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I hate making stupid mistakes.
I routinely open one of my long documents, search for something that I know is in there, and then give myself a dope slap to the head. That's because I almost always forget to change the scope from Story to Document.
I wish I could either (a) change the default from Story to Document, or (b) that the option was sticky between InDesign sessions.
Is there something I'm missing and I could fixt this somehow? If not I'll post this as a user feature request.
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Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out. If you change settings, your changes set the defaults for new documents. For example, if you select Search > Document, then next time, you will get the Document option by default, not the story. If that is not happening, I suggest you reset your preferences (https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/indesign-preferences-support-file-locations.html) and upgrade your InDesign to the latest version. I hope that helps!
Disclaimer: Please note that resetting preferences will remove all the custom settings, and InDesign will launch with default settings. You can also take a backup of the folders in case you want to. Location is mentioned in the article.
Regards,
Anshul Saini
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The probem is indeed that the settings are not "sticky" for existing documents.
I am on the latest version.
Trashing the preferences, which might or might not work, is equivalent to Microsoft saying "Format the C: drive and then reinstall Windows and see if that helps."
If there is a guide to specifically which preferences will persist after trashing the Preferences file, and those that don't, that would be useful to know when one gets that advice. My last experience with trashing the Preferences file was worse than my current problem.
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Resetting the preferences is NOTHING like having to reformat your drive.
It's simple to do when starting InDesign and 99% of what is affected is the preferences and your preview checkboxes. Workspaces are not affected.
Generally, the preferences only take a few minutes to update.
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Thank you for sharing the details, @keithconover. I am afraid there is no guide for specific preferences files. I would like to know if this is happening with some specific documents or all? If yes, could you please package the document, including links, and share it with us? You can upload it to the Creative Cloud (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/share.html) and share the download link here or via DM.
Also, if you don't want to reset preferences, you may try creating a new user account and see if the same behavior is happening there as well or not.
I'll be looking forward to your response.
Regards,
Anshul Saini
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Thanks for your reply, Anshul. This is happening in multiple documents, in fact, as far as I can tell, all of them.
It would be nice to have a list of preferences I would have to jot down and then recreate when/if I trash the Preferences. I'm an emergency physician and right now with the aftermath of the Covid delta spike I don't have a lot of time.
Here is what I've documented for when I have to reinstall InDesign on a new computer, though I haven't had to do that for a few years:
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Thanks for confirming that. As it is happening with multiple documents, I would again suggest you reset your preferences, and there is no list of settings that can be pinpointed. You may close all Adobe applications and manually reset InDesign preferences by renaming the folders from the following locations:
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Adobe
Rename Adobe InDesign & com.adobe.InDesign to Adobe InDesign.old & com.adobe.InDesign.old respecively.
Launch InDesign from the Creative Cloud Desktop app and check if that resolves the issue.
Note: Renaming these folders will not be deleted your preferences. By doing this next time you launch InDesign, it will create new preferences folders in place of the renamed folders. You can always get back to your old preferences by closing InDesign, deleting the new preferences folder, and reverting the renames folder to their original names. This way, you can check does the issue is getting resolved or not.
I hope it helps!
Regards,
Anshul Saini
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First off, Keith, thank you for your work serving your community. I doubt you get to hear that enough, and these days, I think you need to hear it as often as possible. 🙏🏼
Here's a thought on preferences: when you trash them, you basically have a brand new installation of InDesign. If you can set aside some time, you can rebuild them to you liking, and then move the files and folders to a backup folder. That way, when they become corrupt—and they do, over time—you can simply replace the files/folders with the one from the backup and not have to start over, again.
~Barb
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Thanks, Barb, but compared with your expertise and contributions, I'm a total novice. Once the crush in the Emergency Department from the Delta spike is over, and I have time to do it, I'll trash my preferences and recreate them and save a backup.
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Hi Keith,
yes, backup the whole Version 17.0 folder after you did your settings!
In case you have to trash it, exchange it after deleting it with your backup Version 17.0 folder.
Where Version 17.0 is the folder for InDesign 2022. If you have older versions installed as well, also do backups for them like Version 16.0, Version 15.0 and so on…
That gives you back 80% to 90% of your settings you originally did:
All changes in the UI with customized workspaces and menu settings.
It will not give you back your linguistic preferences or saved custom page sizes and custom keyboard shortcut settings you saved.
Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( ACP )