Eyedropper tool: how do I "escape" out of it?

[Roger Breton]

Suppose I have some text in a text frame, to which I applied local formatting. Now, I want to apply that same formatting to some other text that's also part of the same text frame. So while in Editing mode, I reach out for the Eyedropper tool in the toolbar: click on the characters that have the attributes I want to capture ("Source") and then click or select the characters to which I want to apply the attributes to ("Destination"). Easy as pie, right?

My question is: once I have applied the attributes to the "Destination" characters and I'm essentially done with the tool, how do I go quickly and easily back to "regular editing"? I confess in all my years of using InDesign, I never found a way to do this other than 1) press the ESC key, to exit out of Editing mode and then press the T key or simply doubli-click back into the Text frame where I want to resume work from.

Is there a "better" way? Or did I miss something grossly obvious all those years?

See? I have never found a keyboard shortcut to quickly losing the Eyedropper tool. This is such a productivity black hole...

Please don't suggest I use Styles... 

[Thunder-Lightning]

Don't you just click on 'V' to get the selection tool or 'T' for the text fool, etc. to get out of the Eyedropper tool?

[Roger Breton]

No, I can't do that: if I do that, InDesign thinks I want to insert the character "V" in the text.

[Willi Adelberger]

Click esc.

[Roger Breton]

Yes but it takes me out of "Editing mode": I want to continue editing the text!!

[Willi Adelberger]

1. Click esc
2. then click t.

[Willi Adelberger]

2. Or click twice with the selection tool into the text.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

But OP is doing those steps already...

[rob day]

No, I can't do that: if I do that, InDesign thinks I want to insert the character "V" in the text.

Hi @Roger Breton , One option might be to change the Eyedropper and Type Tool key commands to include a modifier, then when you have a text selection you can select the Eyedropper via the key command without deleting the selection. Click on the source, then return to the Type Tool with the modified Type Tool command. See Keyboard Shortcuts>Product Area>Tools.

The tool selection sequence could be scripted (scripts can be assigned a key command). With some text selected, this sets the current Tool to the Eyedropper, and listens for a selection change. With the destination text selected, run the script, click on the source text, then click back onto the destiantion text:

#targetengine "session"

var s = app.selection[0]
app.toolBoxTools.currentTool = UITools.EYE_DROPPER_TOOL;
app.eventListeners.add("afterSelectionChanged", getTypeTool);

function getTypeTool(e){
    app.toolBoxTools.currentTool = UITools.TYPE_TOOL;
    app.removeEventListener("afterSelectionChanged", getTypeTool);
    app.select(s,SelectionOptions.replaceWith)
}

Before and after run:

[Roger Breton]

You're on the right track, Rob, and I appreciate your script mastery and I would probably adopt your solution, especially now that I *know* this is something Adobe's engineers never thout about...