Participant

Answered

InDesign workspace window is off screen

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 11, 2020
27 replies
70641 views

I was using InDesign at work with my laptop connected to my fancy new superwide monitor. Then I came home and tried to open the same files on my laptop without the superwide monitor. The workspace windows are apparently opening up offscreen where I can't see or grab them. I've tried changing the resolution, but can't go small enough to pull the windows into view. I've done a lot of searches on the topic but nothing seems to help or reset the windows and all the solutions provided are from at least a year ago. Any other suggestions?

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Correct answer villainess

Sharing this particular solution in case it helps someone because this issue was driving me nuts. In InDesign 18.3 (2023), on Mac Studio, Mac Studio Display, the document window (left, bottom) is always off-screen when I open a file. I don't use the Application Frame because it constricts my workflow, but I did try toggling on and off. Didn't help. I can click the green button to make the window fit the entire screen, but if I try to adjust it smaller/narrower, it jumps off the screen again.
By accident (actually by a fit of anger TBH), I found that if I fit to screen and then grab that bottom right corner, I could then keep my mouse clicked-down and move in a counter-clockwise motion, with kind of a large circle, and the corner would follow and I was able to make the window not as wide. I like free-wheeling movable palettes that aren't stuck to anything, so I like to keep a small open section on the far right of my screen for palettes.
I know this is late, but this issue was so frustrating, and I was so happy to find a solution, I just wanted to add it here in case anyone else was looking for a solution to the same problem.

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J

Joshua28546881cp4y

Participant

Adobe, your standards are slipping.

I've had this problem for perennially a couple of years & thus differnt Mac Pro's, different OSs.

Having to change resolution in settings for my laptop is not an acceptable workaround.

Oh and your recent iterations of Acrobat Pro are also junk.

How about diverting some marketing $ into making your programs reliably work

shanehgrapeinc

Participant

Agree. So many workarounds for something that should never happen for any reason. I feel that Adobe does not test its software for users who don't use the application frame and who use a secondary monitor to store palettes. I have also noticed Acrobat Pro being bloated and slow. I don't use Bridge anymore because it takes to long to boot and has too many bugs.

M

M.258470710krd

Participant

Thank you, it worked!

M

Maggie26493256t70t

Participant

I tried everyone's suggestions. No luck. What worked for me, finally, was shutting everything down, disconnecting the remote monitor, and starting up again. When In Design opened it was all back again on my laptop screen.

C

Chacha26026417kw3w

Participant

Yooo..! Thank you Amy!

J

James247492492pah

Participant

I get this periodically. I have a two monitor setup. It happens when I move a wondwo from one monitor to the other nd the menubat get stuck under the mac os menu. You can barely see the document tab.

Here's the solution:
1) Turn on mirroring (display preferences)

2) Turn off mirroring

3) aximize your Indesign window to the screen (grren circle in menubar).

J

jenniferb7698875

Participant

In your Apple Menu (top) > System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar:

Menu Bar: Uncheck "Automatically hide and show the menu bar on desktop"
Resize the indd window
*Re-Check "Automatically hide and show the menu bar on desktop" in System Preferences if you choose.

deemwhy

Inspiring

Thanks, worked perfectly.

R

Rod5E1C

Participant

Try resizing the save window. Worked when Illustrator had the same issue.

D

defaultmnxhup2cb46m

Participant

Losing my mind with this problem, and just tried
Window > Workspace > Reset and it worked perfectly!

I

indesign permissions

Participant

OMG thank you! The doc window disappearing has been driving me insane and this is the only thing that worked!

K

kenm808

Participating Frequently

Finally. I was able to get a handle (two-way arrow) by floating the cursor over the right edge (My app panes push off to the left).

Then I was able to pull the width of my workspace until there was enought top bar to grab and recenter.

@Adobe. Again, please add a "Zoom" in window menu, like every other app on MacOS.

Barb Binder

Community Expert

@justinky_

The application frame is a Mac-only feature, designed to make InDesign on a Mac look like InDesign on Windows.

Try resetting your workspace: Window > Workspace > Reset XXXX, where XXXX=your saved workspace name.

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

J

justinky_

Inspiring

Thanks for the response. I am going to share my experience for those that have the same problem as I did. I wasn't able to look at any of my InDesign settings either since that dialog box also appeared off screen. I tried the following and none of them worked:

Changed resolutions of my screen
Reset resolutions to original
Connected my computer to a 4k monitor
Reset workspace
Changed workspace
Changed to original workspace
Closed InDesign
Shut down my computer

What finally worked was allowing the dialog box to open off screen. With the dialog box still open and displayed off screen, right click the Windows task bar and select cascade windows. This should bring all windows open into frame.

It would be nice if Adobe allowed us to click and drag dialog boxes from anywhere on the box, not just the top bar for this very reason.

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