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Participant
Sep 11, 2026 4:36 PM UTC
Question

InDesign will not resize proportionally anymore. Other shortcut functions just stop working entirely..

A few weeks ago, my copy of InDesign’s tool features quit working with no clear indicator as to why. Proportional resizing of frames and text boxes no longer work, with or without touching the shortcut keys and their options. Holding option to duplicate objects no longer works, holding shift to draw straight and diagonal lines or gradients no longer works, as well as a couple other option/shift tool features I can’t think of at the current moment. 

I have tried resetting my preferences and deleting all of the files I can find on my Mac under Library and such, which did let this work for about a week. However, it is back to doing the same thing again.

I’m running the latest MacOS and Adobe Creative Cloud software versions. 2023 iMac M3.

    3 replies

    nik.m
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    Sep 23, 2026 9:44 AM UTC

    Hi ​@Kyle24708693ghs8, just wanted to follow up on this conversation to see if the suggestions helped. If not, please let us know and we’ll be happy to help further. 

     

    Thanks, 

    Nikunj  

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    leo.r
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Sep 11, 2026 5:06 PM UTC

    It can be a third-party app/utility that hijacked the Shift functionality in InDesign (as ​@Mike Witherell  has already mentioned earlier); see this reply for example:

     

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    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Sep 11, 2026 4:55 PM UTC

    Hi Kyle,

    What version of InDesign are you?

    You might experiment with resetting InDesign preferences in up to 4 different ways:

    Did you install some other new software a few weeks ago that might be asserting its own set of shortcuts?

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    Mike Witherell