Extremely Sluggish

[dtrayne]

It seems that with every move I make in InDesign 16.3.2 I get the spinning ball of death in Mac... and if I'm not getting all this crap then I am force quitting it. I'm so close to smashing my mouse in frustration. I'm running Mojave v10.6.2

[Derek Cross]

How much RAM and spare hard disk capacity do you have?

Have you tried resetting the InDesign preferences?

If you have sufficient system specs and resetting preferences hasn't helped, it might be worth removing the application, using the Adobe Cleaner Tool, and reinstalling InDesign again.

[dtrayne]

I have enough RAM and Hard Drive space and I have reset thre preferences. I have gone back to v16 and there is an improvement but it still dissapointing. The files I am working with are not even that big, 6-10 pages and even new files.

[Eugene Tyson · Accepted solution]

I appreciate your frustration - but it would be helpful to answer the question on the RAM and Hard Drive space so we can defintely rule that out. 

It's so hard to know what's going on for you with very few details about  your file.

Your workflow - are you working from a server - saving files to dropbox/one drive/google drive?

Working off your hard drive on files stored on the computer?

What type of files - even 6-10 pages can contain complex graphics like vector heavy files, or extremely large raster images?

You can also have a lot of styles or conflicts with styles and fonts.

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Sometimes there is a clue when it's hanging - the spinning Blue Circle in the Title Bar indicates something working in the background.

You can open the Window>Utilities>Background Tasks

To see what might be happening when working on your document.

Although, might not be the case for you at all.

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Common Fixes

1. Export your file to IDML - and open that in InDesign and resave as an indesign file

See if issue persists

2. Reset your indesign preferences

Delete InDesign preferences with shortcuts
You can delete the replaceable InDesign SaveData and InDesign Defaults files by holding down the following keys while InDesign is launching:

Windows: Shift+Ctrl+Alt
Mac OS: Shift+Control+Option+Command

Deeper clean options here
https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/indesign/kb/indesign-preferences-support-file-locations.html

3. Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

4. Rollback to a previous version of InDesign

https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/using/install-previous-version.html

[Scott Falkner]

Is this happening with all files or only some? Does changing the display preferences help? If only some, are those files using complex GREP styles? I have found GREP can slow down the program because InDesign is constantly scanning the text to ensure the formatting is applied. At least, I think that is the reaosn. When I removed the GREP the program sped up.