[CS6/CC2018] Performance of Opening/Saving IDML with many pages

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hello,

I would like to ask for some advice regarding the performance of opening or saving IDML files with many pages.

Currently we have an IDML file (~10MB) with 878 pages (page size is A4 landscape with each page having at least 4 text frames that is filled with text).

The problem is that opening the IDML file is taking ~12 mins in InDesign CS6 and ~8 mins in InDesign CC 2018 (13.0)

while saving to IDML takes around ~2-4 mins for both versions.

Machine specs

Windows 7 Professional SP1

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU@ 3.60GHz (8 cores/processors)

Installed memory: 8GB (7.87GB usable)

HDD: WDC WD5000AAKX-08U6A

SSD: KINGSTON SV300S3 SCSI Disk

InDesign CS6

A. Opening IDML file (~12 mins)

time: 2:58PM - 3:10PM

peak memory usage: ~1.3GB

peak CPU load is 13% (machine has 8 processors so this means 1 processor is fully occupied)

B. Saving to idml (~2 mins)

time: 3:15PM - 3:17PM

peak memory usage: ~1.4GB

peak CPU load is 13% (machine has 8 processors so this means 1 processor is fully occupied)

InDesign CC 2018

1. InDesign CC 2018 32 bit (13.0)

A. opening the IDML (~8mins)

6:54:23 pm to 7:02:48 pm - 0:08:25

7:10:08 pm to 7:18:10 pm - 0:08:02

peak memory 1.8GB

peak CPU is still 12-13% (12-13% from start to the end)

B. saving to IDML (~3mins)

7:04:04 pm to 7:07:01 pm - 0:02:57

7:19:50 pm to 7:22:52 pm - 0:03:02

peak memory 1.9GB

peak CPU 25% (for only around 2-3times for 2-3 secs, most of the time it is 12-13%)

2. InDesign CC 2018 64 bit (13.0)

A. opening the IDML (~8 mins)

5:37:30 pm to 5:45:23 pm - 0:07:53

5:51:00 pm to 5:59:17 pm - 0:08:17

peak memory 2.2GB

peak CPU is still 12-13%(12-13% from start to the end)

B. saving to IDML (~3-4 mins)

5:46:15 pm to 5:48:52 pm - 0:02:37

6:18:14 pm to 6:22:50 pm - 0:04:36

peak memory 2.2GB

peak CPU is 25% (for only around 2-3times for 2-3 secs, most of the time it is 12-13%)

Things we have done:

1. Tried to switch to SSD (Install InDesign to SSD and placed IDML in same SSD) but there are no visible changes in above times, so it seems I/O is not an issue.

2. Tried the tips in https://indesignsecrets.com/6-tips-speed-up-indesign.php but also no visible changes. (seems most of these are for performance when editing the opened document)

Can anyone suggest any other ways to improve the opening and saving IDML files of this kind?

(note that we most likely won't/can't split into several IDML files)

Thanks

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hi,

I don't think there is a way to substantially speed up things here*.

Free your machine from other tasks would be one advice.

Or you could use a dedicated machine for that…

Regards,
Uwe

* PS: Perhaps a script could help, that will open the IDML file in a windowless document, save it as document, closes the doc and reopens the doc. Did not test this. But I can imagine that redraw for the screen can take its time until you have access to the save command.

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hello,

Machine is actually dedicated (except for running non-intensive programs e.g. thunderbird).

Can you advise how to open the IDML file as a windowless document in scripting ( I'm assuming this is ExtendScript) ?

As in ExtendScript, the api call app.open only has 2 parameters (File, openOption), where openOption is DEFAULT_VALUE, OPEN_ORIGINAL, OPEN_COPY and it still opens the IDML file as an opened window/tab in InDesign.

Thanks

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hi,

there are three arguments to app.open() :

Adobe InDesign CS6 (8.0) Object Model JS: Application

The second argument is showingWindow .

Value true is default. Set it to false.

Regards,
Uwe

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hello,

Thanks, Found that I was looking at a wrong reference (InDesign Server).

Will try the scripting and report my results back here.

Thanks

Report · Feb 15, 2018

Hello,

Tried the scripting part with windowless open (app.open(File, false)) and unfortunately there doesn't seem to much of a difference (used InDesign CS6), still around ~12 mins.

Saving seems to save not much time also, though not sure if the difference in saving time in scripting vs in normal interface is possibly due to some delay in the progress bar in Background Tasks pane (as was looking at the progress there to reach 100% before I take note of the end time)

Via scripting windowless open (InDesign CS6)

A. Opening the IDML (~12 mins)

6:50:51 pm to 7.02:47 pm - 0:11:56

B. Saving the IDML (~ 1.5 mins)

7:02:47 pm to 7:03:59 pm - 0:01:22

So I guess time used opening the IDML is mostly in the non-UI part and not much in actual rendering of the text/frames in the UI of InDesign.

Anyway, will still leave this thread open to suggestions from others.

Thanks

Report · Feb 15, 2018

I do not know your workflow but some people believe IDML is a normal workflow, that people should be free to use whatever version of InDesign is convenient, and working with mixed versions is fine. No! It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. Some people find IDML import takes hours but it should be a format used very very rarely.

Report · Feb 19, 2018

Why we are using IDML format:

- The IDML file is lightweight compared to the INDD file (10MB vs ~90MB for the same IDML file of 878 pages).

- We are also performing translation of traditional chinese to simplified chinese by processing the XML story files in the IDML (processed by 3rd party translation tool) which is repackaged into another IDML file so we can easily have a simplified chinese copy for PDF export, which we cannot do easily with INDD (InDesign scripting + search and replace operations for all text which will have a hit in performance especially for large documents)

We are not using mixed versions of InDesign. We are only currently using InDesign CS6.

We only included the statistics for the latest InDesign (InDesign CC 2018) at time of posting to show that opening of IDML format is still slow in the latest version.