InDesign CS4 - Save, Save As grayed out

[Guest]

Hi all,

I'm using InDesign CS4 on an older Mac, and just yesterday the program's Save and Save As menu options started showing up grayed out in the dropdown.

The only way I can save files is to close the document; it asks me if I want to save, I say yes, and then it saves.

Any idea what's causing this or how to fix it?  I did a search and other people have have this problem with CC etc., but the upshot from that seemed to be "you can't fix it."

Thanks!

[Bill Silbert · Accepted solution]

Try trashing your InDesign preferences and cache files.

To Trash preferences on a Mac:

The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe InDesign” and the file called “com.adobe.InDesign.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files in this manner is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can 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.

To delete cache files:

Use the same process as above to get to the User library folder and within the Library folder find the “Caches” folder. Within the Caches folder find and delete the entire folder “Adobe InDesign”. I find that deleting the InDesign cache folder completely leads to a lasting change.

[Guest]

Thanks, Bill! That worked 🙂

[Bill Silbert]

Happy to help.