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matthewe5262730
Participant
April 10, 2026
Question

InDesign: Artboard grays out when disconnecting/switching screens

  • April 10, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 7 views

When using inDesign my artboard goes blank (gray) when disconnecting from my Apple display and often when I open my disconnected laptop to resume work in an open InDesign document. This has been happening for years on a different combination of displays and laptops so it is an Adobe issue, not a me issue. It seems lots of users have been frustrated by the same defect and it boggles my mind that Adobe has failed to fix this bug. Yes, I know I can switch to CPU Preview.. it reminds me of that old Rodney Dangerfield joke “I went to the Doctor and said - Doc, it hurts when I do this. The doctor says - don’t do that.”

    1 reply

    Anubhav M
    Community Manager
    Anubhav MCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    April 10, 2026

    Hello @matthewe5262730

    I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Could you confirm the version of the OS/InDesign installed, and let us know if you encounter similar behavior with other Adobe apps on your device so we can better assist you? Also, try running InDesign under a different administrator account (macOS) and share your observations.

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Anubhav

    M
    matthewe5262730Author
    Participant
    April 10, 2026

    MacOS Tahoe (26.3)
    Apple Studio Display 27in
    InDesign 21.3

    To my knowledge this issue is unique to InDesign. I tried your request by running InDesign under a different admin account and got the same result. Specifically, when I disconnect from a display my Adobe window is still the size it was on the display, so I resize it to my laptop screen by double clicking the top bar. That’s when it grays out.

    Hope this helps.

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