Getting Rid of Text Size Parentheses
August 31st, 2006Jesi wrote: I design a lot of ads, which will be used in multiple publications. When I copy and paste the entire ad into a different template and resize, the type size that is shown in the Character window stays the same, but the “actual” type size shows up behind it in parentheses. This is very frustrating as I’d like to see at a glance what my actual type size is.
Jesi, this is a huge problem for many people. The problem typically appears when you scale one or more text frames in a group. For example, these two text frames were grouped and then enlarged:
Notice how the selected text’s point size appears as both 12 point and 27.86 point (in parentheses). The 12 point is the original text size and the number in parens is the size after scaling.
So what do you do about it? You must choose Object > Ungroup and then choose Scale Text Attributes from the Control palette flyout menu. This feature only appears when you have a scaled text frame like this.
No one disputes that this is painful and unpleasant (even engineers at Adobe have quietly agreed with me on this point), but it’s the only good solution for now.
While we’re on the subject of text peeves — how come the shift-delete shortcut to delete the next character keeps coming and going? It was there in CS; now it’s gone again in CS2. Maybe it could come back in the next update? And stay forever?
Just use the Delete key to delete the next character. The Back Space key will delete the previous character.
Are you working on a portable computer ?
I can’t see what the point of knowing the origional size is. For god’s sake Adobe, drop us an update here! (While you’re at it, fix the max. caracter of file names when exporting pdf as well)
They thought it could be useful to know it !
Adobe should really put an end to the 31 character limit in file’s name.
Believe it or not, there are many people who really like the “before/after” text sizes because they enjoy knowing they can return to the original size at any time. That’s why Adobe offers the “Adjust Text Attributes When Scaling” checkbox in the Type panel of the Preferences dialog box. When that feature is off you’ll always get those wacky parentheses (until you choose Scale Text Attributes).
> Believe it or not, there are many
> people who really like the “before/
> after” text sizes because they enjoy
> knowing they can return to the
> original size at any time.
Since YouTube you see how much people like to enjoy strange fantasies………
been searching for the solution to this “problem” for a while. sure this can be handy if you want to return to the original size, but its good that i now can disable that if i want! Thanks!!!
I can’t ungroup my text box because it is not part of a group. It is justa scaled box. What now? I can’t find Scale Text Attributes at all
Fur, see my comment above about the ““Adjust Text Attributes When Scaling” checkbox. Perhaps that is turned on? If not, I wonder if something is corrupted or messed up. Try grouping it with something and then ungrouping it again; try exporting the object as a snippet and placing it again?
Hey gang, its a little late but I just stumbled across the same problem with text in a table. Like fur, there was nothing to ungroup and I could not get my text to the correct size although I unchecked the box as David suggested. It turns out the box containing the table was distorted, the scale of the X and Y Percentages were differerent. Setting them back to 100% corrected the font size.
Joe, I hadn’t noticed that before. Yes, if you put a table in a text frame, then paste that text frame into another frame (using Paste Into), and then scale the container frame, the text inside the table gets the parentheses. Blech!
By the way, I have edited my comment above. Originally it said turning on the “Adjust Text Attributes when Scaling” preference gives you the parens. I meant turning it off. Turning it on makes it work the way most people want (the text size adjusts properly). Thanks to Andy MacBride for pointing out my error.
Thanks for the kudos, David.
And for the rest of us following David’s directions who are puzzled by a missing “scale text attributes” option, it’s because (insert drum roll…) the tool you’re currently using is probably the text tool rather than the selection tool. The flyout menu looks very different when it’s being accessed with the text tool and the selection tool (try it, you’ll be amazed — all kinds of other options appear). Switch, and suddenly you’ll see that option for killing those parens.
And for those of you who, like me, want to never see these little buggers again, go to your text prefs and check the box next to “Adjust Text Attributes When Scaling” (and make sure no documents open). Then you’ll never see this mysterious behavior again.
That’s a very good point, Andy: All kinds of things change in the Control palette depending on which tool and which situation you’re in. It can be mystifying.
But one correction: Even with that preference turned on, you’ll still see the parens around text sizes in some situations, as have been pointed out above — notably, scaled frames inside groups or scaled frames that have been nested inside other objects. I know that the good folks at Adobe are painfully aware of the inconsistencies here and I’m sure this is one of those things that will get better in future versions.
Wow. I love this tip. My entire office was struggling with these crazy parenthesis.
Any insight into how to permanently turn off this “feature” in InDesign CS3? I was trying to apply Andy’s tip but Adobe has taken out the “Adjust Text Attributes when Scaling” preference in the Type Preference area.
Danny, in CS2 you don’t need to follow those instructions anymore. (Actually, you do if you open a CS2 document with mislabeled text, but not in new docs.)
In CS3, the parens very rarely appear, even when scaling groups. If you want the parens (that is, you want to see before and after values), then turn on the Adjust Scaling Percentage checkbox in the Preferences dialog box.
> You must choose Object > Ungroup
> and then choose Scale
Text Attributes
> from the Control palette flyout menu.
Just thought I would add this tip for those who like me didn’t realize that the palette across the top is called the “Control” palette: the flyout menu can also be found on the “Transform” palette.
I realize this is an older article but it still put me in the right direction. I’m an intern at my office and they said, “Hey, fix this.” None of the solutions seemed to be helpful until I noticed that the text boxes X and Y percentages weren’t at 100%. After some struggling I found it was as simple as going to the Control Palettes flyout menu and clicking redifine scaling at 100%! Simple stuff. (we are using CS3 and just typing 100% in the X and Y percentage weilded no results.)
THANK YOU!
This issue with InDesign has bugged me for years, but I’d always worked around it. Being a new year and all, I figured I’d find out if there was a solution. And there is.
Thanks to David for his speedy assistance too.
How is this done on ID CS3?
I think it works in CS3 the same way as it does in CS2, no?
It’s these kinda problems that make me wanna scream “Quark still rules”…at least when it comes to certain very basic type manipulations…
Unreceivedogma: Well, I can understand the frustration. But it’s one of those “with increased power comes increased complexity.” Hey, at least it’s getting better with each version.