Can't type a question mark

[Stu Janis]

I'm editing an InDesign document created by someone else, and I'm unable to type certain characters, including ? @ # $ % ^. When I type a question mark (or any of the others), nothing happens. Other standard keyboard punctuation marks and special characters work fine.

Some of them seem to be keyboard shortcuts for applying styles. For example, if I type #, the paragraph style changes (and if I go to Edit > Undo, I see "Undo Style"), but if I search the keyboard shortcut set (Edit > Keyboard shortcuts - Show Set), Shift+3 comes up empty. (If I just search for Shift+ there are 186 instances.)

I am able to enter them through glyphs, but I'd really like to just type a question mark. Any ideas?

[Stu Janis]

Edit - In paragraph 1, when I said "nothing happens," I was referring to Notes mode, where I originally discovered the issue. In paragraph 2, I realized that in regular text mode, some of those characters appear to be undocumented keyboard shortcuts (at least in this document).

[Barb Binder]

Hi Stu:

Let's start by checking your Paragraph Styles panel. Are there Shift + numbers assigned as shortcuts? How about Shift+/? These are user-assigned, so you will not find them in the shortcut list. (Actually, check all of the styles panels: all can be assigned these keyboard shortcuts.)

~Barb

[Anselm Hannemann]

And the same for character (and other) styles.

[Stu Janis]

Thank you! Shift + the numbers between 2 and 6 are indeed assigned as paragraph styles. But no luck finding found Shift+/  in any of the paragraph or character styles.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

It sounds like we are on the right track. Check:

Window > Styles > Object Styles, Table Styles and Cell Styles too.

~Barb

[Stu Janis]

That did it!!

[Barb Binder]

Aha! Glad it was so straightforward. 

~Barb

[Anselm Hannemann]

Does copy/paste work for the characters in question? Which language are you using (keyboard shortcut sounds like English International but OS / InDesign preferences may differ) and the one who created the document — maybe a different language interferes here with other shortcuts?

Finally, which OS and hardware are you on — is this only happening in InDesign or maybe a hardware (keyboard) issue? I know it from Macbooks where keys break easily and resulted in very weird issues similar to your reported one.

I couldn’t reproduce easily any of your reported issues so I think it has something to do with custom shortcuts, or local/custom settings in InDesign or the Computer.

[Stu Janis]

I'm using US English, Mac OS 11.7.1. I have no trouble with question marks in any other application. The question marks in my original post was typed the usual way. It's been several years since I've used InDesign (I think the last time was 2020), and I don't remember having that trouble before. However, the documents I worked on back then may not have had any question marks.