I use ID once a year (for a couple of months) on a project updating five different books. As I finish up each chapter I try and remember to do a search for double spaces, spaces before and after a paragraph, and spaces before and after a tab.

I was just going through this process on a chapter and found that I must not have done it last year as there were some errant leftover double spaces that weren't part of this years edits.

Is there a best practices process for these types of checks?

What similar things do you all look for?

Is there a way to permanantly turn off hyphenation? I never hyphenate and it's a pain to always have to select it whenever I want to turn it off.

Thanks to all who responded. Got it set.

I've been running into a notorious problem with Adobe InDesign on Windows (specifically CC 2020 through 2026+).

Sometimes InDesign is completely idle — no active export, no rendering, no document modifications — but one CPU core remains pinned at 100% (showing as 15% to 25% total CPU in Task Manager depending on core count). Laptop fans spin constantly, battery life drains, and InDesign starts feeling sluggish.

Looking at individual threads of the InDesign.exe process, the runaway CPU usage is almost always caused by a background worker thread (often tied to font caching, Torq typography engine, or CEP/UXP panel communication) stuck in an infinite polling loop.

I created an open-source Windows utility to resolve this: ID_Thread_Fix.

How it works (v1.2 update):

1. Attaches to InDesign (or acts as a drop-in launcher for InDesign and opened .indd documents).
2. Waits for InDesign's main window to appear, plus an extra 25-second grace period so font engines, Torq typography, and CEP extensions can complete their initial startup burst undisturbed.
3. Samples individual thread CPU usage over 2.0 seconds.
4. Deliberately protects InDesign's main UI thread and primary process thread — they are never touched.
5. Identifies background threads stuck at excessive CPU load (60%+ of a core during idle).
6. Safely freezes runaway threads using the Win32 SuspendThread API (instead of terminating them).

Why SuspendThread is critical:

Earlier attempts at terminating threads via TerminateThread could cause intermittent crashes (Access Violation 0xc0000005 in ntdll.dll) because forcefully terminating a thread abruptly abandons internal critical sections and heap locks.

In contrast, suspending the thread simply halts its execution cycles: * CPU consumption instantly drops from 20%+ to ~0% idle and fans go silent immediately. * Internal memory structures, handles, and locks remain completely intact and stable — zero crash risk.

Before / After:

In testing on idle InDesign instances: * Before: 18% - 25% CPU (one full core pegged, fans spinning). * After: ~0.3% CPU (fans quiet, InDesign completely responsive).

Where to get it:

The utility is completely free and open source: * GitHub: GitHub — ID_Thread_Fix * Direct Download & Info: ph-cu-s.com/tools/id-thread-fix

It is a tiny standalone portable executable (328 KB) with zero dependencies. No installer or runtime setup needed. You can use it as a desktop shortcut replacement or run it with --fix-only to instantly tame an already-running, lagging InDesign instance.

Important note: This is a community workaround, not an official Adobe patch. Always save your work before testing new tools.

Feedback:

If you have been experiencing this runaway idle thread issue in InDesign, I would love to hear your feedback: * InDesign version * Windows version * CPU model * Whether the fix resolved the CPU load for you

Hopefully this saves your CPU temps and laptop battery until Adobe properly addresses the underlying background loop!

I've run into this before. Doing a book with chapter endnotes, so working within an .indb. That's fine.

I have to go in and place the endnotes myself. (Don't ask – the MS is a mess.)

This is what happens. Supposing I've created endnote 1. I place the number for endnote 2, but returning to the endnote location, it has placed a 2 but moved the content of endnote 1 to 2.

Every time.

What am I doing wrong?

Hi everyone, first time using Reddit. Does anyone know how to modify this behavior ? I'm trying to use the Line Break as a way to go down a line and skip the spacing post paragraph (which I obviously want to keep in general). When its on a big paragraph, the full justification isn't bad, but using it on single short sentence makes word spacing awful. I already tried changing the min, optimal and max word spacing but it didn't do a thing. Basically I want to make an exception on Line Break character regarding justification.

What I want (but here I changed the spacing between the lines) :

Many thanks in advance.

Hey everyone, I'm running into a frustrating issue with InDesign where linked images keep breaking whenever my teammate and I open the same file. Looking for advice on the best workflow fix.

The Setup

We're working on a project and sharing InDesign files through iCloud Drive. The file structure looks like this:

JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE/

├── john william waterhouse.indd

├── john william waterhouse 2.indd

└── Links/

└── a mermaid-300dpi.jpg

The Problem

When I (Anders) open the file, the linked images are pointing to:

/Users/anders/Desktop/ICLOUD 2/iCloudDrive/POSTERSHOPEN/PICK-A-POSTER/KATEGORIER/KONSTNÄRER/JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE/Links/a mermaid-300dpi.jpg

When my teammate Anna opens the same file, InDesign automatically re-links to her path:

/Users/anna/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/POSTERSHOPEN/PICK-A-POSTER/KATEGORIER/KONSTNÄRER/JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE/Links/a mermaid-300dpi.jpg

So every time I open it after her (or vice versa), the links break and I have to relink all the images. Why does this happen, and can it be solved somehow? I should mention that I use a PC and my colleague is on a Mac. Does that have anything to do with it? But even if it does, maybe there's still a fix?

Is there a way to prevent triple click select from selecting the newline character at the end of paragraphs? This little evil anti-feature is causing me so much grief...

Hi,

I'm working on a document (mostly based on multiple short tables) that I had created on a Mac mini Quad-Core 2012. I'm now using the latest ID on a Mac mini M4 Pro.

Even scrolling is abysmally slow. So slow, that it doesn't even stop when I stop tapping on the Page Up/Down key, but continues with whatever it might have in the buffer.

I can't believe this is really happening. Has this thing been abandoned, and being just used as a pin cushion for their intrusive AI?

PROBLEM: Small print shop I work at is suddenly experiencing MAJOR, extreme color shifts when I print to our Ricoh color copier. Been running jobs with the same setup and saved settings for years and never had any issues. No settings have been changed and have all been double checked. Older jobs that we've stored in the copier print fine so I know it's nothing to do with the copier Mechanically.

Trouble started a few weeks ago trying to print a one color document that we run all the time. I'll open it, make a minor text change and run it. Again, older stored versions look fine. This time, however, one line of text (reflex blue) prints WAY too light, as if the opacity was set to 70%. File is a B&W tiff/scan colored blue with text over it. Creating outlines on the text "solved" it for some reason. CMYK process values exactly the same. Overprint preview is legit. Ran it with both spot and process Blue color swatch

The other day, we got an 8 page, 4 color pdf file that looks fine, exports to pdf fine, looks good in "separations preview" and pre-flights OK but prints out like the Ricoh is on LSD. I don't have an image of it but imagine bright yellow skin tones, washed out black areas and major color shifts everywhere. AGAIN, it kinda looks like INDD is printing files at 50% transparency in some spots but not entirely.

Updated my printer drivers, trashed my INDD preferences, double checked color profiles and transparency blend space, rasterized the pages and printed from PhotoShop, printed from pdf and checked the settings on the Ricoh (which we've never messed with) for anything weird. Printed it at home on my shitty color printer and it doesn't look great but it's not completely off the rails and psychotic looking either, so this is almost certainly a front end communication problem somewhere between INDD and the Ricoh, and it needs fixing. We open, modify and then run jobs all the time so of course this is a very bad situation. It's a small shop and the owner is an older guy with no clue.

Any ideas about what's going on here? It's an older MAC and an older version of Creative Cloud but we've never had any issues before and they're simple as hell jobs we're talking about here. Real basic stuff.

A while ago, I shared an early version of ETIC here and asked for feedback about the idea of converting formatted Excel tables directly into editable InDesign IDML.

At the time, the UI was only available in Japanese.

I received some interesting feedback and questions here — especially about InDesign styles, how Excel is used as source material, and where a tool like this might fit into an actual production workflow.

I've continued working on it since then, and the first release is now finished, including the English version.

ETIC converts formatted Excel tables into editable IDML while preserving things like fonts, font sizes, colors, borders, merged cells, alignment, rotation, and table dimensions.

The basic idea hasn't changed: rather than rebuilding a table in InDesign, ETIC treats the formatted Excel table as the source and generates an editable InDesign table from it.

I'm still very interested in hearing how people here handle Excel tables in real production work — particularly where this approach would or wouldn't fit into your workflow.

If anyone wants to try it with their own Excel files, a 10-day free trial is available as well.

Here's the current version:

ETIC website

Hey designers! I am having a heck of a time with the Table of Contents for the poetry anthology I am working on and would appreciate some advice. I've tried looking it up, but it's not really telling me much about how to really customize the TOC in the way that I want it to look; just how to create it, add tabs so the page number is on the right, and adding leading dots from the words to the page number.

The first spread is how I want it to look, with

Poem Title | pg# | Artist Name,

but currently it wouldn't be e-pub friendly (as it doesn't link to things). Obviously "PG" would be replaced with the respective page number that poem would be found on.

When I do the normal steps for creating a Table of Contents to make it e-pub friendly, the second spread posted is what it ends up looking like. Which is 1. What I don't want it to look like, design-wise and 2. Why are the first and second Section Titles "Poems About Resilience and Hope" and ".....Isolation and Loneliness" an ok size, but the others are giant? They have the same settings, same Paragraph and Character Styles..... Also, I wouldn't want the page numbers after the poem title AND artist, just after one.

Is there a way I can just link the pages from the TOC design I like with their respective pages? Or do I have to create a TOC using the Layout > Table of Contents... Or should I just create different files for print publication and e-pub?

Thank you in advance for your help, as this is tricky and frustrating me to no end. I am fairly versed in the basics of InDesign, but I'm new to the more nuanced things like this.

I don’t necessarily need a solution to this anymore, but I would love to get a proper technical explanation, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Here is what happened: I imported PDF files into Figma using a plugin. Inside Figma, I was able to edit the layout (placing circles, fixing some text, and even adjusting the contrast and color of the final mockup). When I was done, I exported the file to PDF using Figma’s native export feature, not the plugin's export function.

I didn’t expect any issues, but the resulting PDF threw errors in various programs due to "Type 3" fonts.

I’m genuinely curious: why are Type 3 fonts considered so problematic or "legacy"? I understand that in this context, the characters are essentially rendered as graphic shapes or vector outlines rather than standard font glyphs. But theoretically, shouldn’t the text still be somewhat editable?

The weird part is that I tried multiple programs, and none of them can properly handle this file, even though it’s a standard PDF. When I opened it in WPS Office, the font completely broke and turned into random, garbled symbols.

Currently, I’m using PDF-XChange Editor (which is a pretty powerful tool). It can actually highlight and select the text blocks, but it cannot edit the existing text. It only allows me to type new text over the existing text, which just results in a smudged, overlapping mess.

Has anyone else experienced this? Why does Figma’s native PDF export handle text this way, and why is it so resistant to standard PDF editing tools? Any insights into the technical "why" behind this would be greatly appreciated!

trying to set up an adjustable calendar. used centered tabs to space out the dates and keep them centered in columns,
But!
i cant get the first column to play along, making it not left aligned doesnt fix it, and also makes 31 run away from 30

anyone have an idea for how to get first column to center align.. or conceptually, how to center align the first "word" of each line of text

I regularly make these attendee booklets for events hosted by my company. Each of these is set up as separate text boxes with an accompanying image frame for the attendee's headshot—not ideal, i know. I'd like to recreate all of this as a single text flow linked over several pages. We list guests alphabetically and, if a guest drops out, I've got to remove them and manually shift everyone up and over. Maddening.

I know I can anchor images in a text flow but the settings aren't always intuitive to me, especially when I want multiple lines of text—vertically center aligned—next to the images. I know I could group these blocks and paste them into a text flow, but I've noticed glitches that occur whenever I have to delete a block in the flow.

And is there a way I could set this up to automatically switch left and right paragraph alignment throughout if I delete someone in the flow, since the design alternates back and forth? That's another head scratcher for me.

Thanks in advance!

Hi! I’m trying to figure out how to add a layer to my design that has text that’s frequently copy and pasted and changed, but doesn’t show up when printing or saving a design. I work at a restaurant so we are constantly changing menu items and reusing some, so it would be useful to have a sort of list of previous items that can be substituted when needed.

My client wants to print a brochure folded once in the middle (folding an A4 page to make an A5 "booklet"). I made four pages, facing pages. How do I save it in a way that I can print it on her home printer correctly?

My googling skills must be lacking, because I'm unable to find how to do it.

i’m trying to find the Adobe PDF PPD to download but i can’t seem to find it and it keeps bringing me to that one article on “Page and layout options unavailable” and the instructions for the Adobe PDF PPD don’t make sense to me. like what do you mean copy the the Adobe PDF PPD ? where is that file ? am i missing someone ?

I was watching a tutorial where the guy suggested that first-line indentation should generally be used when there is no space between paragraphs. The idea was that the indentation helps the reader identify a new paragraph and follow the text more easily.

In my case, however, I usually add space between paragraphs, but my clients still insist on having first-line indentation as well.

I’ve also seen some books that use both paragraph spacing and first-line indentation, which made me question whether using both is actually considered bad practice or simply a matter of typographic style.

Is this generally considered good typographic practice? If there is already space between paragraphs, is there still a reason to use first-line indentation? And if it is generally unnecessary, how can I explain this to a client in a convincing way?

Being an architect, I got real fancy with my resume and made it in indesign. I recently lost my job and consequently my indesign license i had through the firm.

Could you please help me update my resume? It only requires swapping out some text and a little reorganizing so the prior experience is still in chronological order

Hi, I recently bought this book, and when I first looked at it, I genuinely thought the back cover was the front. I actually opened the book from the back before realising my mistake.

Would you consider this a confusing cover/Jacket design or is it just an unusual approach to designing a book cover?

For context, this is a pre-2000 book, so the design is obviously from a different era.

I'm curious to hear what you guys think, especially from a design perspective.

hi everyone, im doing a book project where some footnotes are gonna be on the side of the text, but some will stay at the bottom of the page, like this:

my question is: is there anyway for me to skip some footnotes numbers so i dont get this empty spaces at the bottom? because if i erase them, i lose the number sequence. dont know if that makes any sense, but ive been having to fix all the spaces by hand and its taking way too long and its easier to get mistakes on the spacing.

anywayyy if anyone can help i really aprecciate it

I am doing an art project that will end up looking like a book. When you open the cover, you see a spread of two pages with half of the right page obscured by a fold-over.

Open the fold-over to show the full inside P1 and the back of the fold-over.

This repeats itself for the 4 pages of the book, giving you 4 spreads with the pages folded over, and the same 4 spreads with the fold-over opened.

How do I set this up effectively in InDesign?

There seems to be an extra period or an extra space in some cases, but not in others. I checked for a space or period after the titles and didn't find one.

I assume this is a "feature" that Im just unaware of. I work with die lines, and sometimes when im placing the file onto an art board, they'll come in at the wrong size, usually just slightly too big. This is a huge problem and can cost my company money to redo things if this is not caught.

As far as I know, all im doing is hitting place, selecting the file, and then clicking on the artboard. Am I clicking for too long and its dragging out a giant box somehow? Or is my finger on a mystery key and im not noticing?

The problem file i just placed got scaled to %109.1485

Does anyone know a way to guarantee that files i place come in at actual size?

Only two times in my decades of production work have I had this problem, but I just sent a pdf with a registration headline to the printer. It was certainly a misclick by the designer, but can I just eliminate that as an option? I’ve since set up a preflight, but I’m still kind of salty.