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belinda_smullen
Participant
October 1, 2018
Answered

Objects won't move with the Selection Tool

  • October 1, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 29506 views

Hi there,

I'm working in InDesign CC 13.1 and all of a sudden I'm unable to move my objects around my page. I can select them with the Selection Tool, can copy and paste, and can select and move object anchor points however I can't drag and move the objects/text frames.

Is this a glitch and do I need to reinstall or have I accidentally pressed a keyboard shortcut that locks things from moving? I've closed down the application and tried other files too but it's the same across the board. Illustrator and Photoshop are fine...

Any urgent help would be greatly appreciated! TIA.

      Correct answer Vishal_Exa

      Close everything. Press win+R and search for %temp% and delete all temporary files. and then restart the system.

      4 replies

      V
      Vishal_ExaCorrect answer
      Participant
      May 22, 2025

      Close everything. Press win+R and search for %temp% and delete all temporary files. and then restart the system.

      S
      SwordandStoneStudios
      Participant
      December 24, 2024

      idk what exactly happened, but i fixed a graphic that refused to move via cut pasting!

      N
      Natalie Dion
      Participant
      February 7, 2025

      Hi there all-- this same things seems to be happening to me! All objects across all files won't move. I've run through all the solutions above and still no avail is anything changing. I'm about to re-install Indeisign all together. An example file is below...can anyone help? Thank you!

        K
        kimberlypDRBF
        Participant
        February 14, 2025

        This just started happening to me. SUPER frustrating. Files I used to edit with no problems suddenly I can't move anything. Nothing is locked, not on layers, not on pages, not objects, NOTHING. Clearing preferences hasn't helped. Restarting my computer hasn't helped. I'm about to try to reinstall ID to see if that helps. I note that Windows had an auto-update just yesterday for me and I haven't tried ID since then until now and I've been fiddling with this for a couple of hours now. Windows update broke ID? ID not working with the latest update? 

        HELP!

        abbiew31638224
        abbiew31638224
        Participant
        January 25, 2019

        I'm a newcomer to Illustrator so maybe this is not what you're encountering exactly.

        When I try to move an object that is selected with the bounding box highlighted, it won't move unless my curser is directly over a part of the path and it says "path" . I assumed that as long as the cursor was positioned anywhere inside the bounding box it would move but that didn't work. It was initially hard to spot because the stroke on my path was so light it was hard to select the path itself.

        Now I want to know - Is there a preference you can set where you can move something if the cursor is inside the bounding box vs exactly positioned over a section of the path inside of the bounding box?

        Scott Citron
        Scott Citron
        Legend
        October 1, 2018

        Sounds like these objects are locked, no? Open Preferences and see if your Object Editing preferences looks like mine.

        If so, click the box Object Editing > Prevent Selection of Locked Objects. Click OK to exit the Preferences dialog box. Go to the Object menu and choose Unlock All on Spread. Does that solve your problem?

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          belinda_smullenAuthor
          Participant
          October 1, 2018

          Hey Scott, thanks for this suggestion. This Preference was ticked, so I've deselected it, and then unlocked all on spread (however nothing was locked). Still nothing is moving I'm afraid.

          Scott Citron
          Scott Citron
          Legend
          October 1, 2018

          OK, the next thing to do is to open the Layers panel and see if any layers or objects on sub-layers are locked.

          Oh, and don't forget to make sure that the objects you're trying to move are on document pages, NOT on master pages. If they were placed on masters you won't be able to move them from a document page. To do so, go to the flyout menu of the Pages panel and choose Override all master page items.

          If none of these suggestion work, please post the file somewhere for me to download and review.

          Scott

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