Tool Panel greyed out and all tools (except Text) are inactive

[nicole_13113503]

Hi

For some reason my tool panel now only allows me to use the Text tool - the rest of the tools are inactive and unable to be selected.  I have tried rebooting, uninstalling and reinstalling the app and that hasn't worked.  I found a previous post with this same issue but i do not have touch enabled so whilst that solved their dilemma it unfortunately won't fix mine.

Any suggestions??

Thanks

[Barb Binder]

Hi Nicole:

That's how it looks when you are in Story Editor view. Choose Edit > Edit in Layout View.

However, if you uninstalled/reinstalled InDesign and the issue persists then it is more than that. It's mostly likely time to rebuild the preferences and/or cache files. See https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-rebuilding-preferences-cache/ .

~Barb

[nicole_13113503]

Thanks Barb, but alas no, i was in Normal view. 

[BobLevine]

What version of InDesign? What operating system? Can you post a screenshot?

[eleanorshanks]

This happened to me too.
I successfully rebuilt the preferences using the key commands and everything was fine.

I used Story Editor and after closing the Story Editor window the tools stayed grayed out. 
Something else is going on.
I'm on Window 10 Enterprise using InDesign 14.0.3.

[Linda Gus]

This happened to me as well, and I had never been in Story Editor in this file. After several reboots, it stayed the same, coudn't access any tools except the text tool. I didn't want to dump my preferences, too much work to rebuild them (yes, I should keep a clean copy somewhere). But with the mention of Story Editor, I put the cursor in the text, entered and then quit from Story Editor, and  the rest of the tools returned. Weird! I'm on a Macbook Pro, running System 10.13.6. 

[janakr]

Thank you very much. It also helped me.

I work on Windows 10. I have InD version 15.0.1 (x64) + Creative Cloud version 5.0.0.354.
Method:
From any text frame, just switch to the Story Editor, type something and close the Story Editor.

[advah30148440]

thank you all very much for this, worked for me too. Weird, but working!

[Alicia5EE3]

Worked for me too... bizzare! 

[DB-inVT]

Me too! Thanks for the tip because this was driving me batty. Wish it was easier to find this fix via Adobe help, or even Google.

[juliep71781108]

THANK YOU! So weird but that worked. Something with the program, not the file because if I opened it on my work laptop (PC), it was greyed out, but on my personal macbook, it was fine! A couple different files. Thanks for saving the day!

[Pandora on th31274868af5t]

Had the same issue- story editor was opening multiple grey text boxes- it really started freaking out. I clicked on text and put the cursor active in the text, went to file, then exit. Reopened my file, everything was back to normal. There's a bug in there somewhere- but at least it is a super easy fix! Thank you!!!

[defaultcp8a14cz7h3t]

This worked for me on Windows 10. Thanks for the tip!

[Seba Saldana]

Four years later, this made it for me. Thanks!

[wsna_2268]

 "I put the cursor in the text, entered and then quit from Story Editor, and  the rest of the tools returned."

Thank you, also worked for me!

[greg21]

We had the same problem this morning with one of our designers MAC...what worked was to make sure that the Note Tool in the tool bar is clicked off and the rest of the tools were highlighted back on!

[janep51894407]

Wow, this has just happened to me and the story editor trick worked! Bizarre, but thank goodness this conversation is still here after all this time. Thank you!