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Can't drag objects

I am unable to drag objects/textbox/etc in InDesign. I can resize using corner handles but I'm unable to click and drag object to desired location I've uninstalled, reinstalled, shutdown, restarted, cleared all settings, etc and nothing seems to work. I have never encountered this issue in all my years of using InDesign. Please help!

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Alvina shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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FIXED  ·  Abhinav Kaushik responded  · 

Hello All,

We thank you for your patience all this while.

Addressing this problem has been tricky for us given the random nature of the issue.
Determined to resolve the issue, we had launched our investigation into the matter to identify the root cause and fix it.

Many of you must have received email from us seeking more details about the issue.

We have concluded our investigation and came up with the below mentioned finding:

It was found that, most of the times, users were trying to drag an empty polygon which was leading the confusion because the legacy behaviour of InDesign allows dragging of polygon only from its edges or the centre most point.
If the user tries to drag it from any other position, the object cannot be moved.

We have tried to improve the user experience in this regard. You can try the same in InDesign’s latest version id 14.0.3.

Please download and install id 14.0.3 and let us know your feedback on the new experience.

Note:
If you are unable to drag other types of objects (other than empty polygons), please check the memory usage of your system. It has been observed that when the memory usage reaches the critical level, dragging of the objects become difficult.
As a workaround, you may either try to close some applications or restart the system.

Regards,
InDesign team

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  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    SOLUTION - I have this every now and then on my MacBook Pro, hugely frustrating when it happens but fixable. Quit InDesign, then hold down SHIFT, CTRL, ALT + CMD together when launching InDesign. It will ask you to delete preferences, click yes. Quit InDesign again and do a full shutdown of your mac. When you launch InDesign again you'll find it's back to normal.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hey guys!! I would make sure that whatever you're clicking isn't secretly hiding behind a background image or something else. I had this issue where I was trying to move a text box and I wasn't able to. After hours of trying everything I finally realized my background image wasn't sent to the back, my text box was actually the farthest thing back and when I tried clicking it I was actually clicking the background image. Silly silly mistake but just want to claify that for anyone who might have overlooked that possibility!

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    This happened me just now, same InDesign version. Tried restoring preferences and deleting cache, still not working. Then I tried CC2017, and the same problem there. There is no problem with the same documents on another computer. I have deadlins to keep, and this is extremely annoying! What can I do!?

  • J. Moreland commented  ·   ·  Report

    -Win 10
    -Yes, Can resize
    -Issue happens will all objects

    Happening more often and have to reboot several times a day. Need fix asap.

  • Ashton commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've been running into this problem for months now. Deleting all my preferences works like 40% of the time if I do it a few times, restart my computer and so on. It's really getting in the way of my work.

    To answer the "needs more info"
    1. OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G19009)
    2. Yes I am able to resize
    3. On (tried it off and still the same result, no dragging ability)
    4. Issue occurs with any object. Text, images, graphics, shapes, in pages or in page masters.

    This has been ongoing almost a year for most after multiple updates, any actual fix would be GREATLY appreciated.

  • Dominic commented  ·   ·  Report

    I closed photoshop and restated indesign. It worked

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    I closed photoshop and restated indesign. It worked

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    I fixed mine by going into display settings. Since I have two screens plus my laptop i tried rearranging. Did not work. Then I hit Mirror Display for all screens and was able to get to the resize buttons. Hope this helps.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Merde! I have the same issue in InDesign and Illustrator. REALLY don't want to hassle of reinstalling, as I had a different issue last month and had to reinstall twice!!

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Solved.
    The same thing happened to me this morning while I was trying to place a PSD image in InDesign and having Photoshop running as well. I closed Photoshop and all of a sudden I was able to move my objects again. I opened Photoshop again (in case that was the problem) but I can still move everything in InDesign. It could be a coincidence but it worked for me, so check whether you are running another Adobe program which is currently blocking InDesign.

  • Mindy Wells commented  ·   ·  Report

    This just happened to me, too. I cannot click and drag an item. I am able to resize an item but not move it with the mouse. I can use the arrow keys to move items.

    This same problem is in illustrator, also. I was using the program earlier today and neither program were giving me any issues. It was completely all of a sudden.

    Windows 10 Home
    Verson 1803
    OS Build 17134.48

    Adobe InDesign
    12.1.0.56 x64 Build

    Adobe Illustrator
    21.1.0 (64-bit)

  • GT commented  ·   ·  Report

    Ive got exactly the same issues and have just tried illustrator and its the same on there, cant move any objects apart from with the arrows.

    any idea from anyone whatsoever or is it just being ignored?

  • Jen commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same problem. I deleted preferences, but it didn't resolve the problem.

    1) Mac OS 10.12.6
    2) yes
    3) on
    4) happens with all objects, regardless of type

  • Viren commented  ·   ·  Report

    POTENTIAL SOLUTION - Try holding down left click on a file and press ESC after a few seconds. Worked for me.

  • Viren commented  ·   ·  Report

    This has suddenly happened to me as well! Please fix asap!

  • Shiju commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same here! We can resize the objects. But couldn't drag any object from the page.

  • Andy commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same here. This just started happening this week! Any updates? TIA

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same problem: unable to drag any objects except at snail's pace with arrow key. Resizing objects works, though.

    Deleted Prefs files (Defaults and Saved Data) and relaunched InDesign to try to fix it, only to have InDesign crash every time it relaunches now.

    CS6 on Mac OS 10.10.5 Yosemite.

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