First character of story editor and Notes panel displays incorrectly

[Document Geek]

In both the Story Editor and the Notes panel, the first character displays incorrectly. It doesn't matter what font I choose. It has been this way for along time, but I don't see this in other people's screenshots of their Story Editor panels. Any ideas?

[Jongware]

It's overlaid with the Not In This Font! character. I see several other occurrences as well, not just at the start of each line. Could there be an invisible character in front in your regular text? You might see the text cursor stutter if you move over it.

[Document Geek]

Nope, there are no invisible characters. What's so weird is that it is dependent upon the width of the story editor window, not where the text sits in the text frame.

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

Yeah that screams "bug! bug!" There are no characters that move along with a resizing text window.

Updated to 2018 recently?

[Document Geek]

Not yet. I need to. But my operating system is apparently too old, so I need to update that as well. But not in the middle of a bunch of big projects... Perhaps updating to 2018 will fix it...

[amaarora]

Hi,

No such bug is fixed with CC2018.

Please report it here Adobe InDesign Feedback so that it can be prioritized correctly for fixing it in coming releases

Yes this character which looks like a missing glyph sumbol comes in both story editor and notes panel. I have seen it mostly in InCopy though. Within InDesign it occurs often when working with story editor for tables...

-Aman

[Document Geek]

Oh, apparently I already did: story editor – Adobe InDesign Feedback

Will you vote for this?

[Steve Werner]

Very strange. I look at the Story Editor pretty frequently in CC 2017 and CC 2018 and I don't think I've ever seen that missing glyph symbol. It may be hard to pin down.

[Document Geek]

The strange this is that it also happens on the other computer in my office... My assistant's computer.

[Jongware]

Kelly, is it related to the Story Editor font? Or do you see it with all fonts?

[Document Geek]

Font choice doesn't matter. This is Proximo Nova.

[amaarora]

Hi,

It is not a missing glyph(not sure though) symbol. It just looks like one. Since this symbol which looks like a missing glyph symbol does not change with font it is hard to categorize it as a notedef glyph(Havent explored changing the story editor font though)

Shows up frequently when opening story editor to work on a table cell

-Aman

[Laubender]

Hi Aman,

I had this symbol showing up in several versions of InDesign.
I thought this was fixed with CC 2017.1.

See here:

Re: Strange icons appear in file - how to get rid of them?

Hm. Just tested a Note object and a table with the latest CC 2018 version and indeed there is an issue.

I can see it in the Notes Panel:

I can see it extensively in the Story Editor Window:

So the bug is back…

Regards,
Uwe

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

This has been driving me nuts for a week. Windows is fine, it only appears on a Mac. I'm running InDesign 13.1 on OS 10.13.4.

As far as I can tell, freshly-created documents are OK; the weird grey symbols only appear when I insert a table, and immediately appear when I do. The following screenshots are taken from from new document created just after trashing preferences:

I insert a table and Bingo! — there they are again:

After resizing the Story Editor window, the symbols stay on the left:

Jeremy

[Document Geek]

So glad to find out what triggers it! I have wondering for years. Apparently Adobe says they've fixed it> See the discussion here: story editor – Adobe InDesign Feedback

[Laubender]

Hi Jeremy,
just to be clear on this: In the moment you are adding a table that strange character is back?
Or was this table pasted from a legacy version document opened with CC 2018.1 ?

Regards,
Uwe

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

Everything brand new, nothing pasted in. Just "Insert Table" with the Story

Editor open (& invisibles turned on, of course).

[amaarora]

Hi,

Yes we have fixed this issue.

Maybe the bug is still reproducible under certain scenarios.

To help us narrow down, please try out the following...

1. Clean both InDesign cache and preference filesTroubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences

2. Work on a new document

3. Recheck that the version of InDesign is 13.1

If you still face the issue please let us know...

-Aman

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

I get the bug immediately after trashing preference files and creating a new document. But I don't know how to clear the InDesign cache.

[Laubender]

Hi Jeremy,

I recently trashed preferences and cache of InDesign CC 2018.1 13.1.0.76.

And I can see the issue as you described it here!

Maybe I should reinstall InDesign without migrating preferences from previous versions of InDesign?

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

Laubender  wrote

… Maybe I should reinstall InDesign without migrating preferences from previous versions of InDesign?

Just did this. But something's went wrong. InDesign migrated old preferences from version CC 2017.1 and I did not tell it to do that.

And of course I still can see the issue Jeremy is seeing…

Regards,
Uwe

[amaarora]

Hi Uwe,

Yes we are aware of a scenrio wherein InDesign migrates preferences on upgrade even when asked to not do so... when updating via Creative Cloud application.

@Jeremy:Please help us reproduce this issue with some concrete steps/videos.

-Aman

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

Hi Aman,

Here's what I just did:

I cleared the cache, trashed preferences, and then uninstalled InDesign.

Then I deleted any files I could find whose filename mentioned "InDesign" in my Users>myname>Library>Caches folder, in my Users>myname>Library>Preferences folder, and in my Users>myname>Library>Preferences>Adobe folder.

Then I did a restart of my Mac.

Then I re-installed InDesign. Then opened it for the first time. I chose "Create new...", "Letter" size by default, then in the new document used the text tool to drag a new text frame, and wrote a line of text, followed by a paragraph return.

I opened the Story Editor by pressing cmd+Y, made hidden characters visible with alt+cmd+I, and all seemed well up to that point.

Then from the menu at the top I chose Table>Insert Table..., accepted defaults, and: there are those weird symbols again!

If I get time tomorrow, I'll try this after a clean install of Mac High Sierra (I do this quite often, so it's no big deal to me).

Best wishes — Jeremy

[amaarora]

Hi,

Thanks for the information! 

We will try at our end and then update the thread with our findings...

I dont think doing a restore of OS would help solve the problem for you, and you might as well not do it.  Clearing cache and preferences and doing a fresh install of InDesign simulates the same environment.

-Aman

[tlmurray23]

The problem went away for a while (my post below) but it's back. I can post a note only via the method I mentioned of loading the clipboard and pasting into a new note the instant after it popped up.