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rexsacrorum
Inspiring
Jan 27, 2022 3:58 PM UTC
Answered

InDesign crashes when formatting footnotes

I have a book with a single document in it of about 40K words with about 60 footnotes. Everything works fine until I try to change footnotes in any way, e.g. font size, font type, etc. Then InDesign freezes and I have to end it in task manager.

 

I thought it was the MS Word file I'm placing but then I copypasted the text into notepad (i.e. stripped all the formatting), copypasted back into a brand new Word file and re-created all the formatting. Same problem, so it's probably not a corrupted Word file.

 

I also created a new InDesign book and document from scratch, re-creating all paragraph styles and importing nothing but the re-created MS Word file. Same problem, so it's probably not a corrupted InDesign book or document.

 

Using InDesign 2022 v17.1

Running Windows 10

Intel i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz

32GB RAM

 

Any help would be appreciated.

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rexsacrorumCorrect answer
Inspiring
Jan 28, 2022 1:30 AM UTC

Rolling back to InDesign 2021 16.4.1 fixed the problem. The issue must be with a recent update.

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18 replies

Community Expert
LaubenderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
Jan 28, 2022 8:39 AM UTC

Hi rexsacrorum,

I would do a bug report at InDesign UserVoice:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs

 

Also post a link of this thread plus a link to your sample files in the report.

The engineers should look into that case.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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rexsacrorumAuthor
Inspiring
Jan 28, 2022 11:21 AM UTC

Done

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/44729950-indesign-crashes-when-formatting-footnotes

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    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Jan 28, 2022 11:37 AM UTC

    I voted and commented!

     

    Thanks,
    Uwe Laubender

    ( ACP )

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      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 5:59 PM UTC

      Success:

      No issues when I work with InDesign 2021 version 16.4.0.55.

      Things I did: I replaced the imported character style with [None] ( Do not keep formatting. )

      Added a new character style for the footnote references. Applied that through the Footnote Options.

      Added a new paragraph style based on style [No Paragraph Style], applied that through the Footnote Options to the footnote texts. No crash. Changed that to my style that was based on an already used style. No crash.

       

      Download the INDD 2021 document from my Dropbox:

      https://www.dropbox.com/s/6tignuw90hspfrv/Book%201-EDITED-4-2021.indd?dl=1

       

      FWIW: InDesign 2022 is still freezing and crashing when I try to repeat the steps I did with InDesign 2021.

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender

      ( ACP )

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      rexsacrorumAuthorCorrect answer
      Inspiring
      Jan 28, 2022 1:30 AM UTC

      Rolling back to InDesign 2021 16.4.1 fixed the problem. The issue must be with a recent update.

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      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 5:45 PM UTC

      Note: There is an imported character style "Footnote reference" that gave me headaches when I opened the exported IDML file in InDesign 2021. The used style there was named [Nothing] where in the InDesign 2022 version of the document the style was named Regular.

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender

      ( ACP )

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      Peter Spier
      Community Expert
      Peter SpierCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 5:48 PM UTC

      I applied the existing reference style (and defined a new footnote style) in the document footnotes options dialog.

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      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 5:32 PM UTC

      Hi Peter,

      I based the new paragraph style for the footnote texts on an existing one.

      Maybe that was the issue? No. Tried something else:

       

      I did not add the INDD document to the INDD book file.

      Applied my paragraph style as the one for the footnote texts in the Footnote Options.

      This time I had no crash. Well. Not immediately. Fans of my laptop running high now and InDesign is freezing again. After some seconds while I was typing this message.

       

      Will test with an exported IDML file opened in InDesign 2021 as well.

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender

      ( ACP )

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      Peter Spier
      Community Expert
      Peter SpierCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 5:35 PM UTC

      Been open here for over an hour with no crash. I based my new style on [No Style]

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      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Jan 27, 2022 4:48 PM UTC

      Hi rexsacrorum,

      downloaded your INDD document and your INDD book file.

      Added your INDD document to the INDD book file.

      Your story was in overflow. I corrected that.

      Then I did a new paragraph style for the footnote texts.

      Applied that in the footnote options.

       

      InDesign froze and finally crashed.

      ( InDesign 2022 version 17.0.1.105 on Windows 10. )

       

      So yes, I can confirm the issue.

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender

      ( ACP )

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        Peter Spier
        Community Expert
        Peter SpierCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        Jan 27, 2022 5:01 PM UTC

        Interesting. I've done essentially the same thing, same version of ID (except mine is US English as opposed to your German) and I've go no crash.

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        Peter Spier
        Community Expert
        Peter SpierCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        Jan 27, 2022 4:25 PM UTC

        I'm not having any trouble in version 17.0.1.

        Try resetting the prefs: Reset InDesign Preferences and Other Troubleshooting 

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        Peter Spier
        Community Expert
        Peter SpierCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        Jan 27, 2022 4:27 PM UTC

        I see you already did that. Might be a problem with the 17.1 update.

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        rexsacrorumAuthor
        Inspiring
        Jan 27, 2022 4:16 PM UTC

        Tried trashing my preferences and exporting to IDML. Same problem, IDML file doesn't exactly crash but works so slowly that InDesign is unusable.

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          Geоrge
          Geоrge
          Legend
          Jan 27, 2022 4:18 PM UTC

          >>  IDML file doesn't exactly crash but works so slowly that InDesign is unusable.

          Save this idml as new .indd file

           

           

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          Remember, never say you can't do something in InDesign, it's always just a question of finding the right workaround to get the job done. © David Blatner
          rexsacrorumAuthor
          Inspiring
          Jan 27, 2022 5:03 PM UTC

          Tried saving the IDML back as INDD but it didn't work. I was able to get it to work only by:

           

          - using my "stripped" and re-created Word file

          - in a single document only, not attached to any book

          - by applying a paragraph style to all footnotes in the "Document Footnotes Options" dialogue box

           

          After doing this I could change the footnote font/style/etc. at will.

           

          I suppose this is a workaround but very cumbersome. InDesign very buggy these days, I also noticed in a different project that I would select one paragraph style and it would apply another but on reboot it was resolved. Maybe v.17.1 needs more work.

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          rexsacrorumAuthor
          Inspiring
          Jan 27, 2022 4:03 PM UTC

          Not sure why I can't edit this post. Anyway, here are the files if anyone wants to try it themselves:

          https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kzk0knh3vlghpc3/AADllwOGMc6aOyZ4Be-A-i30a?dl=0

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