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Christopher Pickering
Christopher Pickering
Known Participant
September 30, 2017
Question

Anchored Object Insertion Point Has Width?

  • September 30, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 1097 views

Hello,

I have a problem on somewhat narrow columns where it seems that the insertion point on an anchored object is treated as a space, or fixed with, and causing text to hang over the edge of the frame.. I've never seen it before and wonder if you have ideas on how to remove it?

Here are a few pictures -

1. The problem. I am using a custom position and placing the frame on the left side (with the 7 in it). You can see the insertion point after the space before the W. The "e" on the end of wherefore is hanging out of the text frame.

2. Object released. If it release the anchored object you can see that the "e" pops back into the frame. I really need to keep it anchored so this won't help me.

3. Change to "in line". If I change to inline anchor it oddly pops the "e" back in! Hows come?

If any one has ideas on how to fix this I'd appreciate it! I tried in different fonts and have the same issue.

It looks like someone else had the same problem before but no solution was found -

Anchored object not aligning at top correctly​

I've attached an ID file with an example of the problem in google drive. insertion_point_error.indd - Google Drive 

This is what the file looks like on my Mac -

Thanks!!
Christopher

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      1 reply

      Jongware
      Community Expert
      JongwareCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      September 30, 2017

      It looks like it kills the kerning between the space and the 'W'. If so, report it as a bug.

      Check what kerning value is reported for the position left of the 'W' without the anchored object. Insert the anchored object and check again. Is it the same value? If no (the kern value would be '0'), then this is a bug because InDesign's own objects should not interfere with an otherwise plain text run. If yes, then it's bug because the correct kern value gets ignored.

      You can check further by measuring the kern size and the extent the final letter is hanging out. The kern size is visible if you position your text cursor between the space and 'W' (sans the anchored object, of course). The "Kerning" field should show a large negative number between parentheses. This number is the kern value in "font design space" (*). Multiply it with your font size and divide by 1000 to get the kern distance in points. Then, draw a small rectangle, set its width to this size (make sure to enter it in points again), and move it over the final 'e'. Does it line up?

      A workaround, pending Adobe fixing this, is to move the anchor between two characters that are not kerned, or manually insert the correct kerning left of the 'W' (the value it ought to have with just the space before it).

      (*) Not really. For Type 1 fonts, the design size is typically 1000 units, but may also be different. For TrueType fonts, the design size is 2048 by default, and again may be different. InDesign recalculates a font's kern distances to one-thousands units, shedding some accuracy in that. But that rounding off is by far not enough to be visible here.

      Jongware
      Community Expert
      JongwareCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 4, 2017

      .. Just checked with InDesign CC 2017.1. I am able to reproduce the erroneous behavior.*

      The text cursor reports the generic "Metrics" instead of the kerning value, both before and after the anchored object. However, the horizontal position indicator shows a cursor position of "129.237pt" before, and "129.108pt" after the anchored object.

      Without the anchored object, the kerning between space and 'W' is reported to be -15. At a size of 11 pt, this works out to 11*-15/1000 ~ -0.165. Adding this to the "before" value, I get exactly the current "after' value. The right hand side is still flush.

      However, when you add several more copies of "space/anchor/W" on that same line, the right hand side switches between correct and blatantly wrong. It seems that the kerning itself is properly accounted for**, but there is another effect at work – maybe something to do with the full justification, maybe not. I'll leave that to the Adobe engineers to work out.

      * It goes wrong the same way in CS4 as well, so it's not a new or regressed bug.

      ** This effectively means that my suggested workaround to manually compensate for kerning will not work.

      Christopher Pickering
      Christopher PickeringAuthor
      Known Participant
      October 19, 2017

      It seem that anchor point also refuses to word wrap on the anchored object -

      What do you think? Same reason?

      The number 1 is a drop cap set a 2 row. I tried it with no drop cap and same problem. If I remove the anchor point it wraps nicely.

      Is there an alternate to anchor points that works the same? they are causing pain!

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