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Sandy_JH
Sandy_JH
Participating Frequently
April 10, 2025
Answered

Photoshop when using text the spacebar does not make any space it jumps up to the fonts

  • April 10, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 482 views

How do I fix the issue in Photoshop with my spacebar not working correctly. I have updated and restarted everything on my Mac and Photoshop and no other applications are open or running. But when you wanna type text and you wanna put space in between your words the space bar will not work it just jumps up to the top by the fonts

Correct answer Conrad_C

On your Mac, open System Settings, click Accessibility, and click Keyboard. Is Full Keyboard Access enabled? If it is, it can cause problems like this in multiple Adobe applications. It might be some kind of Adobe incompatibility. I thought I saw an Adobe help article about this somewhere, but I can’t find it at the moment.

 

If you don’t need Full Keyboard Access, disable it, and see if that resolves the problem.

 

 

If you need to keep Full Keyboard Access enabled for accessibility reasons, then you can try these things:

  • When you need to type, try to remember to glance at the Font menu on the options bar and see if it has keyboard focus. If it does, press the Esc key to escape that field. Keyboard focus should then return to the text you’re typing. 
  • Click the (i) button next to the Full Keyboard Access option, and try reassigning the single-key shortcuts assigned to the spacebar. One of the “Activate” shortcuts assigned to the spacebar might be what is causing keyboard focus to go to the first field in the options bar. 

 

 

2 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
April 11, 2025

On your Mac, open System Settings, click Accessibility, and click Keyboard. Is Full Keyboard Access enabled? If it is, it can cause problems like this in multiple Adobe applications. It might be some kind of Adobe incompatibility. I thought I saw an Adobe help article about this somewhere, but I can’t find it at the moment.

 

If you don’t need Full Keyboard Access, disable it, and see if that resolves the problem.

 

 

If you need to keep Full Keyboard Access enabled for accessibility reasons, then you can try these things:

  • When you need to type, try to remember to glance at the Font menu on the options bar and see if it has keyboard focus. If it does, press the Esc key to escape that field. Keyboard focus should then return to the text you’re typing. 
  • Click the (i) button next to the Full Keyboard Access option, and try reassigning the single-key shortcuts assigned to the spacebar. One of the “Activate” shortcuts assigned to the spacebar might be what is causing keyboard focus to go to the first field in the options bar. 

 

 

    Sandy_JH
    Sandy_JHAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 14, 2025

    THANK YOU ! This fixed the the problem I had to turn off full keyboard access. Which is strange because on my Apple laptop Photoshop works fine even though the full keyboard access is turned on. So I turned it off on my iMac and it works fine thanks so much for your help!! I tried resetting the Photoshop preferences and that didn't help at all.

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Conrad_CCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 14, 2025

    If this was not affecting your work on on a different Mac laptop you had, it might be because this changed. If I remember correctly, a few years ago there wasn’t a conflict between Full Keyboard Access and Adobe apps. But somewhere around macOS 14 maybe, these kinds of problems started to happen. So if your other Mac laptop is running an older version of macOS, maybe that’s why it doesn’t have this problem.

    L
    LAMY2017
    Legend
    April 10, 2025

    After all the data-coollecting is done, Sandy -- operating system, version of Photoshop -- someone will probably suggest resetting your Ps settings (preferences).

    Good 'ol AI suggested:

    "To reset Photoshop settings, you can press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (Mac) while starting Photoshop, which will prompt you to delete the current settings. Alternatively, you can go to Photoshop > Preferences > General and select "Reset Preferences on Quit."

     

    Larry
      Sandy_JH
      Sandy_JHAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 14, 2025

      Thank you for trying to help I did this and it didn't work unfortunately. I had to go under full keyboard access and turn it off on my iMac. Even though on my Apple laptop the full keyboard access is turned on and Photoshop works fine. Who knows but thank you for your suggestion!

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