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keithconover
Inspiring
Mar 6, 2026 4:24 PM UTC
Question

InDesign freezes and spikes memory when editing specific IDML file with long footnote

InDesign killer file, anyone?

    15 replies

    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Mar 9, 2026 1:56 PM UTC

    That file worked fine when I opened it.

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    Mike Witherell
    Peter Spier
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Mar 9, 2026 7:36 PM UTC

    And here as well…

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    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Mar 6, 2026 5:34 PM UTC

    Can't you save the IDML document as an InDesign document and work on that?

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    keithconover
    Inspiring
    Mar 7, 2026 1:59 AM UTC

    I already did that and modified it so it doesn’t crash InDesign and I’m currently working on it. I am just posting this as a reproducible way to lock InDesign up.

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    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Mar 6, 2026 5:04 PM UTC

    Are your images Embedded or Linked?

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    keithconover
    Inspiring
    Mar 6, 2026 5:27 PM UTC

    There is one .jpg that is linked, and one .eps that is linked in two places. There is also an .icml file drawn in. It has a couple of Table of Contents in it that are left over from the file from which I started this InDesign-killer file. It’s really just a stub of a document that I was going to clean up to create a new chapter for my textbook. All of the files are in http://www.conovers.org/ftp/InDesign if you want to look at them. Try adding a few sentences to the main text.

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    keithconover
    Inspiring
    Mar 6, 2026 4:28 PM UTC

    Not sure I like the new forum design. I have a small .idml file which with the needed resources will, reliably, lock up InDesign for a very long time, with Task Manager showing a full 2+GB memory load and occasional “disk” (solid-state drive) swapping. I figured out how to solve the problem by (a) adding some more blank pages, and (b) eliminating a long footnote. So I don’t need a fix, but I thought perhaps someone at Adobe would like to experiment with this file to reliably reproduce the diskswapping lockup issue. If not, that’s OK.

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    Community Expert
    Mar 7, 2026 5:15 AM UTC

    Can you share the file please.

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    keithconover
    Inspiring
    Mar 7, 2026 3:13 PM UTC