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InDesign freezes when I select all text (Ctrl+A)

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
July 31, 2018
10 replies
4386 views

I have InDesign CC 2018. 13.1x64. When I edit a book (only text, no pictures included) and select all text (ctrl+a) on all 300 pages (tex flow), InDesign freezes for 30 seconds. It is really annoying. This happens also in other files with different design. What do you think the problem is?

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Correct answer Laubender

Hi piotreba ,

GREP Styles can slow down InDesign text composition tremendously.

The problem of the OP here is with plain text without any special formatting.

I think, that bug was fixed in the meantime.

Did a test with CC 2019 version 14.0.1.209.

Had a 300 pages document, text in one story with only the basic paragraph style applied.

"Select All" of the text was instantly selecting all the text. No delay. Could scroll through the pages with the text selected.

Exported to IDML, opened the document with CC 2018.1 and was seeing a huge delay after a "Select All" on the text. It took CC 2018.1 about 10 seconds to revert to normal behavior so that scrolling through the pages was possible.

Regards,
Uwe

A

Anonymous

I updated ID to 14.0.1 and tried to reapply one GREP style to the paragraph style – (?<=[\d|\l\u])[\x27\x22] – it took ID over 15 minutes to apply the style (in the meantime ID obviously didn't react). After that, moving between pages freezes, the same as selecting the text. Generally, working is hardly possible.

The document has over 50 pages. Some paragraphs continue throughout a few pages, and maybe that's the problem (but I speculate now, I didn't test it yet because of deadlines , but the other document, ca. 100 pages, where I use the same paragraph style but with all GREP styles I mention in my previous post applied, causes no such issues, yet the paragraphs are indeed shorter).

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi piotreba ,

can you simplify your GREP Style's pattern so that calculating the results would take less time than before?

Perhaps do more than one GREP Style out of the used one.

Regards,
Uwe

Om Nath Jha

Legend

Hi all,

Please update your InDesign to CC 2019 (14.0.1) and check. We've fixed multiple text related issues in the newest update.

You can use the Creative Cloud app to update InDesign. Please refer to this help article if you face any difficulty in updating: Update apps to the latest release of Adobe Creative Cloud

Regards,

Om

A

Anonymous

I noticed the same freezing every time I wanted to select text, or to replace it. I use InDesign CC 14.0 (i7 2.7, 32GB RAM, Windows 10).

The problem in my case was that I had 3 GREP styles:

(?<=[\d|\l\u])[\x27\x22]
[\d|\l\u](?=[\x27\x22])
(?<=\()(i|v|x)+?(?=\))

assigned to a paragraph style. Removing them solved the issue, but I don't find it the right way of solving a problem obviously.

The document has about 150 pages and I can't recall I had such a serious hangs with earlier versions.

L

Laubender

Correct answer

Community Expert

Hi piotreba ,

GREP Styles can slow down InDesign text composition tremendously.

The problem of the OP here is with plain text without any special formatting.

I think, that bug was fixed in the meantime.

Did a test with CC 2019 version 14.0.1.209.

Had a 300 pages document, text in one story with only the basic paragraph style applied.

"Select All" of the text was instantly selecting all the text. No delay. Could scroll through the pages with the text selected.

Exported to IDML, opened the document with CC 2018.1 and was seeing a huge delay after a "Select All" on the text. It took CC 2018.1 about 10 seconds to revert to normal behavior so that scrolling through the pages was possible.

Regards,
Uwe

D

Dynamic Office

Legend

It’s not a bug, it’s literally your computers performs in handling all that information it’s trying to store and replicate.

If you want to shorten the load time, upgrade your computer.

And just because the system requirements are low doesn’t mean it’ll be super-fast…

Take a video game for instance, it’ll have low system requirements but doesn’t mean your PC will be able to run it at super ultra 4k 120fps graphics.

300 pages of full page text is a lot of text for your system to handle and obviously based on the specs you’d given I’d expect such a delay.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi Charles,

I'd say it's a bug. Sort of.

Tested now with InDesign CS6, CC, CC 2014.2 and CC 2015.4., CC 2017.1 and CC 2018.1.

The "delay" started with InDesign CC 2015

Hi Willi,

using styles will not speed up performance with the test file.

There is only text running through 200 pages with [Basic Paragraph Style].

No GREP style applied, no character styles, no deviations in formatting.

Regards,

Uwe

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

There could definitely be some speed enhancements, especially for such a simple action. Unfortunately, for now, if you find it causing problems with your work, I think your only option for InDesign is to plan to upgrade your system.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

What fonts are you using (Font Usage)?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Z

zalozbaz78234805Author

Participating Frequently

For test I have created a blank new document size 165mm x 235mm (book size) with 200 pages and filled it with Placeholder text (Lorem Ipsum). I used Times New Roman font with no styles, same size of font – very simple text. Still, if I press Ctrl + A, InDesign freezes for about 15 seconds.

Here is the document: https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/ab242194-8033-4db2-901d-c2a000370043

Here is the video: when all the text is selected I am clicking with the mouse around InDesign, but nothing happens. After 15 seconds InDesign responds again.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi zalozbaz78234805 ,

I downloaded your sample document, selected some text, pressed Ctrl+A (Windows) to select all text.

And yes, I see InDesign CC 2018.1 freezing for about 4 to 5 seconds.

InDesign CC 2018.1 version 13.1.0.76 on Windows 10 (1803).

Machine details: Intel Core i7 CPU 2.90 GHz, 32 GByte of RAM

FWIW:
No freezing if I do this on the same machine with the same document with e.g. InDesign CS6 version 8.1.0.

Regards,
Uwe

Colin Flashman

Community Expert

For an experiment, what happens when a new document is made, and one text frame the size of the page is made and filled with placeholder text. If Ctrl+A is pressed, what happens?

Anything that live updates a job can cause it to slow down, such as:

Are you running a preflight? If so, what happens if you turn it off?
Are you using GREP styles?
Are you showing page previews in the pages panel?

I believe it may simply be the scale of the document that is causing ID to slow down. It may be the difference between pushing a brick and trying to push a building.

I've tried to replicate the fault by quickly creating a 300 page document of nothing but text in ID, and while I could not replicate the fault, I noted that my preflight is off, no GREP styles in use and pages panel does not show the preview. I do get a spinning wheel but it goes away in less than 5 seconds. (running a Mac OSX 10.13.6 on a MacBook Pro)

If the answer wasn't in my post, perhaps it might be on my blog at colecandoo!

D

Dynamic Office

Legend

What is the specs of your PC?

300 pages of text with potentially different formats, fonts, sizes and colours sounds like it might be your PC struggling to handle the process rather than InDesign directly.

Z

zalozbaz78234805Author

Participating Frequently

Unfortunately I haven’t found the solution. I tried:

Fast Display;
turn off Preflighting;
Uninstalling Indesign, using Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool and installing InDesign again.

I haven't found GPU Performance option.

Z

zalozbaz78234805Author

Participating Frequently

I've tried this on two different computers but with same adobe account.

First computer:

Second computer:

I don’t believe that hardware is a problem. I had same design of the book in InDesign CS6 where everything was working smoothly.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

If none of the above work

Try unticking GPU Performance in InDesign Preferences.

If that doesn't work uninstall InDesign using the drop-down menu in the Creative Cloud app, then reinstall.

If that doesn't help, uninstall InDesign again and run the Adobe Cleaner app before reinstalling.

Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems

@mj

Community Expert

After trying Derek's suggestion if the problem still persists,

Try the following:

View Menu > Display Performance > Fast Display.

Also consider turning off Live Preflighting temporarily.

What is the spec of your computer, btw?

You might find this article helpful.

https://www.creativeprogression.com/resolve-indesign-performance-issues/

HTH

Derek Cross

Community Expert

See if resetting your InDesign preferences sorts it out:

Close InDesign. Then hold down Cmd + Ctrl + Opt + Shift (Mac), and relaunch InDesign. Respond in the affirmative to the dialog asking if you really want to replace the preferences.

Z

zalozbaz78234805Author

Participating Frequently

I've reset InDesign preferences with Ctrl+Alt+Shift (PC) and on dialog box selected YES. Preferences has been definitely reset (different view in InDesign). But unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem.

@mj

Community Expert

Did you try my suggestions above?

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