The new paragraph shading feature would be fantastic to use for laying out text message conversations in books/long from documents, but needs a few tweaks to make is fully functional. Text messages in books is becoming very common and having them run in the text while paging is crucial.

It used to be that you had to create shapes and anchor each in for a text message. Now you can use Paragraph Shading defined in the style for left side texts with no adjustments, but because right side text messages need to have the "bubble" shape aligned right, but the interior text left aligned. My solution is (see sample file):
Create three base paragraph styles:
1. <leftsidetext>: Defined: All text styling, paragraph shading set to Text, right/left indents, alignments, and space above/below, etc.
2. <rightsidetext>: Defined: Based on <leftsidetext>, but remove left/right indents
3. <rightsidetextalign>: Defined: Based on <rightside_text>, but change to align flush right, add right indent (if needed), turn off paragraph shading.

Next steps:
1. Cut out all the <rightsidetext> and create a standalone text frame for each text message.
2. Create (or leave) empty returns where each right side text was and apply <rightsidetext_align> to the return.
3. Paste the text frames into the empty returns where appropriate to anchor frame.
4. Select each frame and apply the Object style (Text Message Right in sample file).

Could there be a way to separately control the shading alignment from the interior text alignment within the paragraph style? Much like how text functions within a div?

While hyphenation preferences can be refined at the Paragraph (style) level, Character (style) options only provide a boolean “No Break” attribute which prevents line breaks whatever the location of the text in the layout.

Note, for example, that “Hyphenate Across Column” is available as a paragraph option while the user may actually want to turn on/off column breaks from within a character style. The “No Break” attribute is then too harsh, since it fully disallows line breaking.

Suppose a ITEMS character style is associated to proper names or book titles. We may want to allow regular line breaking for these ITEMS within a frame or a page, but we may need to exclude breaks across frame or page, making sure that ITEMS always appear in full within a visual block.

A way to fix this would be to make the character “No Break” attribute more detailed. Instead of a true/false value, a dropdown list of distinct options could be implemented: [No Break (full), No Break Across Column, No Break Across Frame, No Break Across Page]

Note: The option “No hyphenation” (i.e. “No Word Break”) could be added in that list as well. This would address another feature request which is clearly connected to the present one: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/32293963-add-no-hyphenation-as-a-character-style

Thanks for considering this idea.

For about 14/15 years I never had to reset preferences in InDesign.

Since CC2017 it's more or less once a week.
Colors disappearing.. panels blind or empty.. tools not working.. font now showing.
Panels self increasing size...

But it seems we have to deal with it, so we probably need a way to SAVE PREFERENCES.
Save preferences in a moment everything work fine.. and restore it when (after just few days) nothing works anymore.

Every time people have to reset preferences, they have to restore everything. UI colors, workspace, Application Frame (that mac users normally never use) Old Dialog way (the new are unusable and way too slow).

Too many things to restore and too often.

Currently the ‘Space Before’ value is ignored when that paragraph appears on the top of any container—frame/column.

There are innumerable occasions when we need the above space settings to be honoured even when the paragraph appears on the top of the column. We InDesigners resort to various antics and workaround like keeping an ‘Invisible Rule Above’ or use a character style with extra leading etc..

It is very easily solved by a simple checkbox in the Indents and Spacing tab just below ‘Space Before’ selection which says ‘Add Space Before on column top’. If checked, the value will always be used even when the paragraph appears on the top of the page.

We need “Wavy line” customize option, such as:
(1) weight (2) wave height (3) wavelength (4) single/double line selection
(see fig1.png and fig2.png)

Current wavy line design is not good for professional.
When we change weight, the wavy size is automatically changed. We can’t control the size of wave.
When we need to control the size and shape of wavy line, we have to create appropriate one by Illustrator, then link them. This takes lots of times of us.
"Wavy line" customize option will definitely help us a lot.
Japanese clients often designate to use wavy lines to underline.
With current feature, we can not customize wavy lines.
To make clients satisfy, we are always struggling against wavy lines!

(Translated to Japanese)
タイトル：波線のカスタマイズ機能を追加（太さ／波の高さ・幅・／一重・二重線）

内容：
現在の波線機能は、線の太さを変更すると、自動的に波の形状が変わってしまい、
思い通りの波線にするには、イラストレーターなどで作成し、リンクするなど、
とても面倒な作業が必要になり、時間も手間もかかります。
日本では下線に波線を使うことが多いため、「波線カスタマイズ機能」が追加されれば、とても便利になり、時間の節約にもなります。

The German word "Textumfluss" is used two times in InDesign but with different meanings:

Within the preferences "Smart Text Reflow" is "Intelligenter Textumfluss".
And then there ist the "Text Wrap" panel, which is named "Textumfluss" in German, too.

So "wrap" gets the same translation as "reflow"? Noooooo! These are two different thing and should not be named the same!

A better translation for reflow would be "Textumbruch", so please change just one word in the German preferences, from "Intelligenter Textumfluss" to "Intelligenter Textumbruch".

It's easy to do: just five letters to change! One small piece of code. Done in a minute or less. :-)

Thanks!

When PDFs are placed into an InDesign layout and then the entire layout is exported to PDF, the placed PDFs are converted to <Figure> tags in the final PDF.

There are many time when designers must incorporate an existing PDF into their documents, such as:

-- Multi-page PDF of an existing document.

-- A pre-made PDF AcroForm

-- In annual reports, an official letter from a president, commissioner, or other authority.

-- In financial reports, the required letter from the accounting firm as well as the financial balance sheets.

In these above cases, the placed PDFs are official documents that can't be rebuilt in InDesign. They are already in the PDF format, accessible, and with other interactive features such as hyperlinks or form fields.

But at this time, all of that is lost and the PDF becomes a static <Figure> with unreadable and inaccessible text. Alt-text is limited to 200-300 characters, so it can't be used to describe, for example, the pro-forma letter from the accounting firm that did the organization's audit.

Suggested solution:
As the designer is placing the PDF into the layout, they need to select whether a) the PDF is a graphic, or b) the PDF is a live document with interactive and accessibility features that must be maintained.

If a) then it's correct to be tagged as <Figure> in the resulting PDF (this is what we now have).

If b) then it must retain the live text, <Tags>, hyperlinks, buttons, and form fields and pass this information into the resulting PDF.

We find this situation a lot in government, academic, nonprofit, and corporate publications. See a recent post in the Adobe Community Forums at https://community.adobe.com/t5/InDesign/Export-issue-Placed-interactive-PDF-then-exporting-entire-doc-to/m-p/10680659#M157346

Sure hope this can be done!