red dots in excel link in indesign

[S.C.5C57]

Hi all, I have a question. When I place an excel document as a link in my indesign document some 'red dots' appear in some of the cells of my table. How do I fix this? I already changed the cell types to 'standard' or 'text'. The strange thing is that in the excel table all of my text is visible but some cells are marked with this red dots (the same type/text etc.). 

Has anyone a clue to fix this? Thanks a lot!

Suzanne

[TᴀW · Accepted solution]

A red dot in a table cell in InDesign means there's overset text in that cell. Make the cell wider and the text should reappear.

HTH,

Ariel

[S.C.5C57]

Thanx Ariel, but there is no overset text... I don't know what to do ...

[TᴀW]

Could you post a screenshot of the dot?

What happens when you make the cell really large? Does the dot go away?

Another thing to try: Select the entire paragraph the table is in, and press Ctrl-Y to open the Story Editor. You will then be able to see exactly what's in there. Perhaps post a screenshot of that as well.

[S.C.5C57]

Hi, this is the screenshot. 

I just changed the cell style options into inset '1' and that helped to eliminate the dots. But now the table style (although placed formatted) changed also. 

If there's an other option to eliminate the red dots instead of working with table styles, so i can place the excel table formatted, would be better.

Thanks for replying!

Also another question. If I scale an table in indesign and relink the excel table after updating the excel file the linked table in indesign changed back to 100%. What to do with this? Thanks again!

[S.C.5C57]

[BobLevine]

Those red dots are indicative of overset text. Can you show us the same area in the Excel document?

[S.C.5C57]

[S.C.5C57]

Hi Bob, This is the area in excel. As far as I know without overset text... I dubble clicked on the column to make sure there is no overset text though in Idesign I get the red dots...

Thank you for replying!

[BobLevine]

How can you say there's no overset text? There clearly is. It's not overset in Excel but it's overset in InDesign. You'll need to enlarge those cells or decrease the size of the text.

[S.C.5C57]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for replying. Sorry, I didn't knew I could change the cells in Indesign with this layout and formatted table. I enlarged the cells and the text shows up. Thanks for helping!

[Laubender]

Hi Suzanne,

look into the table's contents using the Story Editor Window.

Just select one of the cells and use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + y when on Mac OS or Ctrl + y when on Windows.

This screenshot from my German InDesign is showing two cases of overset table cells:

[1] Overset showing a red dot

[2] Overset showing no red dot

The cell with the red dot has contents. All other cells, also in overset according to the Story Editor have no contents. So why showing as overset in the Story Editor? Because the cells have a fixed height and the first text insertion point in every cell is formatted in a point size that will set a possible contents of the cell immediately to overset with a red dot. The point size exceeds the cell's ability to show the text.

That said: A red dot is always an indicator that there is contents in the cell.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[S.C.5C57]

Thanks for your answer. It helped a lot!

[ed23362984u5xf]

Hi. Is there anyway to stop the red dot issue without resizing the font. I am working on a document that is pulling from excel and I need to get the rows closer together in Indesign so that the space between the rows is less. Can't decrease fotn size as it is a corporate standard size. Any ideas?

[jmlevy]

Check the value of the cell inset

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/formatting-tables.html#:~:text=Change%20cell%20inset%20spacin...

[ed23362984u5xf]

Thanks this worked great, only problem is when changes were made to the excel, and I updated the link on indesign, the old formatting would come back.

[BobLevine]

If you placed it as a formatted table that is expected behavior.

[jmlevy]

Use cell styles, as suggested by @BobLevine 

[BobLevine]

No. You can use a smaller font or a bigger cell with a zero inset. You can try table / cell style but they can be cumbersome.