InDesign - text threads, text frames & text flow problem

[KA bygg]

Hi,

I'm using InDesign CC and I have a strange problem: when I make another text frame with text flow tool and I select any text frame with black arrow tool, all options in type panels (character, paragraph...) are grayed out, and the wrong font is displayed (grayed out) in character panel. But, when I double click the frame (or choose text tool) I can see the right options for the selected text.

Never experienced this before on older versions. Very frustrating, is it a bug or am I doing something wrong?

[Colin Flashman]

If I'm reading your post correctly, are you saying that when you select a text frame with the black arrow tool, the options in either the character or paragraph panels are greyed out? However, if you double click the frame (so that the text tool is now selected) then you can see the correct options for the text where the cursor is?

I can replicate this, but I believe this is an expected behaviour rather than a bug. To make sure that this isn't specific to CC2019, I looked for videos of this behaviour in other versions, and found that the behaviour remains the same in CS5: Placing and Formatting Text in Adobe InDesign - YouTube

If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Very frustrating, is it a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Threaded text frames have always worked the way you are describing. You can globally format all the text in a single text frame, by selecting the frame itself, but not when there is more than one frame in a thread. Double clicking a threaded frame actually changes the tool to the Text tool, and selects an insertion point, and not the frame itself.

Here’s CS6 with one frame in a thread selected. The Character panel shows my document’s default character specs

After deleting the other frame(s) in the thread:

[KA bygg]

I did some research and it seems that it only works with single, unthreaded text frames. I could have sworn I did it before with multiple frames.

Thank you all for your replies!

[rob day]

I think the logic is you could have threaded frames starting on page one and continuing on page 100. You wouldn’t want to accidentally change the specs of the text inside the page 100 frame by editing the frame on page 1—you have to explicitly select all of the text in the thread with the Text tool to do that.