How to Select Image Boxes in Latest InDesign Version

Thank you for asking this. It's a pain in the ass to have 2 frames with every image. I hope someone posts the answer here.

Hi @Noyster2:

First of all, no one should be version-shaming (or any flavor of shaming) here. This should be a safe place to ask any questions that some up, ranging from basic to advanced. There is an option to report any post that you find uncomfortable or offensive. Don't be afraid to use it.

Grouping is a work-around and I'm glad you have that option. Also play with auto-fit as seen in my video. (I have to be honest—I just read your post today and didn't review the whole thing, but how funny that I basically chose the same images a year previous for an earlier demo. I guess they are my favorites. LOL)

I am not expecting the Apple Store to find anything wrong with your MacBook, and I hope I caught you before you left.

I would expect that either there's another application interfering with your modifier keys in InDesign. Webroot is the most-frequently-cited  application, which is why I started there, but there are other applications that can cause issues. That's why restarting and not opening up any other programs can sometimes solve the problem for a bit.

The other thing to be aware of is that after an upgrade you may end up with corrupt preferences and that makes InDesign behave erratically. Here's a post that you can work through to see if one of these steps will resolve the issue.

https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-rebuilding-preferences-cache/

~Barb

Hi @Paul Raphael:

Selecting the image or the frame

Like Dave, aka @Dave Creamer of IDEAS, I'm a trainer and therefore explaining the Content Grabber is part of our daily lives. In my classes, I call it "the doughnut" and tell people to treat it like a real doughnut: don't touch it unless you really want it. If you leave it on, you just need to click anywhere else on the frame when you want the frame, and click the doughnut when you want the image. Once my students understand, they leave it on and pay attention to where they click. (The Content Grabber was introduced in InDesign CS5 in 2010—so not changed from CC 2014.)

Shift vs Control to multiple selections on the page

In an open InDesign project, (as well as in Photoshop and Illustrator) we use the Shift key to add to a selection—the Control key is used temporarily change to the Selection tool This has not changed.

If you want to select multiple frames in InDesign, hold the Shift key and click on as many as you like. Just avoid the doughnut! 

Visual differentiation between selected object and selected content

Frames have a default blue bounding box. Images have a default amber bounding box. This has not changed. When the frame and object are the same size, it is difficult to see the difference. Zooming in may help

Shift vs Control to multiple selections in a dialog box

This is different if you have a dialog box open and want to select multiple files: we use Shift click for consecutive selections and Control click for non-consecutive selections. This has not changed. 

Visual feedback for a multiple-frame selection

When you have multiple frames selected, a light blue box is visible around the selection. You can see which frames are actually selected by looking for their corner anchor points. InDesign now lets us adjust the interface scaling to match our vision. If you are struggling to the the anchor points around multiple selected objects, you can adjust the size in Preferences > User Interface Scaling. This is new!!

~Barb

@Paul Raphael if in doubt, use the 'Layers' panel and select your 'image box.' And if there are too many objects on your layers, you can cheat a little, and go to the 'Links' panel, select the image—Go to the hamburger menu—drop that open, and select 'Go to Link.' It would select the how image, so, unclick it and now you should easily re-select with the 'Selection Tool' 

If I understand you correctly, then you may want to disable the "Content Grabber" thing:

It's that circle in the center of the image frame that allows you to select the image without switching to the direct selection tool. I always disable content grabber. 

@Paul Raphael

Not sure on Mac but on Windows, double click on the "container" will select object inside - same as with TextFrames - double click will switch to text cursor.

Maybe your mouse is too sensitive? 

Again, on Windows, you can change sensitivity - set the delay before double click is triggered - maybe you can do the same on Mac?  

First observation, if you had an "old copy" around it was probably CS6, which is 15-odd years old. There have been some changes in small aspects of the UI since then, yes. (Swapping the two selection arrows, solid for outline, a few versions back, threw many.)

But unless there's some odd Mac Thing™ going on, selection hasn't changed. Selecting images with the Selection Tool (top arrow, outline) works the way it always has. If you click anywhere on the frame or outer band of the image, you get the frame. If you click on the selection circle in the center of the image — where the cursor changes to a hand — you get the image. (And if you click with the Direct Selection Tool, solid arrow, you always get the frame content or image.)

I'd infer you have a tendency to click around the center of image frames, and just need to retrain your methods to click anywhere else in the frame.