After upgrade, some last lines in frame get pushed to next frame, others not, exact same formatting

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Hi!

I have a weird problem. I have a book that was made in CS5, everything was fine. I now work in the most recent version of Indesign and strange thigs start happening. Within the flow, sometimes InDesign acts like there is no space for the last line. But in most other cases, there is.  Sometimes even within the same frame between two columns. It happens a LOT, so my whole formatting is scr!%ed.

• The styling is the same for all text; both paragraph styling and text styling.
•  The text is Aligned To Baseline Grid
• If I make the frame just a bit larger (draw the bottom border a bit lower), the text reappears into the frame again. However, images aligned to the frame will move too, so not ideal, plus I have 500+ pages.
• The previous also proves that it is NOT a "keep" option matter, but a "ID thinks text does not fit on this line" feature/bug?!
• There will be a blue # sign on the empty last line even thought it is NOT the end of the flow. What's with that?
• If there is a newline after the line (end of pargaraph) this does happen WAY LESS then if the line continues in the next frame.

You would say that some letters in the font (same font as in CS5) is just a bit higher for some letters than others, but the point is, I really have to drag the bottom of the frame quite a few millimeters down, so that seems strange (and I have no clue if that is even a thing).

(paragraph has plenty of lines left in the next frame, it is NOT a keep setting)

Any idea why this is happening and how to prevent it?

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

PS. In the example, if I end the 2nd paragraph with the exact same text and the exact same formatting the "bug" still happens. So my already weak theory about some characters being "longer" is overboard.

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi QQleQ Dramaprodukties,

Sorry for the trouble. A few more details would be super helpful to investigate the issue.

The version of InDesign and the details of your operating system.

Does that happen with all files or with this specific file?

Have you tried copy pasting the content into a new file and see if that works?

We will try our best to help.

Thanks,

Harshika

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Hi, thanks for askig.

I'm working with the latest version, very recently downloaded. 19.4 x64 for Windows. It happens both in W10 and W11. 

For now I have only had the issue with one file but it is the only file I have until now actively worked on since converting from CS5. With copy pasting, do you mean copy pasting only text or literally everything?

[Peter Spier]

Unfortunately this is expected behavior when moving a document to a newer version. Text engines get updated and this can cause reflow.

The best thing you can do is use the Recompose All Stories command (Ctrl [Cmd] + Alt [Opt] + \) to force a recompose so you don't get a surprise down the road (putting a cursor in a text frame that was not already recomposed will cause that one to reflow which can cause major surprises late in editing stories that were not previously changed) and then go through the whole document looking for things that need to be fixed. This is one reason NOT to move a large project to a new version.

Your errant end of story marker sounds like you might have a second empty frame on the page, but without seeing the file one can only guess.

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Thanks for your response. In another chapter I started working in, it suddenly started happening too. This means your theory on reflow seems to fit.

There is no second empty frame, it occurs in frames in one column, with two columns both in column 1 and column 2, and in any frame on any position as soon as the empty line thing happens.

For now I choose to lengthen all frames where this happens on with a few mm... a very bad solution but I have a deadline and for now I see no other solution.

I will do the recompose all before working, thank you for the useful tip, to prevent more damage from happening.

[Peter Spier]

recompose doesn't "prevent" damage, it forcesa it to happen all at once so you are looking for it.

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Exactly, and thus prevents damages from unforseen reflows.

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties · Accepted solution]

I found the problem. The rogue #'s turn out to be empty footnotes. (That was not easy to find since they don't show up in layers, they are no separate objects and so you cannot select them.) My designer, 12 years ago, used the footnote numbering in the main text by creating empty footnotes. He did not use the Indesign footnotes themselves since they are far too limited for his design. So he used an anchored textbox for creating and styling the footnotes.

Now in the new Indesign those empty footnotes take up space, which they didn't in CS5.  That's the blue # and that's why SOME columns/frames now have an empty last line and others don't: pushed to the next frame because of the space the empty footnote takes

But now I may have pinpointed the problem, I still have no solution. I've tried to create a zero height paragraph style for the footnotes. It doesn't work. it seems to be impossible to create a zeor height paragraph. (Is it?)  I think I will have to convert each of all 178 footnotes over 15 files manually into an endnote and leave out the empty endnotes when converting to pdf. (Need to do that manually since "convert all footnotes to endnotes" always gives the same error: "There are no footnotes to convert. Check the selection and try again." no matter if I select all footnotes or all text or nothing at all.) I don't want to convert to manual numbering for obvious reasons: the risk it will go wrong.

You people any ideas? All my problems would be away if I could make the footnotes zero height but I don't think that is possible. Obviously manually converting all footnotes to endnotes is not something I am happy about, but I don't understand the error I am getting and Google gives nada on the error text. (Might be because I am translating from Dutch.)

I appreciate your thoughts.

[Peter Spier]

zero height is not an option, but try making the paragraph style with a very tiny vertical scale value on very small type and a leading of 0 (not tested here).

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

zero height is not an option, but try making the paragraph style with a very tiny vertical scale value on very small type and a leading of 0 (not tested here).

By @Peter Spier

Unfortunately, for some reason, even 0.1pt, 1% vertical scale, etc. - Footnote ALWAYS take some vertical space.

I wanted to use it for my own use - but then bottom of the TextFrame would've to be extended beyond the margin - or even edge of the page if you have a lot of hidden Footnotes.

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Yeah, in priciple good one. Thanks. It was the fiirst thing I did, but I still need to extend the frame to not have the last line empty when there is an empty footnote., just a bit less 😄

[Mike Witherell]

While you are making tiny footnotes, make sure to check Footnote Options to be sure space between footnotes is 0 also.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

While you are making tiny footnotes, make sure to check Footnote Options to be sure space between footnotes is 0 also.

By @Mike Witherell

Unfortunatey, like I've said before - it doesn't matter - 0.1pt, 1% Vertical scale, 0 leading:

It's always 3 points:

[QQleQ Dramaprodukties]

Thanks! I did.