Copy and Paste from Google Docs to InDesign Glitch

[leotraining]

Hello, 

When I copy and paste from google docs (text only) to InDesign the text initially appears and everything is fine. Then it just disappears and the color has changed on its own. The settings show it still set to the same color. Regardless the pasted text is not maintaining visibility after it's been pasted. (Screenshots are attached)

Is anyone else having this issue? I need a fix as I am on a publication of August 2nd.

I have been doing this method for over a year and I only recently run into this issue after the latest InDesign update.

Thanks in advance.

[Scott Falkner]

Are you using Windows or Mac? Is this only happening when you copy from Google Docs? Does it happen if you copy from another application or web page? Does this happen when you Paste, when you Paste and Match Style, or both? What happens if you save and close the file then reopen it? Finally, are you able to share the file so others can inspect it?

[leotraining]

Hi Scott,

I am on a Macbook Pro.

I've been continuing to mess around with it. It appears the text changing color and becoming invisible is not exclusively related to copying and pasting. If i close the InDesign file an reopen and just space out the text using the space bar it becomes invisible as well.

I do not see the paste and patch style option available in Edit>Paste.

This is the first time it's happened so I don't know if others can/cannot see the issue if the document is shared.

[leotraining]

If I click the frame outline to re-snap and adjust the size after I have copy and pasted the text reappears. Not sure what's going on with that but it re-snapping the frames seems to help. The odd part is these frames haven't changed in 12+ months...

[leotraining]

Screenshots. After copy and paste text disappears. Here is what it looks like with the text frame grid being snapped.

[Eugene Tyson]

Hard to know what's going on from that.

It might be the white text is set to overprint.

In InDesign go to Window>Attributes and with your select selected in InDesign see if the text is set to overprint.

https://helpx.adobe.com/nz/indesign/using/overprinting.html#:~:text=Choose%20Window%20%3E%20Output%2....

Other than that - we would probably need to see a sample of the files.

[leotraining]

It happens with any of the text. I have pages with a white background and black text as well. 

Happy to send over the Template file. Each month I use the template file to create our new issue and just copy and paste the text in. Images are added using the 'Place' function and over a frame.

[Eugene Tyson]

Great - send on both sample documents and we can have a look and see what's going on (google doc and indesign)

[leotraining]

Good Morning,

Is there an email address I can send you the InDesign template and share the google doc with? This is for a paid publication and I don't want to be posting these materials to the forum where there is open access.

Second, I think this is a glitch related to the latest update and that I have a Macbook Pro with the M1 Chip. After purchasing this new laptop about 4-6 months ago I've noticed more glitches on this particular piece of hardware. However, when I use the Adobe Creative Cloud on our iMac Desktop there are no issues.

Historically, when I would copy and paste text from google docs to InDesign it would just show up. If the amount of text was greater than the page size it would give an error. It still gives an error but now the text disappears as well. I uninstalled and re-installed Adobe InDesign this morning and it still had issues with it.

[leotraining]

Just checked. It's not set to overprint.

[Laubender]

Hi leotraining,

there are some discussions here in the forum where something similar is reported.

Could be a new bug with InDesign 16.2.1 and 16.3.2 on Mac OS.

Never saw this happen on my Windows machine.

It should help to enforce a recomposition of the text frame or the story.

Look for the keyboard shortcut for Recompose All Stories. There is no menu item for this.

Ah. Read this one, it's from 2009, but the keyboard shortcut should still work:

https://creativepro.com/force-text-reflow-when-indesign-forgets-to-flow-the-text/

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[leotraining]

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for the help. The keyboard shortcut seems to work on some pages and not others. No idea why.

I do believe this is a bug related to the M1 Chip and new updates 16.3.2 for MacOS. Hopefully this is resolved soon.

[Laubender]

Well, then go to InDesign UserVoice and report that:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs

Before, check if anyone else did already report the bug.

If done, please come back and post the URL of that report so that all reading this here can vote for fixing it.

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )