What do Brackets [Item] mean?

I used to think that brackets around an item in things like the Swatches panel, text and object styles, stroke styles, etc meant that the item could not be modified.

That certainly is the case with the swatch for the color [Black].

But I recently discovered that the [Default] document setup can be modified so that Facing Pages is turned off.

That’s when I realized that brackets around an item in a panel or dialog box means that the [item] can’t be deleted.

That’s all.

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Sandee Cohen

Sandee Cohen is a New York City-based instructor and corporate trainer in a wide variety of graphic programs, especially the Adobe products, including InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat. She has been an instructor for New School University, Cooper Union, Pratt, and School of Visual Arts. She is a frequent speaker for various events. She has also been a speaker for Seybold Seminars, Macworld Expo, and PhotoPlus conferences. She is the author of many versions of the Visual Quickstart Guides for InDesign.

David Blatner says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:33 am

Interesting point, Sandee. Another place those mysterious brackets appear is in the Window > Workspace menu… those workspaces can’t be deleted from inside InDesign (that I know of).

Sandee Cohen says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:46 am

Yup, you cant delete those default workspaces.
But the way they are displayed is confusing.

When they appear under Window > Workspaces have the brackets.

But when they appear under the pop-down menu in the Application Bar, they don’t have the brackets. That’s got to be an oversight.

Anne-Marie Concepcion says:

September 17, 2012 at 9:05 am

and brackets around a font name means that the font is missing.

Steve Werner says:

September 17, 2012 at 2:11 pm

You’ll also see the brackets in the PDF Preset list. Those with brackets are the standard set which is shared between the Creative Suite applications.

You’ll also see them in Illustrator’s or Photoshop’s PDF Preset lists.

You won’t see them if you create a custom preset.

Simon Tranter says:

September 18, 2012 at 2:59 am

When training our studios, we advise never to use the [Black] Swatch as it automatically overprints when used at 100%, which in a litho print environment is a pain. The overprint [Black] Swatch can be turned off in the Preferences, under the Use of Black.