InDesign, locking text editing of text boxes

[MindBrain]

Hello I was wondering if anyone knows a way to prevent a text box from being edited, in regards only to the adding or removing of characters in the box.

In other words I still want to be able to move the box around and resize it etc... I just don't want to worry about any text being accidently deleted or added. Because sometimes when I use a tool hotkey like V for select tool, and I'm in text editing mode, it leaves the letter v in the text, so I gotta undo or fix it whatever. Not sure if InDesign even has this option, just seems like it would come in handy when you have a project with a story that you don't do the type editing on. Know what I mean?

Of course obvious solution would be not to go into editing mode on the box, however InDesign seems to require selecting the text to do quick font changes etc. Thanks

 

[zlinuk]

I don't know if you can lock a textbox individually, but you can certainly put all of you text boxes on one layer and lock that layer (you probably already know this). The downside is of course that by doing this the textbox will not be selectable (or dragable) whilst the layer is locked.

 

[FourCandles]

I don't believe there's a way to lock the text itself, only the position of the box or the layer itself.

But you could "train" yourself to use Esc, the other keyboard shortcut for the Selection Tool, which doesn't mess up your text if you're in text editing mode. This doesn't fix the other tools, but I used to find that 99% of the problems were with hitting V for the selection tool. I've even seen a published poster in a store in the UK with a conspicuous "V" in the copy where the designer has done this and no-one has noticed.

 

[SwiftLives]

Cmd+Shift+A will also unselect an active text box. (That key combo can be a little easier to reach than the Esc key sometimes).

But to my knowledge, there isn't a way to lock a text box for editing only. Unless you're using InCopy, but that's probably not the solution you're looking for.