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1

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

New Here ,
Jun 17, 2019 Jun 17, 2019

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

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Community Expert ,
Jun 17, 2019 Jun 17, 2019

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

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New Here ,
Jun 17, 2019 Jun 17, 2019

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

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Community Expert ,
Jun 18, 2019 Jun 18, 2019

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

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New Here ,
Oct 29, 2019 Oct 29, 2019

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.

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Explorer ,
Feb 12, 2020 Feb 12, 2020

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. 

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New Here ,
Feb 24, 2020 Feb 24, 2020

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.

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New Here ,
May 10, 2020 May 10, 2020

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

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New Here ,
Jan 25, 2021 Jan 25, 2021

Worked for me too... bizzare! 

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 30, 2022 Jan 30, 2022

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.

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New Here ,
Aug 19, 2022 Aug 19, 2022

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!

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New Here ,
Jul 24, 2023 Jul 24, 2023

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!!!

 

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2024 Jan 22, 2024

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

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New Here ,
Aug 01, 2024 Aug 01, 2024

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

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New Here ,
Apr 15, 2025 Apr 15, 2025
LATEST

 "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!

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New Here ,
Sep 12, 2022 Sep 12, 2022

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!

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New Here ,
Dec 06, 2023 Dec 06, 2023

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!

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