Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


Weeknotes #696

So yesterday I ran into a weird bug in InDesign, where the up-and-down-arrow boxes for changing the font size in single point increments were greyed out for no reason (and just those buttons; the similar adjusters for leading right underneath were just fine). A little rooting around with Google and the Adobe forums threw up a fix that worked for me, but for whatever reason I can’t link directly to the forum thread in question, so here are the steps I followed:

1 Draw a text box (2″ x 2″ is plenty big).
2 Fill it with some text – just make sure the text doesn’t overflow the box … yet.
3 Select a portion of the text.
4 Enter a number in the Text Size box that is large enough to make the text overflow (500 pt. should do the trick).
5 Click outside of the text box to finish editing the text.
6 Click the Selection Tool (Keyboard Shortcut “V”).
7 Re-select the type tool – the arrows should now function properly.

Such a weird glitch, but great to have the solution in case it ever happens again.

And so ended my first work week proper of the new year, though I’ve been back at it with the paper since the 1st (and I never really stop with my main freelance gig). It’s a week that saw my first film review of the year on Thumped, for Foxcatcher (which I actually saw back in mid November) and my first press screenings of 2015: documentary Apples of the Golan and big awards contender Whiplash, both which will get written up in time for release day next Friday.

As far as music writing goes, here and there I added a blurb or two to my heavy column; I’ve still got iTunes playlists (and three more folders not yet imported) full of promos to get through but most of those will be for the next one, which won’t be too far behind this one once it’s done and dusted. Yep.

And I’ve been blogging a bit, as you can probably tell if you’re reading this. More of that to come.

In other news, I crashed my bike again, this time on Dorset Street on the approach to Binns Bridge while riding home from the office. Front wheel clipped a not-low-enough kerb and down I went. Luckily neither myself or the bike took any serious damage, though I do have quite the bruise on my knee to show for it. I’ll be commuting under my own power again as soon as the weather improves; it’s either been too wet or too windy for more than a cycle to the shops the past few days.