InDesign 21.4 Opens Topic Options Instead of Page Reference Options When Double-Clicking Index References

Forum|Forum|28 days ago
June 5, 2026
3 replies
63 views

I'm trying to edit a reference in the index, and it's not bringing up the option to edit the page range

Inspiring

Thank you! I had never seen the numbered page icon before (“page reference”). BTW, I have to double-click the topic name to get the popup.

The AI-generated information said:

Open your document and select Window > Type & Tables > Index to open the Index panel. [Shift+F8]
Click the Reference tab to work with individual page references.
In the preview area, locate and select the index entry you want to edit.
Double-click the entry or its page reference icon to open the editing dialog. [So I was double-clicking the entry, which brought up the Topic popup.]
Adjust the topic level, page range type, or cross-reference as needed.
Click OK to save your changes.

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

This seems like a UI error, compounded by an error in the documentation. I think it would be reasonable to expect that double-clicking on a reference when in the Reference tab would open up the Page Reference Options dialog, but it seems to open up the Topic dialog instead.

Furthermore, when I read the Adobe documentation, for most of these index features we’re directed to open the flyout menu on the Index panel. However, when discussing page reference options, the documentation does overtly say to double-click. That’s obviously incorrect. If you didn’t want to use the flyout menu (it feels to me like a lot of clicks and mousing for something that should really be just a doubleclick), you could also assign a keyboard shortcut to the Page Reference Options.

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

Did you look in the Type dropdown? That’s where the page-range options are:

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Author57,

Sorry to hear you're running into this issue. Could you please confirm the exact version of InDesign and your operating system details? To help rule out any preference-related issues, please also try manually resetting InDesign preferences by following the steps shown in the video at the bottom of this article and then test the behavior again:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html

After trying that, please let us know if the issue persists. If possible, a short screen recording showing the steps you're taking to edit the index reference and where the page range option is missing would also be very helpful for further investigation.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

Author57Author

Inspiring

I’m using InDesign 21.4x64, which I just installed a few days ago.

I’m running on Windows 11 Home version 25H2.

I’ve looked over the info on setting preferences and it does not seem applicable. The problem is that the pop-up window simply doesn’t have the option I need (or at least I can’t find it).

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