Edit text

If you cannot select text in a frame, the text frame could be on a locked layer or on a parent page. Try unlocking the layer or going to the parent page. The text frame may also be beneath another text frame or transparent object. See Select text in a frame that is covered.

Change what triple-clicking does

Select text in a frame that is covered

View hidden (nonprinting) characters

Nonprinting characters such as those for spaces, tabs, ends of paragraphs, index markers, and ends of stories appear. These special characters are visible only in a document window and a story editor window; they don’t print or output to formats such as PDF and XML. The hidden characters appear in the same color as the layer color.

Anne Marie Concepcion provides a comprehensive list of special characters at Free Guide to InDesign Special Characters.

List of hidden characters

Add column, frame, and page breaks

Control column, frame, and page breaks by inserting special break characters in the text.

To remove a break character, choose Type > Show Hidden Characters so that you can see nonprinting characters, and then select and delete the break character.

Break options

The following options appear on the Type > Insert Break Character menu:

Flows text to the next column in the current text frame. If the frame has only one column, the text goes to the next threaded frame.

Flows text to the next threaded text frame, regardless of the current text frame’s column setup.

Flows text to the next page with a text frame threaded to the current text frame.

Flows text to the next odd-numbered page with a text frame threaded to the current text frame.

Flows text to the next even-numbered page with a text frame threaded to the current text frame.

Inserts a paragraph return (the same as pressing Enter or Return).

Forces a line to break where the character is inserted, starting a new line without starting a new paragraph (the same as pressing Shift+Enter or Shift+Return). A forced line break is also called a soft return.

Indicates where a line of text should break if the line needs to break. A discretionary line break is similar to a discretionary hyphen, only no hyphen is added where the line breaks.

Related break options are available in the Keep Options dialog box and in the Paragraph Style Options dialog box.

Use the Story Editor

You can edit text in InDesign either on the layout page or in the story editor window. Writing and editing in a story editor window allows the entire story to appear in the typeface, size, and spacing that you specify in Preferences, without layout or formatting distractions. The Story Editor is also where you can view track changes to text.

Each story appears in a different story editor window. All the text in the story appears in the story editor, including overset text. You can open several story editor windows simultaneously, including multiple instances of the same story. A vertical depth ruler indicates how much text is filling the frame, and a line indicates where text is overset.

When you edit a story, changes are reflected in the layout window. Open stories are listed in the Window menu. You cannot create a new story in a story editor window.

You can view and edit tables in Story Editor, where text is displayed in sequential columns and rows for easy editing. Quickly expand or collapse tables, and decide whether to view them by row or column.

The Story Editor also displays text that has been added, removed, or edited if you turn on Track Changes. See Tracking and reviewing changes.

Open the Story Editor

Return to the layout window

Show or hide Story Editor items

You can show or hide the style name column and the depth ruler, expand or collapse footnotes, and show or hide paragraph break marks to indicate the start of new paragraphs. These settings affect all open story editor windows, as well as all subsequently opened windows.

• With the story editor active, choose View > Story Editor > Show Style Name Column or Hide Style Name Column. You can also adjust the width of the style name column by dragging the vertical bar. Subsequent story editor windows have the same column width.
• With the Story Editor active, choose View > Story Editor > Show Depth Ruler or Hide Depth Ruler.
• With the Story Editor active, choose View > Story Editor > Expand All Footnotes or Collapse AllFootnotes.
• With the Story Editor active, choose View > Story Editor > Show Paragraph Break Marks or Hide Paragraph Break Marks.

Story Editor preferences

Use Story Editor Display preferences to change the appearance of the Story Editor. Although the Story Editor suppresses all but the most basic text styling attributes, some objects and attributes are represented, including the following:

Choose a display font, size, line spacing, text color, and background. You can also specify a different theme, such as selecting Classic System to view yellow text on a black background. These settings affect the display of text in the story editor window, not how they appear in layout view.

Smooth the jagged edges of type, and choose the Type of anti-aliasing: LCD Optimized, Soft, or the Default setting, which uses shades of gray to smooth text. LCD Optimized uses colors, rather than shades of gray, to smooth text, and works best on light-colored backgrounds with black text. Soft uses shades of gray, but produces a lighter, fuzzier appearance than Default.

Change the appearance of the text cursor. For example, select Blink if you want the cursor to blink.

Text from inline frames does not appear in the parent story editor window, but it can appear in its own story editor window.

Use the Copy Editor (Beta)

When you work with the text in InDesign documents, you can experience a lag while editing parts of a text. The lag becomes more evident when you deal with lot of text in the document or when additional features are enabled in the application. Copy Editor (Beta) is an easy alternative to make typing faster in such cases. All you need is to launch Copy Editor (Beta) as you type in the text box and continue to type in the new window, to avoid any lag. 

You can launch the Copy Editor (Beta) window using one of these options: 

1. Go to Edit > Edit in Copy Editor (Beta).
   
2. Alternately, you can also launch Copy Editor (Beta) using the context menu in the text box. Right-click in the text box and select Edit in Copy Editor (Beta).

 3.    Windows OS - Use Alt+Shift+Y shortcut. 

        macOS - Use Opt+ Shift + Y shortcut. 

In Copy Editor (Beta) window, you can continue typing your text. Once your changes are made to the original text composition, click Done.

 Copy Editor (Beta) is a text-only editor, it does not support text formatting and styles. Copy Editor (Beta) opens in a new window, hence you have to close the window to go back to your document.

Copy Editor (Beta) is an experimental feature which is available in limited geos and for limited users. 

Use conditional text

Conditional text is a way to create different versions of the same document. After you create conditions, you apply them to ranges of text. You can then create different versions of documents by showing and hiding conditions. For example, if you’re creating a computer manual, you can create separate conditions for Mac OS and Windows. Before you print the Mac OS version of the user guide, you can show all text to which the “Mac” condition is applied and hide all text to which the “Windows” condition is applied. You can then reverse the condition states for printing the user guide for Windows.

Conditions can be applied only to text. You can make anchored objects conditional, but only by selecting the anchored object marker. You can apply conditions to text within table cells, but you cannot apply conditions to table cells, columns, or rows. You cannot apply conditions to text in locked InCopy stories.

Planning conditional documents

When planning a project with conditional text, examine the nature of the material and look at how several people can take turns working with it if the document is handed off. Plan to treat conditional text consistently to make the document easier to use and maintain. Use the following guidelines.

Define how many versions your finished project will contain. For example, if you’re creating a manual that describes a program that runs on both Windows and Mac OS platforms, you might want to produce at least two versions: a Windows version and a Mac OS version. If you want to produce these versions with editorial comments sprinkled in the text during the review process, you’ll want even more versions: Mac OS with comments, Mac OS without comments, Windows with comments, and Windows without comments.

For documents with many conditions, you can define condition sets that can be applied to the document for quick versioning.

Decide how many condition tags you need to produce the desired versions. A version of a document is defined by a unique set of condition tags. For example, a version of a finished Windows manual might be defined by having a Windows condition tag showing, a Mac OS condition tag hidden, and a Comments condition tag hidden. In this example, you would need to decide whether to use one condition tag for Windows comments and another for Mac OS comments, or whether to use a single condition tag for both Windows and Mac OS comments.

Evaluate the extent to which the document can be conditional and how you can organize the material to simplify development and maintenance. For example, you might be able to organize a book so that conditional text is limited to a few documents. Or you might choose to keep versions of a particular chapter in separate files rather than in conditional text, and then use a different book file for each version of the book.

In some instances, such as when working with multiple languages, you may want to create separate layers that you can show or hide rather than using conditions, with each layer including text from a different language.

Determine the smallest unit of conditional text. For example, if a document will be translated to another language, a whole sentence should be the smallest amount of text you make conditional. Because word order often changes during translation, using conditional text for part of a sentence could complicate translation.

Inconsistency in applying conditions to spaces and punctuation can result in extra spacing or misspelled words. Decide whether to make spaces and punctuation conditional. If conditional text begins or ends with punctuation, make the punctuation conditional too. This makes the text easier to read when you're viewing more than one version.

To avoid word spacing problems, such as having an unconditional space followed by a conditional space, set standards for handling spaces following conditional text (either always conditional or always unconditional).

To avoid confusion, decide the order in which conditional text will appear and use this order throughout the document.

When indexing a document, pay attention to whether index markers are placed inside or outside conditional text. Keep in mind that index markers in hidden conditional text are not included in the generated index.

If you create a cross-reference to conditional text, make sure that the source text has the same condition. For example, if you add a cross-reference in a “Windows” paragraph and the text anchor appears in a “Mac” condition, the cross-reference is unresolved when the “Mac” condition is hidden. “HT” appears next to the cross-reference in the Hyperlinks panel.

If you create a cross-reference to a paragraph in which some text is conditional and then change the visibility settings of that condition, update the cross-reference.

Create conditions

Conditions you create are saved in the current document. If no documents are open when you create a condition, that condition appears in all new documents you create.

You can make conditional text easy to identify by specifying condition indicators, such as wavy red underlines.

Apply conditions to text

You can apply multiple conditions to the same text. By default, condition indicators identify conditional text. However, if indicators are hidden, you can use the Conditional Text panel to determine which conditions have been applied to the current text. A solid check mark indicates the condition is applied to the current text. A dim check mark indicates that the condition is applied only to part of the selection.

Show or hide conditions

When you hide a condition, all text to which that condition is applied is hidden. Hiding conditions often causes the page numbering to change in a document or book. You can use the Smart Text Reflow feature to add and remove pages automatically as you hide and show conditions.

Hidden conditional text is generally ignored in the document. For example, hidden text is not printed or exported, index markers in hidden conditional text are not included in a generated index, and hidden conditional text is not included when searching or spell-checking text.

When you hide a condition, the hidden text is stored in a hidden condition symbol . If you select text that contains a hidden condition symbol and try to delete it, InDesign prompts you to confirm that you want to delete the hidden conditional text. You cannot apply other conditions, styles, or formatting to hidden conditional text.

If text has several conditions applied to it and at least one of those conditions is shown while another is hidden, the text is not hidden.

• To show or hide individual conditions, click the visibility box next to a condition name. The eye icon indicates the condition is shown.
• To show or hide all conditions, choose Show All or Hide All from the Conditional Text panel menu.

Use condition sets

A condition set captures the visibility settings for all conditions so that you can quickly apply different document renditions. For example, suppose you have a complex document with platform conditions for Mac OS, Windows XP, Vista, UNIX , language conditions for English, French, German, and Spanish, and editorial conditions such as Editorial Review and Internal Comments. For reviewing the Vista version in French, you can create a set that shows only the Vista, French, and Editorial Review conditions, and hides all the rest.

While sets aren’t necessary to do this, they help you quickly and reliably change different condition visibility settings.

Manage conditions

Find and change conditional text

Use the Find/Change dialog box to find text to which one or more conditions have been applied and replace it with one or more other conditions.