First Baseline Offset problem (super weird)

Oh man... I can relate 🙂 After reinstalling Windows, the same issue occurred in all of my documents. Sure, changing the first baseline to "Cap Height" in all of the text frames fixes the problem (and you can do that easily in Find/Change > Object window), but with hundred of documents that would take an absurd amount of time.

After searching for the solution, this blog post gave me an idea: https://indesignsecrets.com/understanding-the-first-baseline-position-of-text.php

This sentence to be exact: "<setting the first baseline offset to Ascent> ensures that the top of a lowercase letter fits inside the frame. Exactly how far below the top of the frame varies, depending on the font you’re using. Some will be dead on. Others, not so much."

The solution (in my case) turned out to be the font, I had installed some different version of the font I've used previously (Roboto) and these two versions were different when it came to the "first baseline" value. After finding the most recent font and reinstalling it, all the files behaved as expected.

Hope it helps someone, cheers.

You know what, it is an issue with that original frame. Recompose the document, and it fixes itself.

Mac: Cmd Opt /

Win: Ctl Alt /

We talk a lot on the forum about InDesign misbehaving because of corrupt preferences, and less about the files themselves. This was a file issue, specifically with that frame.

If she switches to "cap height" but leaves the entry as 0px it fixes the problem. But she would have to change the "Ascent 0px" setting to "Cap Height 0px" setting for every single text frame.

Have you checked if the Object styles for the source and destination documents are the same?

Object Styles work the same as Paragraph and Character styles, if you copy and paste text and the destination has a style with the same name, the pasted source text will be updated to the destination's styling.

So if you copy a text frame with the [Basic Text Frame] object style assigned from document A and paste it into document B where the definition of the [Basic Text Frame] style is different, the B document's object style will be used.

The other thing to look at – and I believe you've already checked this – is to see if the Baseline Options (Object > Text Frame Options) are identical for the 'original' frame and the 'pasted' frame.

• If you select a text frame with the Selection tool, then Copy and Paste it, these settings should NOT change.
• However if you select the text with the Type tool, then Copy and Paste a new text frame is created as you paste the text, and in that case the Baseline Options will be whatever the default are for the the document in which you paste.

I believe you have the right idea in thinking it is related to baseline grid somehow. 

If there is any type of alignment to baseline grid, copying and pasting a frame with text that is aligned to a baseline grid will show some displacement of text IF the vertical position on the page (Y coordinate in Control panel) OR baseline settings vary between the two documents.

Other things to check:

Check document baseline grid

• InDesign also has a document based baseline grid, check that the settings for that in both documents are identical:
  Preferences > Grids
  

Is the text set to align to baseline grid?

• With the Type tool select the first paragraph, at the bottom of the Paragraph panel menu check to see if Align to Baseline Grid is enabled.
  
  
  

Is first line aligned to baseline grid?

• Select first paragraph, and in the Paragraph panel menu check to see if Only Align First Line to Grid is selected.