text position in text box InDesign
 

I am trying to make a text surrounded by a determined sized box with inner stroke 3pt wide. The text should be positioned in the center of the box.
I have managed everything except for the vertical center. Even if the command to center it is given.
in my attachment you can see that the button for vertically positioning the text in the center is pressed and yet the text is not in the center. Can anyone help?

If Text Frame Options (Command B) is set to Vertical Centre, then something else must be taking priority.

Baseline grid?

what's that?

Some information about text frames (and baseline grid) here: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign...1ea8cb3f-6f89a

does it work differently for you (can you upload a screenshot?) or is it a native behavior of ID

One of the strengths of InDesign is that it provides consistent, logical layout of text and graphics. This is not a situation where it may work properly for one person but not another.

Did you try what benwiggy said, pulling up the Text Frame Options dialog with Command-B and setting the text to be vertically aligned? That should be your first step.

Text can be set to align to a baseline grid. This ensures that text across a spread in different columns is not out of alignment.

If your text is set to sit on the grid, then this may take precedence over vertical box alignment.

Paragraph Style > Indents & Spacing.

If you adjust the baseline settings, should that affect your vertical centering?

Yes, of course I did that, first thing in fact.

Do you mean these buttons (as shown in the attachment)?

in the last example I had it set for alignment with baseline grid. in this one it is set to not. I also added the baseline grid itself that we can see that the text isn't aligned with it.

While I am writing these words I played around with it and I found out that it is somehow related to the font.
In the second example there are two boxes one with font tribal and one with WInSoft Pro. They both have the same settings of paragraph and yet, Tribal is vertically centered and WinSoft Pro isn't. It is as if WSP has some ghost over its head that extends the top margin of the text.

I played some more and discovered that it depends on the "base line options" in the "Text frame options" (⌘B) in the following examples the vertical position of the text inside the frame (set not to align to baseline grid) is changing according to these five options: Ascent, Cap Hight, Leading, X Hight, Fixed. I still have no idea as to what the &($* do these mean but at list I know how to manipulate with that ;)

Next two options:

While there are much excellent free software, clip art, music, and other goodies, free fonts often lack the precision of fonts from a professional foundry and frequently contain errors and omissions that cause problems.

The Baseline option controls where the Top of the text frame is defined to.

so in your opinion (or knowledge) WinSoft Pro is the accurate one? but the tribal works just fine and gives no troubles.

I'm guessing No.

I don't know where WinSoft Pro came from but I didn't download it for free from anywhere. on the other hand Tribal I found somewhere for free.
I doubt very much that this issue relates to the quality of the font.
I think it has to do with the font behavior, as I show in the previous Screen shots there are different settings for baseline that change the position on the text in the frame. I wish I knew what they meant.

Some of those terms are font metrics.
Maybe you could find a nice book to give you some basic knowledge about typography. My own training is one course from years ago (25-30?), but here's a few pointers that may help you a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface
scroll down to font metrics section. Even gives a short explanation for baseline.

but the bigger question remains, is that the cause of the wrong centering or is there another parameter that I'm missing that will help predict the position of a text of a certain font in the text frame.
I'll give it a read, I hope it will help me predict the future of text position LOL

i read the recommended section, can't say that I fully understand now why these settings behave as they do but at list it is a start.

Well, it's just some basic information, to help you understand that there's a lot about font design (and typography, etc) that you don't yet know.

Maybe someone will offer some information about good reference materials that you could use for some self-study. There's also likely some sites that offer training tutorials. Might be worth your time to look for sites that offer training and support for Adobe sofware.