Typing the letter "S" doesn't work, and then changes font face and color

[Kevin25308274w9r9]

Hello!  Have a very strange issue with a bunch of our internal docs in InDesign - it seems that we are unable to type the letter "S" unless we copy and paste it, and every time we try to type it, it changes the font to orange.  This issue is happening across multiple computers, files, and even if we change the font.  Usually we're pretty good about troubleshooting on our own but this has stumped us!

[PII removed from moderator]

[Kevin25308274w9r9]

[PII Removed by moderator]

[Peter Spier]

I was able to repair the file by exporint to .idml and opeing that.

This file has a long history of changes and a crash about a year ago. Looks like just a bunch of minor errors built up ver time.

[jmlevy · Accepted solution]

I have looked at your file and each time I typed a “s”, it applies the “bullet copy” character style, but I cannot see where the shortcut is applied. Deleting this character style fixed the issue.

[Kevin25308274w9r9]

This is a great clue, thanks so much!

[Laubender]

Hi @Kevin25308274w9r9 ,

didn't we have a similar case recently? Yes:

Unwanted keyboard shortcut to next style
defaultvc3xrigvtpj7, Jun 24, 2022
https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/unwanted-keyboard-shortcut-to-next-style/td-p/13...

Had the OPs test document and identified one single character style as the root cause of the issue.
Did a new style and exchanged the bad one with the new one:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/unwanted-keyboard-shortcut-to-next-style/m-p/130...

@jmlevy , tried your solution to delete character style "Bullet copy" in character style group "BULLETS".

Unfortunatelly this did not resolve the issue. When I now type "s" the character style "Bullet" is applied when I type on and "s" does not show up. I'm on InDesign 17.3.0 on Windows 10.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Laubender]

For now I see the only solution in Peter's suggestion to save to IDML and work on with a new document from the opened IDML file. That worked for me.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Laubender]

Also found this discussion. Could be the same issue, but with letter "g":

"G" key not working while typing InDesign 2021.
coleneuffer, Aug 16, 2021
https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/quot-g-quot-key-not-working-while-typing-indesig...

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )