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

Forum|Forum|30 days ago
March 6, 2026
4 replies
195 views

InDesign killer file, anyone?

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

That file worked fine when I opened it.

Mike Witherell

Peter Spier

Community Expert

And here as well…

Derek Cross

Community Expert

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

keithconoverAuthor

Inspiring

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.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

Are your images Embedded or Linked?

keithconoverAuthor

Inspiring

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.

keithconoverAuthor

Inspiring

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.