Skip to main content
Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
June 18, 2021
Question

Copy and paste text from one file to another changes word wrap in InDesign 16.2.1 on mac OS Catalina

  • June 18, 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 5752 views

I am copying text from a source InDesign file into a different ID document to update the document. Same OpenType font, same text box width (no page or column break), same paragraph style, same everything, yet the text wraps differently and there are different line breaks in the pasted text. Why would this happen? I thought I fixed one instance of this when I restarted InDesign, but it's happening again after another restart of my computer and InDesign.  It is troubling for various reasons, and I don't understand why—or how—it happens. 

 

ID 16.2.1

27 inch iMac (late 2015)

Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7

 

{Renamed by MOD}

This topic has been closed for replies.

7 replies

Community Expert
August 31, 2021

Hi lailah48890588,

thank you very much for this screenshot that I am posting here inline:

 

I do not think this is the same issue Fritz Hansen has.

 

Instead this problem points to a differnt bug/issue. The symptom of that bug is the difference in handling of the first baseline option in a text frame. The cause could be a mismatch between activated fonts from the Adobe Fonts service and downloaded font files from e.g. Google Fonts with basically the same name.

 

Read through my reply here where I do a comparison of a needed Roboto font activated only with Adobe Fonts and the same Roboto font style provided with a font file downloaded from Google Fonts:

 

Problems with baseline shift when editing text boxes
Laubender, Jul 27, 2021

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/problems-with-baseline-shift-when-editing-text-boxes/m-p/12210525#M438887

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

 

Participant
August 31, 2021

I am having this same issue. Was a fix ever identified?

Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
August 31, 2021

Sorry, no, the situation was never fixed. The investigation into the problem was taking too much time and we had to move on, accepting the fact that paragraphs might not always look the way they had in the past. 

 

How did your problem manifest? Can you describe what happened? I find it all very curious. Did it occur in the course of a change from a Type 1 to an OT font?

Participant
August 31, 2021

I got it working. It does seem that it was a font issue (extensis plug-in connected to InDesign). I updated Suitcase, Creative Cloud (Indesign and the plug-ins specifically), reinstalled the fonts and it seems to copy over just fine now.

Community Expert
June 21, 2021

Hi Fritz,

hard to tell what exactly can change and why. It might be a bug fix of a long standing composition bug, it might be a better algorithm in hyphenation. You cannot foresee that…

 

When it comes to the very same InDesign version:

Were both documents created on the same machine?

 

If not: I would not rule out changes with the installed fonts.

One version of the same font on one machine, a different version of the same font on the other.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
June 22, 2021

Uwe,

I tried replying to your latest yesterday and it wouldn't go through. Not sure why not. Something about identical posts received withing 3,600 seconds. 

 

Anyway, regarding whether they were created on the same machine:

A file from last year is stored on a shared server. It was updated for the current year by someone else and saved on the server in an older version of ID. I download the file (a copy) from the server and save to my machine. I had a newer version of ID, but now all who work with these files have the current version. But for the files where the problems occur, they were basically created on my computer. We all use the same version of the font.

 

Also, see my paragraph above about a change that does't revert when the change is undone:

Furthermore, in the source file (from which the text in question is copied), if I decrease the width of the text box by a small amount (5 points), the text will wrap the way it does in the document where the text was pasted, but when I undo that narrowing in the source document, the wrap STAYS in the new configuration; it does not revert to the original wrap. Why would that happen? I'm starting to think there's a bug in my copy of InDesign but was hoping an Adobe expert might have some in-depth technical knowledge of the coding that might explain this.

 

This all happened on one machine with one version of the font. This is why I suspect a glitch in my version of InDesign. I'm still waiting to hear from colleagues who I've asked to try to reproduce this on their computers.

Community Expert
June 21, 2021

Hi Fritz,

what was not discussed yet:

If you open a document from an earlier version of InDesign in the current version it could be that text composition does not change at all by only opening the document. But you might see a change if you edit the text or if you copy/paste text or a text frame to a new document. The cause of this could be changes in text composition in a newer version of InDesign.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
June 21, 2021

Uwe,

Thanks for bringing this up. Can you say more about how text composition would change between versions?

 

That seems like a problem. If a document is carefully typeset to achieve the justification, hyphenation, and spacing that is desired, and then text is pasted into a new document, it sounds like some of that careful work might be undone. Is there any way to know how text composition will change? 

 

The current problem is occurring in documents saved in the most up-to-date version of InDesign, so I don't know if what you're referring to is relevant to this, but if you can describe what changes might occur between versions, it may help us. Thanks.

Community Expert
June 19, 2021

Further note:

I don't know where I got this but saved it to my dropbox a long time ago

 

Adobe Single-Line Composer.
In the past, programs like QuarkXPress and PageMaker have used single-line composition methods to flow text. This method marched line by line through a paragraph and sets each line as well as possible using the applied hyphenation and justification settings. The effect of modifying the spacing of one line on the lines above and below is not considered in single-line composition. If adjusting the space within a line causes poor spacing on the next line, tough luck. When you use Adobe Single-Line Composer, the following rules apply:
Adjusting word spacing is preferred over hyphenation.
Hyphenation is preferred over glyph spacing.
If spacing must be adjusted, removing space is preferred over adding space.

Adobe Paragraph Composer
InDesign’s Adobe Paragraph Composer (called the Multi-Line Composer in previous versions) is selected by default. It takes a broader approach to composition by looking at the entire paragraph at once. If a poorly spaced line can be fixed by adjusting the spacing of a previous line, the Paragraph Composer reflows the previous line. The Paragraph Composer is governed by the following principles:
The evenness of letter spacing and word spacing is the highest priority. The desirability of possible breakpoints is determined by how much they cause word and letter spacing to vary from the Desired settings.
Uneven spacing is preferred to hyphenation. A breakpoint that does not require hyphenation is preferred over one that does.
All possible breakpoints are ranked, and good breakpoints are preferred over bad ones.
The paragraph composer is more sophisticated than the single-line option, offering generally better overall spacing because it sacrifices optimal spacing a bit on one line to prevent really bad spacing on another, something the single-line method does not do.

 

However, there is one frustration in dealing with the paragraph composer: When you try to edit text or play with tracking to get rid of an orphan or widow, the paragraph composer keeps adjusting the text across several lines, often counteracting your nips and tucks. The single-line composer doesn’t do that.

Community Expert
June 19, 2021

Are they using different Paragraph Composers?

 

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/using/text-composition.html

 

Choose a composition method for a paragraph

  • Do any of the following:

     
    • From the Paragraph panel menu, choose Adobe Paragraph Composer (the default) or Adobe Single-line Composer.

    • From the Paragraph panel menu or the Control panel menu, choose Justification, and then choose an option from the Composer menu.

Note:
 

Additional composition engine plug‑ins from other companies may be available, along with interfaces that let you customize an engine’s parameters.

Set composition preferences

  • Choose Edit > Preferences > Composition (Windows) or InDesign > Preferences > Composition (Mac OS).

  • To use on‑screen highlighting to identify compositional problems, select Keep Violations And H&J Violations (hyphenation and justification).

  • To justify text that wraps around an object, select Justify Text Next To An Object.

  • Under Mojikumi Compatibility Modes, determine whether you want to select Use New Vertical Scaling or Use CID-Based Mojikumi.

  • Click OK.

Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
June 19, 2021

I should have clarified that when this has happened, it was entire paragraphs that were copied from the one document and pasted into the second document (i.e., not a smaller string of text within a paragraph that might cause a different text wrap). 

 

Both documents use all the same paragraph and character styles with identical style definitions between the two documents.

Community Expert
June 19, 2021

Yes but styles are built the usual setting is that they are based on the basic Paragraph style.

 

https://creativepro.com/beware-basic-styles/

 

Srishti Bali
Community Manager
Community Manager
June 18, 2021

Hi there,

 

Sorry to hear about this trouble. I tried but couldn't replicate this behavior at my end. I would request if you could share a few more details like:

 

  • OS and version of InDesign
  • Screenshot of the issue.
  • Is the issue related to a specific document? If yes, could you please share the document with us? You can upload it to the Creative Cloud (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/share.html) and share the download link. 
  • When did this start happening? Are there any recent changes made to your system? For example, any antivirus, system updates or web extensions installed recently. 

 

Regards,

Srishti

Fritz Hansen
Inspiring
June 19, 2021

OS and ID versions were included in my initial post:

ID 16.2.1

27 inch iMac (late 2015)

Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7

 

The documents involved include proprietary information, so I can't share without permission from higher-ups. I'll see if that is permitted.