My tools palette has disappeared

[rudykathie]

To say I am a novice at InDesign would be to insult most novices.  But I do put out a decent product knowing just what I need to know and bumbling my way through the rest.

So today I am working and suddenly my tools palette disappears.  I closed the program, waited a bit, and then restarted it.  It is still missing.  I rebooted my maching (Win7).  No tools palette.  I went back to another project hoping I did something on this project that made it disappear and it would show up elsewhere.  Nope.

I though that maybe it was just missing from my screen so I made the screen smaller (seeing lots of pages) hoping it had slid all the way to the left.  Nope.

Nothing I do seems to bring it back.  Of course I first went into Windows and there it was checked.  I unchecked it and shut down.  Started up again and it had remained unchecked.  I checked it and my page shifted a bit to the right but still no tolls palette.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks,

Kathie

[Stix_Hart · Accepted solution]

Try pushing the tab button with nothing selected, this hides all tools....

[rudykathie]

Nope.  Hid all the tools.  Then I hit it again and everything showed up except the tools plaette.   BTW I am using InDesignCS4

[Stix_Hart]

Could be a case of trying the ol' delete your prefs trick....

[kellyf4536283]

Another reason to feel stupid! Thanks for sharing this tip.

[patkashtock]

Thank you! I did that a couple of times and my toolbar showed up on the far left of my monitor, undocked. I have no idea how that happened lol, but am so glad it turned out to be an easy fix

[Peter Spier]

Are other panels showing? If so, be sure Window > Tools is checked.

[rudykathie]

Windows tools is checked.  This is very frustrating.

[Guest]

lol this worked for me, thanks

[rudykathie]

Here is a screen print of my workplace with the Windows tab expanded.  You can see tools is checked.

[rudykathie]

And the 62 errors are just links from last year's calendar which I have not yet switched over.

[rudykathie]

OK - I hae NO idea what I did but suddenly it is back.  I was fixing the links and voila!  I wish I knew.  If I

ever find out I will let everyone know.  How weird is this??????????

[Peter Spier]

Do you have more than one monitor?

[esterwolf]

I might just have the solution or part of a solution. My work just upgraded to version CS4. When I opened InDesign, I had the same problem where I could not find the tools palette. I opened a file created in an older version which opened without a glitch. What I discovered is when the window for this file opened it "snapped" into a frame that covered over the palette. I kept checking and unchecking the "tools" under the Window menu to no avail until I resized my current document's window and ta-dah! There is was...

I'm curious, for those using CS4 for the first time, does opening a document hide your tools palette? After I got the palette back, I closed out of the document to check if it will hide the palette again but it didn't. I did re-size the window so it may have "remembered" what size it should be... Anyway, I hope it helps somebody....

[jane-e]

You can clearly see in your screen shot the window has been moved the the left—outside the view of the monitor.

When I move my application window to the proper place, my Toolbar returns. My status bar now has the Show in Bēhance icon. My Control panel has the reference point widget again. (In your case, since you had the Type tool selected, you were missing the Character/Paragraph controls.)

The solution is to move your application window to the right.

[Guest]

I have just had practically the same thing happen to me.  Did you get a solution?  I could use

some help!  THANKS

[rudykathie]

Same thing -  It was off the screen to the right.  When I dragged it smaller

voila!

[kacym91738426]

I'm having the same problem. I'm not a novice, but I am no means an expert. I use InDesign CC daily at my work. Yesterday I was working and all my extra stuff (control, tools, character, paragraph, ALL extra windows) *poof* gone. Just my main workspace with my artwork. My InDesign window is not floating off to the side. I've moved the entire window as well as the project tab to make sure nothing was hiding. But I can't find my items.

When I check the Window drop down, all my items are unchecked. I have to recheck everything. However, as soon as I close out of InDesign and reopen, everything is closed again. I haven't touched my settings, but could something have glitched that I need to check? I never mess with the preferences so I'm not sure if there would be something wrong or not.

[jane-e]

The first thing to do is to Reset your current Workspace.

Also, be aware that pressing the Tab key will clear the panels (and bring them back).

Does that work, or is it something else?

[kacym91738426]

I did see the earlier comment about the Tab key, but nothing happened for me until I opened all of the windows (control, tools, etc.) again, then the tab worked. But as soon as I opened another document, or closed out then reopened InDesign everything was gone again.

I didn't think about resetting the workspace, so I just did that. Closed out of InDesign. Reopened. Created a new blank project and still nothing

[Barb Binder]

Why don't you try trashing preferences?

Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences

Let us know if that takes care of it.

[kacym91738426]

Sadly I can't do that because I do not have admin rights to my work computer.

I did contact my IT department. They uninstalled and reinstalled the program and everything is back to normal. So I think in reinstalling the preferences were reset. If this glitch happens on my home computer I will for sure keep in mind to clear out the preferences.

Thank you all so much for your advice!

[jmlevy]

You can reset the InDesign preferences, even if you have not admin rights of your computer. I work in the IT department of a French press group and none of our users have admin rights of their computer; I can ensure you that they can reset the InDesign preferences, using the keyboard.

[saeedalkarmi]

Try to hit Tab or Shift+Tab!!

[DiscoveryChurch]

I think you need to go to window/tools