Paragraph style removed when I type the letter “Y”

[billys30468856]

Hi there, 

I am transcribing a handwritten manuscript and designing a book. One of my chapter files has a strange and maddening glitch — any time I time a word with the letter “Y” in it, it removes my styling. I have gone through all of my preferences and shortcuts to see if I accidentally made a shortcut with that letter. Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on and how I might begin to fix the problem?

Thanks!

[kglad]

are you using acrobat or some other app?

[billys30468856]

Oh I forgot to say, I am using Adobe InDesign

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post if it helps you get responses.

<;moved from using the community>

[Joel Cherney]

That's an odd one, to be certain. That might be a few different things; the first one that immediately occurs to me is a poorly contstructed nested style. Some of these instructions might be unnecessary for you, depending on your expertise using InDesign, but I'll give you the verbose version just in case you are not already a user of paragraph styles. 

1) Use the text tool to put your cursor into a paragraph with the Y-removes-styling problem

2) Go to Window -> Styles -> Paragraph Styles 

3) Did one of the styles in the Paragraph Styles panel light up? If so, that style is applied to this text. 

4) Click on the menu flyout and go to Style Options.

5) Then look inside the Paragraph Style for Nested Styles or GREP Styles that might be related to your y-problem, and delete them if you find them. 

I'd say DON'T DO THIS if a) you are using a template provided to you by someone else, and b) you don't recognize the functionality of the stuff that I'm suggesting you delete. If so, maybe take some screenshots and post them for us so we can see what is going on. 

On the other hand, if you see my suggestions and respond with "No Joel, I know full well how nested styles work, that's not causing this problem, what else ya got?" then I would suggest that you consider rebuilding your preferences, as that's usually the first troubleshooting step for damaged installs of InDesign that exhibit Weird Behaviors. 

[Laubender]

Hi @billys30468856 ,

is there a keyboard shortcut applied to any of your paragraph styles or character styles?

What exactly happens when the applied styling is removed? What is applied instead?

Have the Paragraph Styles panel and the Character Styles panel open and select a bit of text that has changed its styling.

Do a screenshot of this and post it. Or attach a little sample document with some words where the styling went wrong.

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Laubender]

Hi @billys30468856 ,

don't know if that thread from 2020 is related to your issue:

New numpad bug since Indesign CC2020
@renej84581193 , Feb 12, 2020

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/new-numpad-bug-since-indesign-cc2020/td-p/109192...

@renej84581193  says:
"I use Indesign CC on a Windows7 desktop pc.
Since the update to Indesign CC2020 I have problems with some old files. When I open them and want to enter a number in the existing texts using the number pad, Indesign changes the paragraph format to something else."

More details in the same thread from me:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/new-numpad-bug-since-indesign-cc2020/m-p/1094598...

There are some suggestions at the end of the thread to get rid of the issue.

1. Find the style that is applied after the issue happens. Could be a paragraph style or a character style.

2. In case that style has a keyboard shortcut applied to it, remove that keyboard shortcut from the style.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[billys30468856]

Thank you so much for your help! I created a new paragraph style in my file with a slightly different name but same specs as the problematic one and now I can type the letter Y in my InDesign file all day long without it changing my paragraph style. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all of the ideas. Thank you!

[Laubender]

Hi @billys30468856 ,

alright, now I wonder why this issue sneaked in at all.

Was the document opened from a previous version of InDesign?

Was it perhaps converted from a Quark XPress document?

PS: One can do still some data forensics with an InDesign 2015 document that is stored on my Dropbox account. A file from a forum member who had a similar issue in 2020:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhqj3d8z4rsb9iu/Beispiel%2B03-2015.indd?dl=1

Important note: To edit text I had to remove all InCopy assignments from the Assignment Panel.
Details about the Assignment Panel here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/sharing-content.html

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )