t spend as much time there!) Unfortunately for computer detectives, there isn’t just one solution to this mystery.
Keyboard shortcuts stop working
There are actually two types of missing keystrokes reported. The first is usually easier to handle: This is when keyboard shortcuts stop working. Here’s a typical report: “I am using IDCS2 4.0.4 on a G5 dual 1.8 running 10.4.7 and whenever I use the print dialogue box all of my keyboard shortcuts stop working until relaunch. Any clues on how to resolve this?”
This can happen when a keyboard shortcuts file gets corrupted, or when InDesign’s own preferences get mangled. Here’s some advice from Nini Tjäder who manages workstations at a newspaper in Sweden: “Keyboard shortcuts giving up happens regularly with our editors (I work at a daily newspaper). Did in CS1 and does in CS2 as well. One of the reasons for them to give up can be a newly installed script. Apart from that, reasons are mysterious. Sometimes a restart of ID fixes it, sometimes not. Sometimes choosing another shortcut set than the one you use and then switch back to your regular one fixes it. Sometimes not. Having a backup file of the shortcuts is a good idea so you can put them in again without too much effort if they stop working.”
Others in the thread report that keyboard shortcuts stop working when they switch to another application in certain circumstances, then return to InDesign. Relaunching InDesign usually fixes it, at least temporarily.
The case of the missing modifiers
The other mystery reports center on missing modifier keys. Here’s a common report from computer Scotland Yard: “I’ve run into the problem several times in InDesign where short cut keys would just quit working and I’d have to restart to fix the problem, but this time only a few of my short cut keys will not work – the space bar (hand tool) and zoom in & out (space/apple & space/apple/option) – and restarting the programs and even the computer is not fixing the problem. The same problem is occurring in both InDesign and Photoshop.”
It’s not just in InDesign. Here’s a report from the Illustrator Mac forum: “Illustrator CS now has many problems. Primarily, many key commands (constrain angle, duplicate etc.) no longer work. It’s as if those keys (option, shift) just fail to work during certain situations.”
Here’s a list of possible solutions garnered from these threads and an Adobe tech note on the problem:
- If it’s only Command + Space Bar (or that plus another modifier), the finger can probably be pointed at your OS default settings. Open System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard. Look at the settings for Input Menu and/or Spotlight in that list. Either turn off or reassign the keystrokes there.
- Some applications which are running at the same time (Microsoft Entourage, Kanzu Software Image Info) may need to be updated or turned off. In particular, if you are using Microsoft Entourage as part of Microsoft Office 2004, download and install Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 1 (11.1.0). Visit the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and search using Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 1.
- To test if there are third-party kernel extensions or startup items might be interfering with modifier keys, you can launch in Safe Boot mode. To start in Safe Boot mode: (1) Restart the computer, and hold down the Shift key immediately after you hear the chimes. (2) Release the Shift key when the Apple logo appears. When the computer is in Safe Boot mode, the words Safe Boot appear on the Apple logo.
- Startup applications which reside in your computer’s memory (perhaps to do background scheduling, for example), can interfere with modifier keys. The problem may be figuring out which one it is. Here’s a recommendation from the Illustrator thread (post #55): (1) Launch Activity Monitor (found in Applications > Utilities). This lists all the applications (including background processes) running on your computer. (2) Look for scheduler-type processes in the list of Process Names. Select one, and click the Quit Process button. (3) Return to InDesign and see if the missing modifiers work. (4) Return to Activity Monitor and kill another process. (5) Return to InDesign and test again. (6) Repeat as needed. If you find one, disable it in System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items. Run whatever it does manually.
- Finally, it can be a hardware problem. Another person in the same thread reported excitedly, “After going through a myriad of possible fixes I have finally tracked it down to a VIDEO CARD! I had bought an ATI Radeon 9200 video card for my G4 dual 500 computer to drive a new Dell 24″ monitor.”
So there really can be many, many causes for this sticky problem. If you’ve found other solutions to these problems, please share them here with others!
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Watch out if you’re still using CS and you have shortcuts assigned to scripts. As much as breath on the contents of your Scripts folder and the shortcuts will switch to different scripts. This can be very dodgy.
The problem is not as acute with CS2; in fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a CS2 script shortcut switch to another script, but I have had many instances of their disappearing.
Dave
I’m on Windows, and have a problem with keyboard shortcuts not working. I just ended up recording different shortcuts for the ones I need — couldn’t get the originals to start working, even though they appear to still be properly assigned. The bigger frustration for me is when the scroll wheel stops working. Usually, hitting the Alt key brings it back, but not always. And most times, switching to a different open program and then back to ID brings it back, but, again, not always. Sometimes it requires a restart of ID.
maybe I’m not in the right forum, but I wanted to add my comment.
I am super frustrated with illustrator CS1. I lost all my keyboard shortcuts (tools and file commands) I have reinstalled several times and the problem still exists. I checked photoshop and everything is ok…it is only in illustrator…
I am working on a PC.
Any help would be appreciated…
i cannot find the SUPERLATIVES to describe the level of my FRUSTRATION with indesign / keyboard shortcuts — MY KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS and the fact that they SIMPLY DO NOT EXIST anymore … i have 20+ years experience ON MAC in the graphic design field AND MORE IMPORTANTLY i am trying to PROVIDE FREELANCE WORK FOR MY CLIENTS!!! … WHAT IF YOU UPDATED YOUR PROGRAM routinely in between projects, THEN YOU HAVE TO MEET A DEADLINE!!! … and you can no longer FUNCTION with any EFFICIENCY OR SPEED … I REALLY HATE INDESIGN!!!! … and i would not be using it if i did not ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO !!!
this is not the only problem i have, obviously, but ADOBE has hindered my ability to PROVIDE MY SERVICES, HENCE MAKE MONEY … YOU PEOPLE SUCK!!!! INDESIGN SUCKS … there is no logic to its function and no attempt to WORK WITH THE DESIGNERS AND PREVIOUSLY SET UP versions … the programmers, obviously make their operater-based decisions on whatever hair is up their asses on that day! … and FORGET ABOUT SUPPORT !!!! … NON-EXISTENT … WHAT A RACKET YOU GUYS HAVE !!! I REALLY WISH I COULD AFFORD TO SUE …
Hey Jeanne, sorry you’re having these problems with your keyboard shortcuts. (and Tedr too.)
But neither of you mentioned if you had followed Steve’s carefully written advice for diagnosing and solving the problem. I’m curious if you tried and the outcome.
And Jeanne, we’re not affiliated with Adobe. See the tagline in our logo at the top of every page. Please tone down the language here, thanks.
I’m hoping that Jeanne is able to find her medication soon. Whew! The good news is that her Caps Lock key still seems to work. ;)
I know this is old. But it’s really condescending and superior to criticize the mental health of someone who is afraid they won’t be able to make a living. Just really out of touch, and sexist in this case. Why bother commenting just to be so mean to someone? Who hurt you, David?
N.: It all started in my childhood. I can’t believe you would want to bring up those terrible episodes that shaped me and led me to who I am today. The shouting, the beatings… “no more wooden caps lock keys!”
Okay, on a serious note: I appreciate your point but I certainly don’t see how my comments could be construed as sexist. As a feminist and the son of mental health workers, I am keenly aware of the issues here. Let’s just say I believe in a healthy sense of humor.
I too have had my modifier based shortcuts mysteriously disappear. But, luckily, my issues have been resolved by restarting ID. If anybody has insight as to why they disappear in the first place, I’d be curious to know… Thanks all!!
Oh, and by the way, David & Anne-Marie, thanks for ALL your podcasts… they’re great!!
I had a similar problem, my main problem was in Photoshop CS2 (after having used CS) with the Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- Shortcuts as i use them a LOT. After trying to “remap” them to another key as shown in the article/comments above i realised that photoshop wasnt accepting my keyboard’s ‘+’ as a ‘+’ it thought it was a double ‘>’ (which isnt even on my keyboard!). I couldnt be bothered to change the keyboard layout settings as i have no idea how to do that within photoshop, so i just remapped to the “right” physical keys, even if that meant photoshop thinking i was pressing Ctrl+>> and Ctrl+1/2.
I’m having a similar problem and haven’t managed to resolve it yet – my shortcuts for both Show/hide frame edges and Show/hide guides have both stopped working, but only in one particular document. Still fine in other documents. Very frustrating. I’ve trashed my preferences file, saved the doc as a copy, tried re-saving the correct keystrokes, restarted ID (it’s CS2). Nothing. So annoying. :(
Nic, what happens if you open Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and enter different shortcuts (not the default ones) for those two menu items? Do the new shortcuts work?
I wonder if somehow, internally, ID thinks the default keystrokes for Show/hide frame edges and guides are now assigned to something else in that document (like a style, even though that’d be impossible).
Have you tried exporting the doc to .inx and opening it back up again?
I’m having the same problem with my CS2 applications, and persists after I restart. Is it safe to trash the Adobe preference files?
I was having the inert keystroke problem with Illustrator CS and no other apps (running Mac OS 10.4.10). After trying the above suggestions (and a wipe/reinstall of the program) without success I started looking at ANY system prefs that affect the keyboard. The ‘brute force, ignorance’ approach.
In System Preferences/International/Input Menu I found the keyboard layout set to U.S. Extended, not U.S. The Input Menu also is set to show on the menu bar…for access to the Character Palette. U.S. and U.S. Extended were listed in the menu since they were both active. The menu icons for the two layouts are distinctive, but I never gave the possible differences any thought until tonight.
I set the keyboard layout to U.S. and launched Illustrator. Keyboard shortcuts have returned!
I turned off U.S. Extended as a layout option for now…just so it’s not in the Input Menu for accidental selection.
Why nothing else had been affected may remain a mystery. For now, though, all seems to be right with the Illustrator.
Wonka’s a genius! My Keyboard was set to Canada. Once I changed it to US, my shortcuts came back.
I was having this problem in Illustrator CS2 using Leopard 10.5.1. After starting in safe boot mode, the modifier keys worked again. So I methodically turned on/off each of my additional start-up items and it turned out to be the background scheduler for Quicken 2007 that messed up my Illustrator modifiers.
In preferences/accounts go to login items and delete Quicken Scheduler.
Oddly, my InDesign modifiers were never affected.
Thanks for your suggestions, I can finally get some sleep again.
I’ve been using Illustrator CS for years now, and had just upgraded my OS to Leopard. Everything went as smooth as silk with one exception: The command key in Illustrator didn’t work. All of the other modifier keys functioned properly, just the one.
After days and days of research, simply making sure that the US keyboard input was chosen, and that it was the ONLY one chosen has solved the problem. Restarting Illustrator wasn’t even necessary.
Thanks for all the help here.
Just wanted to mention that I had the same problem with Illustrator CS3 modifiers, and thanks to the tip a couple posts above on turning off Quicken scheduling, they now work. Thank you, I too can finally get some sleep!
Absent Illustrator CS2 shortcuts – solution = change your keyboard layout to British (test if the shortcuts in Illustrator are working) then change it back to your original keyboard layout. Worked fine for me anyways :)
If it doesn’t work, then I can’t help…
Tip by Wonka!!
I just wanted to let you know that your site worked like magic. I had this same frustrating problem in Illustrator. I quit PS and ILL and reopened ILL. Keystrokes were still not working so I googled and found this site. After reading it through, I went back to ILL and now the keystrokes are working like magic. Add that to the mystery… And thanks for attempt to unravel this!
Just recently got this problem in CS2 Illustrator when I upgraded to the new Apple aluminum keyboard. None of the previously mentioned fixes worked for me, however, if I do a fast user change, and then back it seems to fix itself for a while. Love the keyboard too much to revert.
Unbelievable. Following the advice above I quit the ‘Quicken Scheduler’ process and my keyboard shortcuts magically reappeared. Thanks so much for your help – I would never have figured this out otherwise.
thanx all. I just spent half a day trying to get my shortcuts in Illustrator cs back (on xp). The problem suddenly appeared and seemed to be only the ctrl key not working and only in illustrator, in photoshop and all other apps copy, paste (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) and that stuff was working as normal.
i checked the country settings many times bevore, but the keybord was set to german as it should be.
now i opened System Preferences/International/Input Menu (start/systemsteuerung/…sprachoptionen/sprachen/details) and deleted the american keyboard option (which was not in use anyway) and after reboot of xp all illustrator shortcuts were back again! does that make any sense? i don’t think so but who cares!
bevore i found this site i intended using the second set of shortcuts in the default setting (F2=cut, F3=copy…) that were still doing their job, but better this way ;-)!!!
for german googlers: (tastaturbefehle in illustrator gehen nicht mehr, strg+x, strg+c, strg+z, strg+-, strg+Umschalttaste+=)
I have the same problem with my shortcuts in Indesign CS3. I have windows xp. Two days before, after recreating all my shortcuts and all worked perfect… everything lost. All my shortcuts, not just one or two. I still haven’t fixed them. I cannot imaging me recreating them again!!! Plus, I could’t load my shortcuts from CS, or any shortcut set I made. I put the file to the right folder of Indesign, I can see it from keyboard shortcuts panel, I select it but nothing works… Can anyone help me?
Well guys, I managed to upbring my shorts. I deleted the Indesign defaults file which is (as you know) in the Document and Settings/administrator/adobe/application data/indesign folder.
How I didn’t think of that later?
Well, thanks anyway for… hereing me. Keep up ‘Indesignsecrets.com’ with the good work. I learned many new thinks from you.
Thank you…
Changed to US keyboard (I don’t remember changing it to AUS), had to restart my machine but my Illustrator keys are back!!! I nearly cried. And the couple of InDesign shortcuts returned too (my magnifying glass went awol). Thanks for your help people. Now to work out why Illustrator crashes everytime I try to change fonts (using Linotype font explorer)…
I’ve been troubleshooting this for a couple hours, and found my particular cause for modifier keys disappearing in Illustrator CS3 (Mac).
The culprit was a media center application called Boxee (boxee.tv). It has a service running you can see in Activity Monitor called boxeeservice. I found it impossible to force-quit it, so I had to completely uninstall Boxee.
I used Appzapper to do it, but you can see the file list here: https://skitch.com/atlantajones/bfwg7/log
Once Boxee files were deleted, I was able to quit the boxee service, launch Illustrator and my modifier keys were back!
I will alert Boxee that their software is doing this, but can’t Adobe come up with a way to keep it from happening? I just installed the CS4 trial and its modifiers were gone too!
Thanks for this article!
My em-dash and en-dash shortcuts stopped working in InDesign CS4 after IT installed some new anti-virus software a couple of weeks ago (but still worked in other programs).
I’d tried everything I could think of?even assigning new shortcuts only worked for a few minutes, then stopped?but hadn’t thought of switching to the Quark 4.0 set! After restarting InDesign, I switched back to the default, and can make all the dashes I want.
Thanks so much for the advice!
I am having an issue with just Indesign and only with cmd+c not working.
It works fine in all other applications and other cmd+ keys work (like cut, and paste, just not copy).
I’ve rebuilt my prefs, fiddled with the language input settings, tried it in safe mode (still doesn’t work), no other apps are running, no Office update required. I played with my keyboard settings and no other configuration uses cmd+c. I checked the default keyboard shortcut in ID prefs and cmd+c DOES exist in the proper place. I tried to create a new one, but since this keyboard shortcut works in ALL my other apps, I would like it to work in ID too. I don’t think it’s a Mac or OS issue, since it works everywhere else. Seems to be just ID (works in Photoshop and Illustrator, Mail, etc).
I’m on a Mac running 10.6.6 using InDesign CS5. I don’t remember when this stopped working, but it’s become very inconvenient as I use cmd+c frequently. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Still mysterious in Indesing CS5
It’s like Dave pointed out in the first comment 2006 “Watch out if you […] have shortcuts assigned to scripts. As much as breath on the contents of your Scripts folder and the shortcuts will switch to different scripts.”
I just switched to CS5 and hoped this would be history, but no luck. Anybody got a fix?
This happens to me all the time when designing on a windows PC on CS4 InDesign.
All my shortcuts, custom and default stop working randomly. The only way i’ve found to quickly get them working again is to go to View > Overprint Preview and switch Overprint Preview on the off again then shortcuts start working again.
Like many of you, I mysteriously lost the use of all my keyboard shortcuts in Illustrator (CS5), which was incredibly frustrating and made performing even the most basic tasks a chore. Strangely enough, I only encountered this problem with Illustrator – InDesign and Photoshop were unaffected.
I tried reinstalling the program but to no avail. Then I found this site, tried Wonka’s suggestion and it worked like a charm!
It turns out it was a simple keyboard layout issue (I had it set to UK when apparently it should’ve been US). Windows 7 users can change this setting by going to control panel > region and language > keyboards and languages.
Three cheers for Wonka for coming up with a workable solution to this problem!
Had this problem. When I went to keyboard shortcuts in PS and tried to reassign, it said Shift+_____ So the program thought I had shift on even tho I turned off sticky keys. Pressing shift a few times fixed this. Hope for now it doesnt cause more problems. (this worked where shortcuts like F12 didnt work but Spacebar did)
It happened to me in Photoshop and Illustrator CS5 on MacOS snow leaopard.
FREAKED ME OUT how much productivity I lost (Like Jeanne ).
I figured out a solution and it was the Function F7 key. I had used it because I eran QUark Xpress for something and that key shows/hides guides…when I hit is again, miracle of miracles, my key shortcuts in Illustrator returned.
I hope someone can help – I installed a swap object script which worked once but then destroyed the COMMAND + CLICK function to select multiple objects.
This function still works in all my other programs – Photoshop, excel, desktop.
I’ve tried restarting the Mac, Indesign, checking the command key is assigned in the system preferences…..
HELP!
Hi everybody! My keyboard shortcuts were working on Photoshop and Illustrator, but weren’t working on Indesign. I checked the keyboard and it was set to USA – International (I work with a mac). When I went to check the shortcuts (Edit>Keyboard shortcuts) they were off and it didn’t allow me to set new ones. So, I decided to re-install the program and I noticed that, by default, it started to install in Portuguese (because of my computer settings). When I found that, I changed the installation to English (International) and everything works perfectly now!
Hope this helps :) Good luck!
This is slightly off-topic, but my issue is that InDesign CC 2015 simply drops keystrokes. I have a complex document with lots of tables and inline elements, so InDesign is molasses in general, but I would expect to just have to wait for it to catch up. Instead it drops characters and I’ll see “Sard” where I typed “Standard” and I become unamused.
Anyone run into this?