Expert: Glen Demers - 6/16/2011

Question
QUESTION: I have just started using indesign CS5 and I am having a problem with the text boxes. I don't think I am being thick (well I hope not anyway). Frequently and for no apparent reason, when I am creating or ammending a text box it places a small red + box on the bottom right hand side of the box as if to say there is too much text for the box (I believe its called overset) despite the fact that there is masses of available room in the text box. Some times this just starts happening for no reason in the middle of a session. The only way to rectify this situation is to close down the computer and boot it up again. Simply closing the programme does not work. I have tried everything. (resizing the text box, creating a new one). Nothing works. Please help.

ANSWER: Hi Chris,

The first thing to try when an overset box appears is to look at it in the story editor. Edit>Edit in Story Editor. Also, under the Type menu click on Show Hidden Characters. This will show what is overset and allow you to delete it or adjust it's parameters. With the overset character(s) selected check the paragraph and character attributes to make sure the leading, size and space before or space after values are normal.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Thanks for your help but nothing is working. There are no hidden characters and the parameters appear identical to the ones that are not overset. Its getting really annoying now.

ANSWER: Hi Chris,

The Show Hidden Characters option will show you all the typed characters including spaces (a dot), hard and soft returns and tabs. These normally hidden characters will also be seen in the story editor. When text is overset and you edit in Story Editor there will be a line showing you where the overset occurred and a red bar on the left side of the editor showing all the overset characters.

It's easy to inadvertently enter a large number into a field that will cause text to overset - you think you changed 10 to 12 but in the box is 1012. If all your text is supposed to be 10pt on 12pt, select the entire text block and make sure the size is 10pt and the leading is 12pt. If either window is blank then you have a different value somewhere in the text block. It could even be a graphic accidentally pasted into a text block causing it to be overset, but as long as you Show Hidden Characters, the overset characters will be displayed in Story Editor for you to fix.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks. Its still not working though and I have checked all the things you said. The weird thing is that if I just keep my finger on a key and let it continually type I experience no problem. The problem occurs when i press enter to get to the next line. All the text from there on is overset. I know I'm probably doing something dumb. The only way to get it to stop doing this is to shut down the entire computer. Then it seems to be fine for about 5 minutes and then it starts doing it again.

Answer
Hi,

When you hit the enter key it will appear in Story Editor as a P symbol. Select the P symbol and check the values for space before or space after paragraph, I suspect one of those is funky.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm