How to create an arrow in Adobe Indesign
How to create an arrow in Adobe Indesign
Question
I've used an arrow like this:
➜
...in lots of programs - on the web in WordPress, in MSWord, even TextEdit.
But when I paste the arrow into an inDesign document, it's not recognised.
Is this arrow character not usable in inDesign?
How do I get an arrow character in an inDesign doc?
Accepted Answer
Up on the menu bar, do Type > Glyphs if all else fails.
But I played with your arrow a bit - It's MS Mincho isn't it? As soon as you select that font in InDesign, the arrow shows up when you paste.
There's actually a setting you can tweak if you want to make copying/pasting that arrow work a little better in some scenarios: Go to Edit > Preferences > Clipboard Handling and check the radio button "All Information (Index Markers, Swatches, Styles, etc.)". I changed the setting to that from "Text Only" and while it still didn't work copying from the browser, it did work when I copied and pasted from Word. I usually keep that setting off because Word does some wacky things, but if it helps you then that's great!
Popular Answer
1) If you want an arrow character in text, you need to find one in a font (such as Zapf Dingbats or Wingdings). Your problem may be that you've pasted a character in a font which isn't carrying over to InDesign (that is, you copied in Wingdings and it's pasting in Times or whatever). You can't use code like "&r arr;" to create an arrow.
2) If you want an arrow shape, use the Line tool to draw a line, make sure it has a stroke, and then open the Stroke palette. You can select arrowheads from the dropdowns.