Text disappears when editing, pasting or updating file

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 13, 2022
4 replies
2104 views

I had to edit a 168 page book after printing the first draft professionally. I changed the font and like two thirds of the text just disappeared. To cut it short, after reading similar topics I downgraded my InDesign 17.4 version to this 17.2.1 to no solution. I am currently trying to work with the graphic house pro's (I have a delivery date) and the same happens with them. We have stripped the original doc text from its images, changed from Bookman Old Style to Times to Arial for different outcomes - it shows from 39 to 42 to 113 pages but never the original 168. I use Mac 11.6.8. In July I printed a draft, in September I am restarting my job from SCRATCH and yet it doesn't work. This a critical issue for me. It's my third book and the previous one were full of images, colour and very different shapes. This is a straightforward Penguin like book.

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Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

To add to others - switch to text cursor, place it somewhere in the text, then Ctrl+A (on PC, don't know how it would be on a Mac - but I'm talking about "select all"), then Ctrl+C (copy) then switch to text editor and Ctrl+V (paste) - this way you can quickly check if all the text is there.

To fix your text in InDesign:

1) check all the CharStyles and ParaStyles for NoBreak option - as suggested by @Scott Falkner - turn the option off,

2) clear all overrides in the text.

PedroSutterAuthor

Participant

Thanks to all the replies. My graphic editor sorted this out by manually pasting chunks of text. We thought maybe the doc file was corrupt or because it had images that I deleted (so to have a pure text file), which didn't help at the end and also didn't make sense since I already had processed the same file before to job completion. Now I have the new Indd file with the new font, updated text (now with 201 pages from the previous 168) but need to totally redesign the book. I hope it doesn't delete the text again. Then I will try once more those tweaks. Mind you this issue has also happened on this guy's Indd programme, on a professional facility, loads of printers purring all around. Since he deals mostly with pdf files ready for printing that wasn't an issue but he was startled with this situation. Fingers crossed now. Thanks all for such prompt replies.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

I assume the text affected is threaded and all one story. If so, export the text as text to see if any is missing. I predict none is missing. So the issue has something to do with formatting. My first suspect is either text with no break or keep options that make it impossible to continue.

For example: say someone was unsatisfied with how the text was breaking so they applied the No Break character attribute to a length of text to make sure it didn’t have an unwanted line break. Now change the font and that length of text is now wider than the column is which it is to appear. InDesign will force the text to find the next available text fame with enough width for it. If no such text frame exists in the story the text is never set, along with any text following it.

Think of it like this: A simple robot is programmed to pack groceries. Take an item, see if it will fit in the current bag, if it fits put it in then move to the next item. If it doesn’t fit close the current bag and start a new bag. See if current item fits in the current bag. Now let’s give it a large bag of toilet paper. The robot will continually grab a bag, see the TP won’t fit, close the bag, then try a new bag. the TP will never be bagged, along with whatever is behind the TP.

Kevin Stohlmeyer

Community Expert

Can you supply screen shots of before and after the font change?

Assuming this is all one reflowing text frame across multiple pages.

What happens if you select a text frame and go to Edit>Story Editor - is all the text there?

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

[Moderator moved from Using the Community forums to InDesign.]

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

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