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Participant
March 29, 2020
Answered

InDesign text uneditable (not on a master)

  • March 29, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1225 views

Text is uneditable and text block has these odd dashed green lines extending off into infinity (see below). I'm not talking about the linked text block solid line. What is causing this problem? I updated InDesin after I began having this issue and that did not solve my problem. I'm operating on a Mac.  Thanks for any advise!

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Correct answer Laubender

Hi David,

The dashed lines point to anchored objects.

 

Seems that all the anchor characters are all before the word "Perhaps". Turn on viewing "Hidden Characters" to see the anchor special characters. You can verify that if you open the Story Editor window with keyboard shortcut Cmd + y after selecting the word "Perhaps". If you do not want any anchored objects just remove the anchor characters.

 

From my German InDesign 2020 where I created some text with four anchored objects before the word "Perhaps". Story Editor is open as well:

 

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

2 replies

LaubenderCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
March 31, 2020

Hi David,

The dashed lines point to anchored objects.

 

Seems that all the anchor characters are all before the word "Perhaps". Turn on viewing "Hidden Characters" to see the anchor special characters. You can verify that if you open the Story Editor window with keyboard shortcut Cmd + y after selecting the word "Perhaps". If you do not want any anchored objects just remove the anchor characters.

 

From my German InDesign 2020 where I created some text with four anchored objects before the word "Perhaps". Story Editor is open as well:

 

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

dwhicksAuthor
Participant
March 31, 2020

You were absolutely correct.

 

Thank you for the reply and advise.

 

David

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 30, 2020

Hi

A couple of questions:

  • When you turn on hidden characters, is there anything before the "P" in "Perhaps"? All the lines seem to point there.
  • In Story Editor, what do you see at that same spot? Can you edit the text there?
  • What do you see when you spin open the disclosure triangle for the layer?
    Is anything locked? Is anything on top of the text frame?
  • When you show the entire pasteboard, where do those lines end?

~ Jane

dwhicksAuthor
Participant
March 31, 2020

Jane,

Thank you for the reply! I didn't see this reply at first and just realized it was here when I received notification of Laubender's comment. It seems I had anchored objects elsewhere (four empty text blocks) that were causing the issue. Not sure how they ended up there but nonetheless when I removed them all was fine. I didn't think to turn on hidden characters. Thanks for that advise.

 

David

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 1, 2020

You're welcome, David. I'm glad it's sorted.

~ Jane