InDesign text selection/modification issue

Question

In InDesign CC (as in most applications that allow text entry) when I select all or a portion of text to edit, change font or size, etc., the selected text (as well as its background) turn to a different color. This notifies the user that that text is now ready for editing.

While this method works fine with editing for content, it interferes greatly with the ability to edit for layout or other aesthetic matters. Other applications offer an easy way to override that color-change and leave selected text looking just like unselected text, but I've not found any such feature in InDesign. How does one override (turn off) the color-change of selected text?

(P.S. I'm hesitant to use the word "highlighted" to mean selected text, as highlighted text in InDesign is another thing entirely.)

Answer 1

Maybe you could also use the Story editor.
See https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/editing-text.html#use_the_story_editor

Answer 2

Highlight color is a system preference, not an InDesign preference in CC.

I haven't tried this, but apparently InDesign is using your system default hightlight color. Windows or Mac, try to figure out how to change that system default and apparently it will also apply to InDesign.

• https://indesignsecrets.com/topic/change-highlight-color-in-text-selection
• https://forums.adobe.com/message/5441567

However, you are aware that when making changes to an existing paragraph style, you do not need to highlight (select) anything, just place the cursor anywhere inside that specific paragraph and edit the style via the 'Paragraph Styles' panel (this, assuming you are working with styles).