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keithconover
keithconover
Inspiring
January 4, 2024
Answered

Three Documents Freezing

  • January 4, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 3328 views

In a now-locked discussion a couple of months ago (https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/one-document-freezing/m-p/14157822#M545863), I posted about a document freezing on me. Thanks to everyone who answered my post, there was lots of good information in there, and I learned a lot. However, none of the suggestions fixed my problem.

 

After several weeks of being away from my PC workstation that can handle big InDesign files, I'm back at it. I now have not one but three files that lock up InDesign as soon as I type another word. (InDesign 19.0.1 x64 Windows 11 current patch.) As noted in that previous post, this PC has all the RAM and processing power one might need.

 

I have finally realized that (1) I've been putting in so many cross-references that it eventually makes InDesign choke. This is not a problem with a corrupt file, it's a problem with (a) me putting in too many cross-references, (b) me making too-big InDesign files, and (c) InDesign not being able to handle more than a certain amount of RAM and then going into disk-swapping lockup: not likely to be fixed any time soon. (I've seen evidence of that disk-swapping in Task Manager.)

 

My goal is to produce PDF files (and eventually to use IN5 or something else to make a website). Here is the current structure of the book, with each Volume being a separate InDesign file. I've got all of the Volumes in a single Book Panel. Here's the current outline:

 

Appalachian Search and Rescue

Foreword

Preface

 

Volume I: Survival

Chapter 1: Short-Term Survival: 1-58

Chapter 2: The Environment: 59-142

Chapter 3: Wilderness Travel : 143-160

Chapter 4: Equipment and Supplies 161-260

Chapter 5: Health and Fitness 261-276

Chapter 6: Wilderness First Aid (part 1/2) 277-484

 

Volume II: Ways and Means

Chapter 7: Communications

Chapter 8: Land Navigation

Chapter 9: Leadership and Followership

 

Volume III: Search

Chapter 10: Search Tactics

Chapter 11: Incident Management

Chapter 12: Search Theory and Strategy

 

Volume IV: Rescue

Chapter 13: Nontechnical & Improvised Evacs 1-40

Chapter 14: Wilderness First Aid (part 2/2) 41-96

Chapter 15: Knots and Ropework 97-296

Chapter 16: Rescue Management 297-306

 

After locking up this third file (Volume IV: Rescue), I've come to the realization that each Volume should probably be a Book Panel, with each chapter as a separate file. But then (wailing and pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth) what is going to become of all my beautiful cross-references? The ones that make the resulting PDFs so useful to readers? The file that just locked up on me (Volume IV) has on the order. of 300-400 cross-references!

 

Any advice on how to divide up these Volume files into separate chapters – and as much as possible preserving the cross-references – would be greatly appreciated.

 

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer keithconover

    Hi Keith if it's not too much trouble I would look at re-importing some of your psd files as jpg, or if you need transparency, png. There's so much more to a PSD that InDesign is aware of that I have to think it would at least not hurt to change the format.

    quote

    I wonder if changing my .psd files to some other format might help this?


    Thank you, Maurice, I suspected this might be the case. So I tested with a big file with lots of linked .psd files, one that was giving my lots of problems on my desktop PC. I opened it on my laptop (traveling now) and it took about thirty seconds to load, with the cursor alternating every half second or so between an arrow and a whirling blue circle.

     

    I had initially imported .jpg files into .psd files to clean them up in Photoshop. For each, I had both the original .jpg file and the cleaned-up .psd file in my folder. I decided I didn't need to keep the original .jpg file, as it was effectively embedded in the .psd file for safekeeping. So I planned to open up each .psd file in Photoshop, then export to .jpg, overwriting the original .jpg. Sounded like a lot of work, but needed to be done.

     

    I went through the folder of graphics. When I right-clicked the first .psd file and was about ready to, from the context menu, click "Edit" to open in Photoshop, lo and behold there was a context-menu item that said "Convert to JPG." I clicked that and in less than a second I was able to overwrite the original .jpg file with a new one that had all of the Photoshop tweaks. No options for JPG compression or size.  But, it was the right size and quality I would have picked. It only took a half-second to do this for each .psd file. Wow.

     

    I have no idea where this context menu functionality came from. It could be from Adobe, it could be from Microsoft, or it could be from Directory Opus, the Windows File Explorer replacement I have used and loved for many years.

     

    When I went through the links panel and changed the link for each .psd file to the corresponding .jpg file, and then closed and reopened the file? It opened in about a second and scrolling, which had been laggy, was quite fast.

     

    Bottom line: changing linked .psd files to .jpg files can have a major effect on the performance of InDesign when that file is open.

    2 replies

    P
    Peter34634266nm8j
    Participant
    January 6, 2024

    I would recommend wordpress to you as it is more user-friendly 

    keithconover
    keithconoverAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 7, 2024

    The facts that I have one WordPress site and help maintain another also will make it easier <g>.

    keithconover
    keithconoverAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 18, 2024

    This is NOT SOLVED as my primary aim is not a website, but a PDF ebook! (Actually individual chapter PDF ebooks.) I am still having great difficulties figuring out what is going on. I am focusing on the smallest of my lockup files, an early draft of a communications chapter. It is only 28.3 MB. The exported PDF is only 2.04 MB. Both are available for anyone to download in http://www.conovers.org/ftp/InDesign-Lockups/. Preflight shows no errors. Package shows no errors, though it does note that Marlett is an incomplete font (duh). But if I type more than a word into this InDesign file, it locks up. Of interest, I saw somewhere online that doing a Save As clears some cruft out of an InDesign file. Indeed, this helped. I was able to type almost two more sentences into the file before it locks up InDesign. I thought maybe that I linked too many .psd files? But what I found online said that it's better to link .psd files than the alternatives. I thought maybe someone smarter than me might glean some insight from what Task Manager looks like when InDesign is locked up:

    When InDesign is not locked up, it looks almost the same except that (a) CPU usage is lower, and (b) there is no disk swapping:

    I'm suspecting the problem is with the cross-references, and indeed, I found a lot of good cross-references (as you can tell from the slider bar in the screenshot below, there are  lot) but a whole page of corrupted ones:

    So, next I'm going to focus on cleaning up the cross-references. Not sure how those corrupted ones got in there, but my next task is to go through and clean up all the cross-references.

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    BobLevineCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 4, 2024

    InDesign is not the right tool for creating a website. Look into WordPress, Web Flow, or Square Space.

    keithconover
    keithconoverAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 4, 2024

    Yeah, I know. Thinking about using WordPress but then dropping in bits output from IN5. But the primary goal is to produce a (free, online) PDF ebook textbook.

     

    If you'd like to see the drafts of what I was able to produce so far, with their many cross-references, check out: http://www.conovers.org/ftp/AppSAR-Drafts. Now that I have run head-on into the brick wall of InDesign's inability to address more than about 1.4 GB or RAM without getting into a diskswapping lockup I will not be able to update these until I fix the issue. (We will not mention my creating massive files with profligate use of cross-references.)

     

    In case someone is creating a large volume with separate chapters as a single InDesign file, though not as large or cross-reference-filled as mine, and wants to export individual chapters as PDFs but with the intra-chapter cross-references working as PDF links, and the PDF bookmarks from your Table of Contents intact and usable for navigation, with all of the bookmarks collapsed to serve as Table of Contents (sorry for the runon sentence) here is my procedure for doing so reflected in the individual chapters:

     

    Pre-PDF check of volume:
    Search for character style Hyperlink and check to make sure links are OK, just checking internal hyperlinks.
    Then, go to the Hyperlinks Panel and check all the external links.

     

    To create separate chapters, do it from within InDesign: File > Adobe PDF Presets > Small with Links > Save [will prompt for pages] >
    • AppSAR-1-Short-Term-Survival: 1-58
    • AppSAR-2-The-Environment: 59-142
    • AppSAR-3-Wilderness-Travel: 143-160
    • AppSAR-4-Equipment&Supplies: 161-258
    • AppSAR-5-Health&Fitness: 259-274
    • AppSAR-6-Wilderness-First-Aid-1: 275-484

     

    AppSAR PDF Post-Processing for each volume and chapter (new Acrobat interface 2023):
    • While chapter still open in Acrobat:
    • Click on right top-ish bookmarks icon
    • Highlight each chapter bookmark and press the "/" key to collapse all bookmarks in the chapter. Repeat this for each chapter. Save PDF via Save As > [save over original version]

     

    (I had first tried the following but it failed in that none of the cross-references worked):
    • Extract pages for each chapter, name as AppSAR-1-Short-Term-Survival or similar: open thumbnails panel (right, four squares > right-click any page icon > extract pages > type in the following: 
    o AppSAR-1- Short-Term-Survival: 1-58
    o AppSAR-2-The-Environment: 59-142
    o AppSAR-3-Wilderness-Travel: 143-160
    o AppSAR-4-Equipment&Supplies: 161-258
    o AppSAR-5-Health&Fitness: 259-274
    o AppSAR-6-Wilderness-First-Aid-1: 275-484

    keithconover
    keithconoverAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 5, 2024

    First, let me say that I have no expectation that this textbook will ever be printed on paper. I want people to be able to download either chapters (smaller) or volumes (easier to link between chapters but larger) and view them as a PDF ebook.

     

    Some more information, and a plan for going forwards in case you run into the same problem.

    This lockup is related to the .indd file size. The three that lock up on me as soon as I start typing are:

    28.1 MB, 151 MB and 197 MB. So, size factors in there, but more likely complexity is the issue. The computational overhead for cross-references likely does not increase linearly but more likely something like exponentially.

     

    My workaround for this – still working on it – is to have all of the chapters as separate .indd files but be parts of a Book Panel (although in may case the "book" is going to be one volume of the entire book). Heretofore, I'd mostly used a book panel to synchronized styles across the book (a feature to be treasured). Now, though, I'm going to use the volume's book panel to produce the PDF files. Again, I have lots of cross-references between the chapters in a volume, but not between volumes, so that might work out OK.

     

    Cross-references will not update automatically between .indd chapter files, but you can update them via the book panel. I cut out the first two of the six chapters in Volume I and saved them separately. I was able to use the Volume I book panel's top-right "hamburger menu" to access the "Update All Cross-Refernences" menu item, and then the hamburger-menu "Export to PDF" menu item to create a single PDF of the two chapters. PDF links between the chapters worked fine, and it didn't take any time for the "Update All Cross-References" to work before I made the PDF. Of course, I am concerned about that after I add the remaining four chapters! Breaking Volume I down into six separate chapters, I went to the Hamburger Menu > Book Page Numbering Options and clicked on "Continue on next odd page" rado button and the clicked the checkbox for "Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers."

     

    In the Volume I book panel, I also used my mouse to highlight each of the two chapters, one at a time, and in the hamburger menu, setting the Section Prefix for Chapter 1 to be "1–" (that's a one followed by an N-dash, which I had to copy from an N-dash I had in InDesign) and "2–" for Chapter 2. I also clicked the checkbox for "Include Prefix when Numbering Pages." This seems to work well.

     

    Once I get all six chapters into shape and in the book panel and export to PDF (or at least try to) I will report my findings.

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