What Is Overset Text In InDesign - ULearn Tech & Design

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Have you tried to export a PDF, and instead, you get notifications errors about overset text? So, what is that, and how can you resolve that problem?

What is Overset Text?

Overset text is too much information hidden in your text frames. Do you see this little red square in the lower right corner? That means this text frame is overset. What you can’t see won’t get printed. You could ignore it and let it be cut-off, but it’s a sentence; it might not make any sense to the reader.

Ways in Dealing with Overset tText:

1. Use Story Editor (Edit > Edit in Story Editor or Command Y) shows what part of a story is overset with a red line. Here, you can either delete it or fix the sentence structure. Sometimes, it could be an extra line of nothing.
2. You could make the content or type smaller so all the text will show.
3. You can extend the text frame a bit so that the text will show.
4. Create a new page. Select the Selection Tool (the black arrow) in the tools. Click on the red square with the + icon. The icon will change to a page icon. Click anywhere on your new page to flow the text onto the new page from the overset text frame.

There’s a super-easy way to find any errors in your document at the bottom in the document window’s lower-left corner. See this little red dot? It means there’s some issue here, something possibly wrong. It’s not necessarily overset text frames, but something is off. Click on the drop-down arrow to open the Preflight panel. Or go to the main menu, Window > Output > Preflight. The keyboard shortcut is Command-Option-Shift-F on the Mac or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F on Windows.

By clicking the little triangle to the right, you can see here that an overset text errors. That’s what I was looking for. Go ahead and click on another triangle, and you can see those are the overset frames. And these numbers over here on the right, those are the page numbers. Isn’t that cool?

Now, debating which method you used, go ahead and export your PDF again. The Preflight panel and the lower-left corner of my document window have turned from red to green. A green light means go. It’s safe to say it is safe to export as a PDF.

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