Where Did My InDesign Menu Items Go?
Deanna wrote:
I don’t have “Corner Options” as a menu choice, and am stymied by being unable to make rounded corners with CS4. Can anyone help?
and then Di wrote:
I don’t know how to access Glyphs in this new version of InDesign. In version 2 I was able to bring up a panel called Glyphs but i cannot find that anywhere!
Both of these stumped me for a moment — it was as though InDesign were dropping pieces of its user interface, seemingly at random! But fortunately, I came to my senses and realized the problem: You can hide and show menu items in CS3 and CS4, and someone had clearly turned some options off for these two women. But who would have done such a dastardly thing?
Adobe, of course! Adobe, in its infinite wisdom, turns off menu items in several of its built-in workspaces. For example, if you choose the Book workspace in CS4, the Interactive submenu disappears from the Object menu (as though no one doing long documents needs those features). If you choose “Getting Started” from the workspace pop-up menu, lots of menu items disappear (including Corner Options and Glyphs).
While I can sort of see why some people might want to limit the complexity and length of the menus, I generally eschew hiding menu items… just when I think I will never again need such-and-such feature, I suddenly realize I need it right now!
Fortunately, you can always view the hidden menu items in one of several ways:
- Choose Show All Menu Items from the bottom of a menu. Tthis only appears when an item from that menu is actually hidden. When you select it, the missing items suddenly appear, ready to be selected… but they’ll be missing the next time you pick from the menu.
- Hold down the Command/Ctrl key when selecting the menu. That forces all menu items to appear.
- Choose Show Full Menus from the Workspace pop-up menu (in the application bar in CS4, or in the Window > Workspaces menu). That turns off menu item hiding for this workspace until you reset it.
Sounds like an awesome April Fools prank: overwrite all workspaces with ones that hide all menu items and panels. Of course a back-up of the original workspaces is a good idea
More on-topic: Office (at least 2003, I don’t know about newer versions) likes to hide a lot of menu items by default too and I can’t stand that (or Office for that matter) so I always instantly jump into the preferences to show all menu items.
For me, this is the no.1 frustration with the interface. I did a post on this last week after similar complaints from ID users. Great minds!!!
Are you people psychic?
I opened up InDesign today to find nothing but my top menu bar available. No palettes at all, top or side. They were all there yesterday when I was working on my document.
“Show Full Menus” was grayed, so I chose “Reset Advanced,” and everything went back to normal.
Except I can’t get the Twilight Zone music out of my head…
It should really be an option when you open the program. You know the Start Up screen, why can’t they put the option there. Or the shortcuts you’d like to use etc.
Sometimes InDesign resets preferences after a crash and I don’t realise my shortcuts are gone. It’s a little frustrating not even having the warning, let alone not having an option.
I am running CS4 on Snow Leopard and have a PC-style mouse, but when I try to right-click, no context menu appears. I also tried to control-click but I just get a basic pop-up menu with paste/zoom/hide grid/rulers/display etc. This is very distressing, as the context menu is invaluable. Help!
@mikabika: It’s possible that the Mac system preferences simply aren’t set up to handle the second mouse button. You often have to instruct it what to do with the second button.
Thanks – that was invaluable as my menus seem to disappear on a whim. Hmmmm. Anyways! You solved my problem and I THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
what about cs3 though? how can i disable this stupid thing?
I am new to ID and cannot locate the Articles Panel I have been reading about. Any help will be most appreciated.
For ID CS3 this should solve the disappearing menu options:
Go to Edit -> Menus
Choose set: InDesign Defaults
Still having problems with CS4 InDesign (Mac), despite having tried everything suggested. Have been disabled like this for months – please help!