How to Select Image Boxes in Latest InDesign Version

[Paul Raphael]

I used InDesign professionally, every day of my life, from v.1 through 2014. I've gotten out of design and print production, but have kept an old copy for random use and access to my old files. Just last month I upgraded to an Apple Silicon Mac, and so got the latest Creative Cloud apps. 

I'm finding the current InDesign SUPER annoying to use. When I try to grab certain elements, particularly picture boxes, it seems to be completely random if the cursor grabs the frame or the content. I'm always using the top arrow (item selection tool). This used to be enough to guarantee that I'd grab the whole item and not the enclosed image. But no longer. 

Is there a setting that can restore the old (logical) behavior? Has Adobe's UX team, in its cruel efficiency at tormenting its users, added an arbitrary step here? Please help. 

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[James Gifford—NitroPress]

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.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@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?  

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Good point, and again it's sort of bilateral:

• Click in the outer frame area, select frame.
• Click in the center of the frame/image, select image/content.
• Double-click on outer frame area, select image.
• Double-click in center area, select frame.

OP is not exactly wrong, here. It is an unnecessarily fussy system. I don't usually have selection problems but working this through has clarified some occasional annoyances.

[leo.r]

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. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Or, just don't grab the image in the middle with the Selection tool. Anywhere else but the "donut hole" will move it.

[Paul Raphael]

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

This helps, thank you.

After playing around, the deeper problem is just that Adobe has broken some basic UX conventions. When you select multiple boxes, the visual feedback that the boxes are selected is more subtle than it used to be. So it can give the impression that you're de-selecting the first box, and selecting the content in all of them. 

Shift-clicking and command-clicking used to follow standard UX conventions. Now only shift-clicking works, and it works the way command-clicking should work. 

There's very little visual differentiation between selected object and selected content.

I'd understand changes to these conventions if they brought with them new capabilities (maybe ...) but here they just took something standardized and made it annoying.

[katherines64682277]

Thank you! It's been driving me crazy.

[creative explorer]

@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' 

[Barb Binder]

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

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I have to say I agree with the OP more than just on the technical aspects. I am a very long-time user of ID, I have organized and meticulous work habits, I strive to learn and standardize my techniques... and despite knowing the basic "don't touch the donut" rule I am forever fumbling around with object selection in ID. There's something just this -><- much off about its implementation that throws me despite experience and knowledge.

[Paul Raphael]

Thank you for speaking up. 

It's possible that I'm misidentifying some of the technical details that have changed. But what's clear is that when I used older versions of ID, I never had to learn these behaviors to begin with. The behaviors and feedback were intuitive based on longstanding UX conventions. Now something about them is counterintuitive.

Over the years I've had my share of ID UX complaints, but this didn't used to be one of them.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...]

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

[...]

By @Barb Binder

The part about blue color isn't entirely correct.

Color of the selection depends on the color of the Layer the object is on:

 and in case of multiple objects selected - it will be the color of the top most Layer / first on the list - that any of the selected objects is on:

For the contents - "complementary" colors are used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RGB_color_wheel.svg

[Barb Binder]

Default, Robert. 

In my professional experience—training new users on InDesign for 24 years—If a user is new enough to InDesign (or in this case, hasn't used InDesign for quite some time) to not recognize the difference between the frame bounding box and the image bounding box, they likely aren't using custom layers yet. Perhaps your experience working with new users is different, but that's my observation.

~Barb

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Barb Binder

At no point I'm questioning your expertise or experience.

I just thought, that extra clarification won't be overwhelming to anyone - but rather helpful for future readers. 

[Paul Raphael]

That is helpful, but I'm still annoyed that they've made the interface less untuitive. 

I'm about as far from a new user as is possible. This interaction feedback was a non-issue for me back when I first made the jump to ID v1 from Quark. The most recent ID version I've used (before the one I'm complaining about) was from 2018. That was effortless also. 

[Noyster2]

Greetings, hive mind. I feel the OP's pain.

I've been using INDD constantly in the most updated versions for decades—and this is still an intermittent issue with me. See my video below where I'm trying to resize images at the same time. In addition to using the solid selection tool, I am marquee-ing over the images to ensure both the frame and the content is selected. I then hold down the COMMAND & SHIFT keys and.... argh. 

I seem to remember somthing like this happening a few years ago--I am trying to rememeber how I solved it.

Going to restart my computer now and see if that makes a difference.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Noyster2:

Nothing has changed—select the images as as per your video, and either hold Cmd+Sh to resize –OR– enable Auto-Fit. I'm showing both in that order, followed by Undo in 2025 (v 20.3.1, macOS 15.5).

Auto-fit will aways work, but if the shortcuts stop working, check to see if you have Webroot installed. It interferes with InDesign's shortcuts. They have instructions on their website to disable the problem and I can give you that link you need it.

~Barb

[Noyster2]

Thank you for your response, even though it is not solving my problem, it confirms that my INDD is not operating as expected.

hold Cmd+Sh to resize

That is exactly what I am doing in my video. I then try to select only the frame, sucessfully, and to select the image, sucessfully—but am unable to select both, even with just one image. Using auto-fit (if it is what I think it is) would work, but slow down my workflow.

I was mostly posting this to let the OP know that others were having similar issues. Some of the responses (not yours) seemed dismissive—version shaming if you will. LOL.

I do remember in the past that launching other programs before Adobe Apps can lead to them hijacking the key commands. I'm also having intermittent problems with my system/apps/some combo of the two. I will report back if I find anything interesting.

Thanks again for your response. I'll keep an eye on your posts for pro-tips!

[Noyster2]

I've found if I group the images they will resize properly.

Heading to the Apple store shortly to see if there is an issue with my MacPro.

[Barb Binder]

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

[Juli29103116ip7t]

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.

[rob day]

It's a pain in the ass to have 2 frames

Hi @Juli29103116ip7t , The reason for the container frame is to easily crop the image—no need to make a masking frame:

The (white) Direct Selection tool directly selects the image, making it easy to move the image in its masking frame. The (black) Selection tool selects the container frame for easy image cropping