Having to organise palettes in Indesign CC2018 when opening each file

[caroline6505]

I'm finding that suddenly (since this morning) that I'm having to click on 'Window' in order to have things like tools, swatches, character styles, paragraph styles, (palettes) visible.  This is happening each time I open and close a new or existing document.  Can't see what the problem is after rummaging around in 'Preferences'.  On a separate issue, when selected paragraph spacing, I used to be able to type in the increment i.e. 1.5mm as opposed to using the up and down arrows – typing them in actually makes text disappear.  Weird and very irritating.  Suggestions appreciated.

[Derek Cross]

If Photoshop is suddenly behaving in a strange way, it probably worth resetting your Photoshop preferences, which you can do under the General tab in Photoshop preferences.

[Bill Silbert]

Derek, this is the InDesign forum but I agree that resetting preferences might be the solution here.

To reset preferences in InDesign:

For Macintosh Users: With InDesign closed Launch a Finder Window in column view and click on your home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the following two files and delete them: “Adobe InDesign” and “com.adobe.InDesign.plist”. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

For Windows Users: You can try the quick way of resetting on a PC which is to hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when launching InDesign and respond affirmatively when asked if you want to reset. There have been some recent reports that the window asking if you want to reset is not popping up but that the prefs are being reset anyway. If this works then great but if it doesn’t you may have to manually delete them.

To do so:

On Windows 7 and above the preference files are hidden. To find them go to the Control Panel and open Folder Options and then click the View tab. Then select “Show hidden files and folders” or “Show hidden files, folders or drive options” in Advanced Settings (you may be able to skip the previous steps with Windows 10). Then delete (or rename) the folder at the end of this path: C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\<Version #>\<Language> for any versions that you have. Make sure that InDesign is closed when you do this. When you relaunch the program it will create  new preference files and the program will be at its default settings. You should do this for any versions that are there. After deleting launch CC 2018, if the launch is successful, create and save a test file and then quit the program to “confirm” the preferences. It also may be a good idea to reboot your computer after this is done.

Once you relaunch the program you can begin customizing it to your liking.

After you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open), it is a really good idea to create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

[caroline6505]

Thanks for replyaing.

That's weird – it didn't work.

I'm using Indesign CC2018 v13.0 and running macOS Sierra v10.12.6.

[Derek Cross]

Upgrade to the latest version of InDesign, 13.0.1 to see if that helps.

[Barb Binder]

Hopefully, resetting preferences was all you needed. If not, please let us know, along with your exact version of InDesign CC 2018 and your operating system.

~Barb

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

Be sure to save your workspace after your arrange your panels.

Also, to reset prefs...

As soon as you click the Dock icon (Win: Taskbar icon), hold down the Cmd-Cntl-Opt-Shift keys all at once (Win: Cntl-Alt-Shift).

Generally, you don't have to dig around to simple reset the prefs.

Note: Most other programs use just the Cmd-Opt-Shift keys on the Mac.

[caroline6505]

Tried saving my workspace, but that did nothing.

Resetting my preferences by your suggested method worked a treat.

Many thanks.