Have you ever seen two values in the Font Size field–one embraced by parentheses? It could read something like “50 pt(24.85)”. If you haven’t yet noticed such an unexpected thing, you haven’t done much with grouped objects.
When you group a text frame or type on a path with other objects, and then resize the entire group, InDesign scales the type to remain proportionate to other objects in the group. That’s expected. What most don’t expect, though, is that InDesign scales rather than resizes the type. Moreover, it remembers the text’s original point size.
In the example “50 pt(24.85)”, the original text size, as set before grouping and scaling, is 50 points. Once the text frame was grouped with other objects and scaled down little more than 50%, the actual display size of the text became 24.85 pts. By including both values in the Font Size field on the Character and Control palettes, InDesign is letting you know the display size, but also the fact that it isn’t what you originally intended.
Tomorrow’s Tip O’ the Day: How to get rid of the parentheses.