Participant

Answered

Find/Change not working in InDesign 2020

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 27, 2020
3 replies
7226 views

I'm working in InDesign 2020 on a Mac. Find/change either doesn't work at all ("Cannot find match") or works for a while and then suddenly gives up in the middle of my document, giving me the "Cannot find match" when there plainly are matches right there. If I quit InDesign and restart, it usually works for a while, but then stops working again. Anyone have any ideas?

Correct answer Bill Silbert

Try resetting your InDesign preferences. Hopefully returning your InDesign to its defaults will take care of the problem.

To do so on a Mac:

The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe InDesign” and the file called “com.adobe.InDesign.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files in this manner is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Can you upload a screen shot of your Find/Change panel? Most of the time this happens to me, my settings need to be adjusted (as Bill Silbert suggested).

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

In addition to my first post I should also point out that if you are searching through the entire document ("Document" is chosen in the "Search" pull-down menu) then make sure that there are no selected text frames. Also make sure that the first two icons under the "Search" pull-down are clicked on so that any locked layers will be included in the search. If you are searching through just one text frame then make sure it is selected and that "Story" has been chosen as the search parameter.

M

Milkrow

Known Participant

Bill, This is a great point and today I was experiencing the same issue and realized that the characters I was searching for were located on my "Parent Pages" and therefore, I needed to select the icon that included that location in my search. Voila, no more "Cannot find match." I suspect this is the isssue that most people are encountering and it likely doesn't require the spurious process of trashign your preferences file.

E

EricaSholycow

Inspiring

THIS! This is what happened to me! Thank you for mentioning this!

Bill Silbert

Correct answer

Community Expert

Try resetting your InDesign preferences. Hopefully returning your InDesign to its defaults will take care of the problem.

To do so on a Mac:

The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe InDesign” and the file called “com.adobe.InDesign.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files in this manner is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

G

GreyCatDot

Inspiring

OK, I am going to rant here.

It is disheartening that, no matter what the problem, trashing Preferences (an APPLICATION LEVEL dialog set) outside of the application is the offered answer (invariably, it is more complex than that and people start throwing out terminal-level adjustment and deletion suggestions, which most of us should not touch). Why are Prefs under Application if they can get attached to a document anyway if you can't save them WITH the document? So we have to lose ALL of our work spaces, KBSCs and other supposedly portable settings when a problem like this is SO specific to a certain panel? That can't still be the answer. There has got to be a way to fix that panel, style sheet, etc., without affecting the whole app through Prefs.

Sorry. This has been going on for decades.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Troubleshooting is usually a matter of eliminating the variables--in order of simplest to more complex. Resetting the prefs is one is the simplest things one can do and therefore one of the first steps. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be bugs and one would never need to reset their prefs. Unfortunately, that perfect world does not exist for any software.

(Workspaces are not part of the basic preferences, and you can back up your prefs and workspaces if you want to.)

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded