Inspiring

Question

ID 21.0.2 changes window sizes when documents are already open

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
December 7, 2025
3 replies
2657 views

This behavior appears to be new in InDesign 21.0.2. In earlier versions, when InDesign was open with a document and you opened another document, the application window did not resize; the new document opened in a new tab within the same window.

In InDesign 21.0.2, if you have a window open with a document you are working on and then open another document, the window’s width suddenly expands to accommodate the new document. If your InDesign window is sized just wide enough for the current document and positioned on the right side of the screen so you can work with other applications simultaneously, the window now stretches far beyond the right edge of the screen. As a result, you may only see the left edge of the newly opened document. If the window size remained unchanged, the new document would be visible centered within the existing window.

Users size their windows to meet their needs. InDesign shouldn't override that and think it knows a better window size.

Bug

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the detailed reports and examples shared here. I've been able to reproduce this behavior on my end, and I'm currently checking it with the product team for further review. I'll share an update here as soon as I hear back from them.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

Abhishek

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for all the detailed reports, screenshots, and recordings shared here. I wanted to provide a quick update. This behavior has now been confirmed as an issue, and a bug has been logged with the product team for further investigation.

In parallel, there is also a UserVoice entry for this behavior. I'd encourage you to upvote it, add your comments, and follow it to stay informed about any updates or changes related to this issue:
https://adobe.ly/45oI9dv

Your feedback and examples have been very helpful in identifying and validating this problem.

I'll continue to share updates here as they become available. Thanks for your patience.

Abhishek

D

danielv87901415Author

Inspiring

This is a very critical bug for me. I tried going to https://adobe.ly/45oI9dv to give feedback, but it looks like I have to create a new user account there for indesign.uservoice.com and can't use my Adobe account to give feedback there? This is the type of bug that makes me want to quit using Adobe products. What I don't understand is how this bug made it through QA review for InDesign 21. This bug is something that is so basic to how MacOS apps work going all the way back to the late 1980s when the first Macs were released. How does a bug like this happen in 2025?????

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @danielv87901415,

Thanks for flagging this. I can totally understand how disruptive this behavior is. To help investigate further, could you please confirm whether you're also using macOS(as @Olivier Beltrami confirmed) for this setup? It would also be super helpful if you could share a quick screen recording showing exactly what happens when you open a second document, and the window resizes itself.

Also, please confirm if an external monitor is involved in the setup where the issue appears.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

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danielv87901415Author

Inspiring

Hi Abhishek,

I am using macOS Tahoe 26.1 on a MacBook Pro M4 Max. There is no external monitor involved. I have attached three screenshots.

The first screenshot shows InDesign with the window sized the way I prefer when working on card layouts. Most of my InDesign documents are small, and I do not need InDesign in full-screen mode because I need to keep other applications visible on the same screen.

The second screenshot shows what happens when I open another document. The InDesign window is resized to approximately full-screen width, but its position remains unchanged, causing it to extend far off the right and bottom edges of the display.

The third screenshot shows the resized InDesign window after I moved it to the left so its full size is visible. The window spans the full width of the screen and extends below the bottom of the display.

It appears that InDesign assumes that, because I am running Tahoe, the menu bar is hidden and that windows should expand to fill the entire screen. However, I cannot work effectively with Tahoe’s translucent, auto-hiding menu bar, so I have it set to always be visible. InDesign does not seem to take this setting into account.

That said, the ideal behavior for me would be for InDesign not to resize open windows at all, and to remember the window size when I quit the application so that I do not need to resize it repeatedly. I did not experience this behavior in InDesign 20.

Olivier Beltrami

Legend

This behaviour also occurs with version 20 (InDesign 2025). I just spet a weekend working with ID 2025 and everytime I opened another document, the ID windows would expand for no reason.

And don't get me started on the need to reselect the "advanced" Workspace everytime (yes, I know, you can create you own workspace and assign a keyboard shortcut, but these are usually overidden by the app within a couple of days, so I have given up).

D

danielv87901415Author

Inspiring

Interesting. I know I was having the issue with InDesign 20 when it first came out, but for sometime Window sizes hadn't been changing just because I opened another document. But with 21 it's a constant headache. InDesign 21 has the desire to take over your whole screen. Most apps remember the size of your windows when you close them and reopen them to that size again. InDesign doesn't care what you want. It does it own thing when it comes to Window sizes.

Olivier Beltrami

Legend

Actually, I always maximize InDesign, and what it kept doing was to un-maximize it to whatever window size was there before. I never bothered to reset the non-maximized size and see if that stuck. I'll try that next time.

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