Why Don’t Arrow Keys Work Next to Blank Fields?
Alan wrote:
I use the Selection tool to select a text frame that has all one style, all one font size, etc., and open the Character panel. I can’t modify the font size or tracking using the up/down buttons, nor with the up/down arrow keys after clicking inside the field.
I love the ability to change the formatting inside one or more selected unthreaded text frames with the Selection tool. It just speeds things up so much. You can even apply paragraph styles, and so on.
Typically people use the Character panel for this because when you have the Selection tool chosen in the tool panel, the Control panel doesn’t show you text formatting. However, after you choose the frames, just press T to switch to the Type tool and the Control panel changes, offering you font, size, and so on.
But what you’re talking about is different; you’re talking about a situation where some text formatting is available, but some is not — the whole field is blank:
In the image above, you cannot change the text size, leading, or font style using the arrow keys on the keyboard or the arrow buttons next to the fields. Why? Because the text frame contains more than one size, leading, and font style. For example, if every character in the frame is Times Roman 11 pt with 13 pt leading, but one character — say an invisible final paragraph return — is Times Italic 12 on 14…? That would do it.
The Selection tool trick only works when every character in the frame is the same. You can, of course, still apply formatting manually — that is, you can choose from the pop-up menu next to the field or type in a value yourself. You just can’t adjust all the values up or down with the keys. (The same thing happens, of course, when you have a range of text selected with the Type tool, and that text contains different formatting.)
Personally, I think this is annoying and perhaps even a bug. (A bug in the programmers’ thinking, if nothing else.) After all, why shouldn’t you be able to increase or decrease the values of each and every character in the frame (or selection) by the same increment at the same time?
Maybe what the reader is experiencing is the same thing I sometimes experience. I e-mailed David and Anne-Marie in February (Feb. 14, to be precise), with a screen shot. The problem was: I can click on the fields (usually font size and/or leading), but the arrows are grayed out. So I can’t use them and I can’t use the keyboard arrows. But the value is there, so it’s a little bit different than above. I uploaded the screen shot: http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/3462/bugfc2.jpg
Yes, it happens that sometimes ID loses the ability to edit with up/down arrows on the keyboard and even in the fields.
Two workarounds : do you have a backup copy of your Preferences ? If yes, reinstall them.
If not, reset Preferences.
I’ve seen this a few times. I’ve put it down to low memory performance. I just reboot and it works again. Perhaps there is a better way?
@Alexandre: Yes, that’s exactly the situation. It has happened immediately after resetting preferences (literally: reset prefs, new doc, drag out a text frame and fill with placeholder text), so it’s not a corrupt prefs issue.
All the fields in the character panel are populated, so it’s not an issue of mismatching, and the Control Panel behavior (everything works) is always different from the Character Panel behavior (leading and size up/down are greyed out and up/down arrow keys don’t function), even as both display simultaneously.
The infuriating thing is it’s inconsistent. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s not, and I have yet to find a way to reliably reproduce (or not!) the problem. If I ever do find one, I promise to post it here.
@Alexandre: I had the same problem too. Check to make sure you have all the latest updates. If it’s still not working correctly, try uninstalling and reinstalling, that’s what fixed to for me.
My best guess it was related to have an early edition of CS3 (ordered right after it came out, before any updates were incorparated into the release). Reinstalling the suite fixed that annoying problem and few other glitches I was having in the other programs.
Had a similar issue earlier.
The colour tint box was grayed out in the swatches panel, I just swapped over from fill and stroke and it was working again.
Hi David,
Yes sometimes I get puzzled too when the windows are empty, and even more when they are grayed, but still work.
Regarding the different sizes of type issue with the inability to use, type inside the window for the type size, I do not see how it could be changed, if it were active or fillable directly, it should apply the same value to every character selected, because as they work now they need to show and apply a real value number.
But we can still rely on a well known keyboard shortcut for changing the size up or down, one or more points, every character selected, thus the size relationship is kept. E. g., text is 12 points and a word is 14pt in small caps, I can change it via akeyb. shortcut to 14 and 16pt. easily. I would not think about an alternative (and easier) way of changing it.
The simple trick: Select all text. Press Cmnd.+Opt+> or Cmnd.+Opt+< to increase or decrease size.