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andrewb38571671
andrewb38571671
Known Participant
November 8, 2017
Question

Placed PDFs on high quality display disappear when panning or moving objects

  • November 8, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 1984 views

I often work with marked up documents that I scan in, place on a background layer and then draw on top of: annotated maps and the like. I place the PDF, set the display performance to high quality, and off I go. In the past (talking the days of the Mac G3 and InDesign 2.0) this was painfully slow and unworkable, but these days the lag isn't too bad. HOWEVER. I do a lot of panning and a lot of dragging other objects around the page. Often when you let the mouse go, the placed PDF vanishes. To get it to display again you have to either toggle preview mode off then on again (I usually work in preview mode) or zoom in or out: basically, force a screen redraw. Not too much of a hassle, I grant you, but it's finally got me irritated enough to ask: why?

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4 replies

andrewb38571671
andrewb38571671Author
Known Participant
May 14, 2018

I have created a new bug report because I couldn't attach the video to my original one. If you've had this problem/can replicate please give it a vote!

Vector graphics randomly vanish upon transformation in high quality display mode – Adobe InDesign Feedback

    andrewb38571671
    andrewb38571671Author
    Known Participant
    May 13, 2018

    I suppose I'm trying to find out if this is everyone's experience or just me. It's one of those things I've lived with for a while but it was more of a subconscious irritation until one day I realised it shouldn't be doing this and now I'm constantly furious. Can't say if it's been like this since the dawn of InDesign or only stared when I switched to PC five years ago or with CC... you get the idea.

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 14, 2018
    andrewb38571671  wrote

     
    I suppose I'm trying to find out if this is everyone's experience or just me.

    I specifically did the test now. I can confirm that with my machine (Windows 7 workstation), I have the same problem.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    andrewb38571671
    andrewb38571671Author
    Known Participant
    May 14, 2018

    Hi Uwe, thanks for the suggestion: unfortunately no better though. I wanted to look at your files however corporate firewall says no to DropBox!

    andrewb38571671
    andrewb38571671Author
    Known Participant
    May 10, 2018

    I've had a bit of a play and it happens with Illustrator files too. Here's a video showing me with a document with a single, simple Illustrator graphic just resizing it (holding shift+ctrl) and moving it around the page. Notice how I have to flick between preview mode (pressing w) to get it to display again. Imagine this when you're drawing on top of a map and the whole thing just disappears. Maddening.

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 10, 2018

    Look into the preferences:

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    andrewb38571671
    andrewb38571671Author
    Known Participant
    May 10, 2018

    Good idea, and mine was set to delayed, but after changing it and restarting InDesign I still get the same behaviour. Ctrl+shift click-drag a frame with a vector object, the content disappears. Move the frame, still blank. Turn off preview mode and boom, it displays again. I can then click and drag and move it around a bit more and it stays visible, but eventually I'll do another transformation and it disappears again. Turn preview mode back on and boom, visible. So it doesn't matter whether I'm in preview mode or not, toggling it one way or another is enough to force it to redraw.

    This has got to be a bug, because it seems to happen randomly: as shown in the video I can do the same thing multiple times without issue and then all of a sudden the content disappears.

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 9, 2017

    I have that too. It‘s either a bug in the display driver or in Indesign. You may disable GPU use to see if it improves.

    If you feel it’s Indesign, file a bug report.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    andrewb38571671
    andrewb38571671Author
    Known Participant
    November 9, 2017

    Does InDesign even use the GPU? I have a feeling it doesn't, which is why performance on a fancy computer is only slightly better than on my standard i7 laptop!

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