Why does Indesign apply leading to lines after, instead of the line selected?

[tatianasometimes]

I have selected a line of text and tried to increase (or decrease) the leading and instead of applying to the line selected (fully highlighted) it applies the increase or decrease to the lines below, regardless of whether they are within the same paragraph or a in a completely separate paragraph.

This happens only within some of the text boxes within the document; in other text boxes the leading works as expected. I have tried creating new text boxes (with no object styling) with placeholder text with both 'basic paragraph' stylesheet and no paragraph stylesheet applied, and the leading does not work properly in either case. (The text is aligned to the top of the box, not locked to baseline or anything else.)

This is all happening in one document so far; I've checked old docs, and created new docs, and the leading works properly in both cases.

I have checked all the formatting of both the text and the text box and can't seem to find anything to account for it. I've restarted the program, the computer and also reset Indesign preferences. Does anyone have any suggestions please? Thanks!

[Sheena Kaul]

Moving to InDesign​

[jane-e]

Leading is a character setting by default and will apply to all of the selected characters. You have one line selected.

Either:

• Select the entire paragraph, including the pilcrow or
• Change the preference for Type to be for Paragraph instead of Character.

[tatianasometimes]

Thanks for your response. However, this has no effect on the affected paragraphs. I had already tried that (and attempted to describe it in my original post, obviously not succinctly enough), and the leading change is still applied to the paragraph below, not the paragraph selected.

Changing the preferences from character to type has no effect either.

One should still be able to change the leading in a single line of a paragraph regardless whether the pilcrow is selected or not, and I can in fact do so in other text boxes within the same document, and also in other documents. This issue is affecting only SOME text boxes.

I am wondering if this is in fact an InDesign bug?

[jane-e]

Please show a specific example where you are having this problem. Include a screen shot and the settings for the type size and leading for the paragraph and for the one that follows. Does the entire paragraph use one type size and leading or multiple? Are you using Paragraph Styles? Character Styles? Does it happen in a new document?

[tatianasometimes]

Hi again, I have already gone through most of that in my original post:

"This happens only within some of the text boxes within the document; in other text boxes the leading works as expected. I have tried creating new text boxes (with no object styling) with placeholder text with both 'basic paragraph' stylesheet and no paragraph stylesheet applied, and the leading does not work properly in either case. (The text is aligned to the top of the box, not locked to baseline or anything else.)

This is all happening in one document so far; I've checked old docs, and created new docs, and the leading works properly in both cases."

NB, I neglected to specifically mention character stylesheets, but there are none.

Here are some screenshots, with ruler guides for reference.

Trying to increase leading on the star characters (below):

It seems to be adding paragraph spacing after, instead of adding leading to the highlighted line:

The leading has remained consistent on the second paragraph:

If I were to try to select one of the lines in the above highlighted paragraph to increase the leading, it again behaves like I am adding space after a paragraph – it does not increase leading.

However, if I attempt the same in any other document chosen at random, the leading works perfectly as expected, being added to the highlighted line(s) only.

(I have been a graphic designer for more than 25 years and have been working in publications for 15 of those years. I started when the horrible QuarkXpress was the main layout publishing program; I even used Pagemaker. I have used every version of InDesign. Believe me I am very experienced in typesetting, and I have not ever before seen leading behave like this! I came on the forum in the hope that someone else might have had a similar glitch and could suggest a solution in case this happens again. I don't think I am doing anything wrong, but if you spot something I have missed, please let me know. … I am also experiencing other anomalous glitches with InDesign – palettes not operating properly, which resetting preferences only partially fixes – which makes me think this is all part and parcel with bugs in the program, or my version being corrupted.)

Thanks.

[Barb Binder]

To confirm, adding leading to the stars for example, should push them down the page, and not the paragraph that follows. I couldn't replicate this just now, nor I have seen it before.

It sounds like you have tried resetting preferences already. Which technique did you use? There are two—the keyboard shortcut and then going in and manually deleting the InDesign SavedData file and the InDesign Defaults file. Have you tried the second one yet? It tends to be more effective for persistent issues like this.

Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences 

Can you give it a shot and let us know if that helps?

[tatianasometimes]

Did you try on my own document, or on one you created? If the former, it must be my copy of the program. I have (out of laziness) only reset the prefs with the keyboard shortcut. I will try the manual method when I return from lunch. Cheers.

[Laubender]

Hi,

if you copy/paste the affected text frame to a new document, does it behave the same?
If yes could you please share the file of the new doc together with an exported IDML through a service like Dropbox?

Without seing into the document it's very hard to impossible to tell what's going on.

Thanks,
Uwe

[tatianasometimes]

You should be able to access the original doc at any rate on the above link. Actually that doc I shared is the IDML file I created from the original doc.

I have tried copying the text into a new document, and it behaves in the same way – the glitch seems to be attached to that particular text.

I can also copy it into a new doc and share that on Dropbox, but after I return from lunch!

[smoothsea · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I think that this has to do with the value you have set for composition. If you check the second row of stars, you'll see that the paragraph style applied is [No Paragraph Style]. If you then go to Style Options and then select Justification, you'll see that the Composer is set to Adobe Japanese single-line composer. Change it to Adobe Paragraph Composer or single-line composer and the problem goes away.

As a side note, I would recommend using stylesheets as much as you can - it can save a lot of time when troubleshooting problems like this.

Regards,

Malcolm

[Laubender]

Hi Malcom,

I think, your reply deserves a "Correct Answer".

One question remains:
Why was that particular paragraph formatted with a Adobe Japanese single-line composer setting?

Regards,
Uwe

[smoothsea]

Thanks Uwe 🙂

Who knows how it got there? Maybe the text was copied from another document?

I must admit I don't like seeing any text with [No Paragraph Style] or [Basic Paragraph] styling. Even on a job such as this, where it might seem that styles are unnecessary, even a basic myStyle could be applied with "house style" items such as hyphenation, composition, language etc already set.

Regards,

Malcolm

[tatianasometimes]

Aha! I knew it had to be something specific to this text box. THANK YOU.

I certainly did not select the Japanese option. I loathe paragraph composer in general so I ALWAYS change my InDesign preferences to Adobe Single-Line composer.

It must have been inherited from a co-worker's document, as it was also attached to the default Basic Paragraph. I can't imagine why she would have selected the Japanese – it must have slipped in from somewhere.

(We are in the process of tidying our stylesheets, but our text styling changes dramatically with every campaign, so it has been difficult to wrangle when we are very busy.)

Thanks again.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

You may want to do a Save As and choose IDML as the format. It sounds like the document might be corrupted. After saving as an IDML, reopen the saved file in InDesign and the problem could be fixed.

Hope this works!

[tatianasometimes]

Unfortunately this did not fix the issue! Pity, it would have been easy!

[Barb Binder]

Can you share the file via dropbox (or another file sharing program) so that we can take a look? At a minimum, share a screen shot as Jane requested this morning.

[tatianasometimes]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0mh1b25aqseswad/AAB8myyBF4Oace0M7xVSEsbEa?dl=0

Here's a link to the file; thanks.

[Laubender]

Ah. My reply and your Dropbox link crossed. Thank you for sharing…

Nevertheless, try out my suggestion for a test to copy/paste the frame to a new doc and share it together with an IDML exported.

Thanks,
Uwe