Why is find/change missing "selection" as option to search?

[hankhead]

I am working in Indesign CC 2019 on a document that will not show "selection" when perfoming find/change.

It only show document as the option to search. How do I restore all the options (selection, story, etc.).  ??  Mike

[Digital-Henry]

Thanks for the work around. Works perfectly. I would like to add that you don't have to actually replace anything for your work around to work. I search items that I know it won't find, and it works also!

[TᴀW]

This is a really annoying bug.

For occasions when Selection is missing and nothing brings it back, and you just cannot be bothered to restart InDesign, run the following one-line script. It assumes you have selected something in InDesign and have set up the GREP find/change as needed.

app.selection[0].changeGrep();

Or, if you want to execute a regular find/change (not GREP), then this:

app.selection[0].changeText()

This won't bring back the "Selection" option though...

Ariel

[mordaskyt]

This bug persists in the most current version of InDesign and this thread should definately not be marked "Solved" the only way I get this option to re-appear is to restart InDesign. Frustrating.

[Henrik Lindqvist]

Confirmed. Restart is the only solution. This bug has been hanging around for years which suggests it's buried deep in the code somewhere and probably hard to replicate.

[Owen Magnus]

I was able to fix this bug by just closing the problem document and opening it again (didn't have to restart InDesign).

[jpmackey]

This has been an ongoing an unpredictable bug for years for me. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I just have to go back and do it another day (which can make certain parts of my job very difficult obviously). Adobe needs to address bugs like this instead of making stupid changes like reversing the free transform function.

[Laubender]

Hi jpmackey,

what do you mean by "reversing the free transform function" ?

I don't think that something changed with that the last years…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[dzgnr89]

I am using latest 17.2 update of InDesign 2022 and still facing this issue. 

[dzgnr89]

Facing this issue on a regular basis. Deselecting the text box, working on something else like drawing some rectangles,  doesn't bring the option for "search selection" back in the find/change box.

Enclosed is a short screen recording of what exactly happens. 

[BIDOUN]

Constantly have to restart indesign while working because of this issue. Please fix it. Absurd bug that affects everyday use constantly, spanning multiple versions of indesign. Inexcusable.

[Henrik Lindqvist]

+one. It's ridiculous. This bug has been hanging around for years.Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. 

[Laubender]

Hi Henrik,

best do a bug report at InDesign UserVoice or support one that is already there with your vote.

If you found a bug report at UserVoice or if you did one yourself, please share the link to that report here so that others who are also affected get a chance for voting as well. InDesign UserVoice is here:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs

FWIW: I'm not affected on my Windows 10 machine.

Perhaps a MacOS only issue?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[dzgnr89]

I'm also getting affected by this. I have always used Indesign on Windows. This has been a recurring issue for a very long time. 

[anthonyg47938380]

I have left various bug correction requests over time for different issues, but these are seldom solved. This particular one is very annoying and for the money we pay it is unacceptable it is still unresolved. I expect one of these two answers from Adobe: 1)sorry, we do not know how to fix it 2) we will not fix it. At least say something so we can move on.

[hatshatahsththstst]

Also still having this problem.

Too busy forcing animations and cloud crap instead of providing a workable tool.

[Sim5259756]

Depends on what you are doing. This happens when for example I created a page of sticker lables in InDesgn with all the same word on each lable. If I duplicate the page and want to have the next page be a different word. When I select all 30 labels on the duplicate page the "selection" option doesnt show. I dont want the "Document" option since it will change the previous page data which is not what I want. For my situation "Selection" isnt the right option anyway but instead "Stories" is. This personally worked for my situation.