Increase leading keyboard shortcut won't work - Indesign 15.0.1, MacOS 10.15.2

[nawest]

I've recently installed the latest Indesign on a new Catalina iMac and transfered my keyboard shortcuts from an old Mac. I've not tested them all yet, but those tested all appear to work okay apart from the increase leading one which simply refuses to work.

Most text shortcuts are a combination of Opt, Shift & Cmd plus another key stroke. In this case 'Decrease Leading' works correctly as Opt+Shift+Cmd+; but 'Increase Leading' will not work as Opt+Shift+Cmd+'

The context of all of them is set to 'text' and there are no other functions that use the same shortcut and therefore clash.

Why won't this particular shortcut work?

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Could you please check if you have an application by the name Webroot? If yes, please turn it off and then check again. If you don't have this application, please close all the other applications and reboot the Mac and then launch InDesign and check if it works or not. If it still doesn't work you can try resetting the preferences for InDesign and then set the shortcuts and check again. Please follow the steps below to reset InDesign preferences:

• Close all Adobe applications 
• Go to Locations:  
• ~/Library/Caches 
• ~/Library/Preferences 
• Rename Adobe InDesign and com.adobe.indesign to Adobe InDesign.old and com.adobe.indesign.old 
• Launch InDesign from the CC 

Disclaimer: Please note that resetting preferences will remove all the custom settings and InDesign will launch with default settings. This way all your old settings will be saved in .old folders and InDesign will recreate new folders with default settings.  

Regards

Rishabh

[nawest]

Thanks Risabh, I'll try that later. I'd really wanted a soluion which didn't trash all my preferences and involved me having to set everything up again.

[Barb Binder]

So those are custom shortcuts, NAWest?

The default shortcut to decrease leading is ⌥ + ↑; and the default to increase leading is ⌥ + ↓. They work fine on Catalina. What if you just restore the defaults for those two? They are much simpler shortcuts.

~Barb

[nawest]

Yes Barb, they're custom. In fact I think they were brought across a long time ago from QuarkXPress and have been used through many versions of Indesign. The problem is that there are quite a few text context shortcuts all in that area of the keyboard with similar key combinations that I've been using for years and that have become second-nature. I 'could' change and get used to a new way of working, but in all honesty, after all these years of them working fine, I question why I would need to.

[Barb Binder]

Hi NAWest:

I just loaded the Quark shortcuts via Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and I'm getting the same result as you. Decrease works, increase does not. 

I fully recognize the importance of not disrupting the workflow you have had in place for years but since this one keyboard shortcut is no longer working, your workflow is already disrupted. I recommend just resetting those two commands to the defaults (or to something else that works for you), leaving all the rest the way you like them, and then put post-it on your monitor to remind you that these two have changed. If you are like me, buy the time the glue dries up and the post-it falls off, you will have successfully made the transition.

~Barb

[nawest]

Thanks for that Barb

Well, it's a relief knowing it's not just me then! 

I think you're right that I'm going to have to assign different shortcuts, it's just annoying that I have to. What I don't know yet - is it just that one that isn't working or are there other keys that for no explicable reason refuse to be assigned shortcuts?

[Barb Binder]

What I don't know yet - is it just that one that isn't working or are there other keys that for no explicable reason refuse to be assigned shortcuts?

I don't know the answer to that question, nor do I know why this one shortcut isn't working. This is a user-to-user forum, where users try to help other users but don't normally have access to the behind-the-scene answers, and of course we can't fix anything. All we can do is offer our best advice on how to use the application as it is.

~Barb

[nawest · Accepted solution]

It was a long time ago now, but if anyone wants to know the solution to the problem:

Apple added a new default keyboard shortcut (accessibility I think) that overrode the InDesign one.

Once I'd removed this the InDesign shortcut started working again.