Huge documents when saved with "Screen Mode Normal" vs "Screen Mode Preview"

[ds_retouch]

I have a multipage document which, when it is in normal screen mode activated, saves a file of 60GB, and when I change the mode to preview, the result is a file of only 50MB. How is that possible? Thanks

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

A bit strange... What is the contents of your file? 

Or maybe not... InDesign is saving previews within the INDD file - maybe that's why? 

Do you have bitmaps or a lot of vectors?

[ds_retouch]

does it really matter? it's the same file saved with 2 different screen modes.

They are ads with a lot of images, bitmaps

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I've just done small test:

Yes, only 4 pages with few graphics - but the % difference should be similar to yours?

Something else is going on with your file - have you tried IDMLing? Maybe your file is corrupted?

[ds_retouch]

actually 16 GB to 50 MB, my mistake

a huge difference anyway

[ds_retouch]

It's not just a single file. I am not discussing a particular case here, but a general problem that I and my colleagues have been facing for some time. I can't understand why, if everything you put in it is brought as a link and not embedded, I have a few lines of text, and yet the resulting files are tens or hundreds of MB. I remember the days when an InDesign file was super small, like an idml from now
I decided to write here, now, because I was shocked by the difference. The file is ok. We are looking for solutions to make it smaller and by chance, we noticed that if you save it with screen mode preview it makes it 300 times smaller. IT'S RIDICULOUS.

[BobLevine]

50 to 16 is not 300 times smaller. The previews are saved with the file. Depending on the contents, the file size difference is most certainly understandable. You should also be doing a SAVE AS to get a true measure of the file size.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

OP meant 16GB to 50MB. 

[ds_retouch]

You are right, from 16GB to 50MB is about 320 times. Each time it was saved with Save as. I did several tests with various files and not all files happened to decrease in size. Which seems normal to me. Hence my surprise.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ds_retouch 

Any chance you can share - on priv of course - sample file, as a full package? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ds_retouch

Do you use shadows and transparencies?

Complicated vector files? 

PSD bitmaps with a lot of layers and effects? 

[ds_retouch]

Yes, all layouts are complicated with bled modes, transparent, etc. I repeat, my problem is not so much with the file size, although it is the first time that it reaches 16 GB. I frequently work on files over 1-5 GB. I am surprised by the fact that the same file, saved as indd, not idml, can decrease in size so much, just because I changed the screen mode

[BobLevine]

16 GIGABYTES? Something is very wrong here. Are you linking or embedding? I have NEVER seen a file that size...not even close. We need way more information on your workflow.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

All those "extras" generate more complicated / detailed previews that will increase the size of your file. 

Add to that the fact, that every Save / Ctrl+S just adds inaccessible Undo History to the overall size... 

Of course, I'm aware that you are talking about the results AFTER Save As - but still... 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Maybe some kind of a workaround for you would be to turn off all those things in the ObjectStyle definition - and turn on when you need to generate finall PDF? 

When you define something in the ObjectStyle and then deactivate it - the values are still there - just not applied / displayed. 

[rob day]

Hi @ds_retouch , This sounds like the Photoshop metadata bug, where accumulated history metadata in placed image files can bloat an ID file—unless you are embedding very large image files a 60GB ID file would not be normal. See this thread for a scripting fix:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/is-there-a-script-to-clear-indesign-metadata-red...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@rob day

But how existence of metadata would make INDD file much bigger only in certain preview mode?

[rob day]

No idea, but it might be worth running the ancestor metadata script to check if that’s the source of the bloat.

[BobLevine]

Certainly worth trying but this sounds very much like everything is embedded and then taking the previews to high res is blowing the whole thing up even more.

[rob day]

this sounds very much like everything is embedded

If it’s the ancestor bug embedding vs linking doesn’t matter. Here you can see the corrupted .PSD file is only 121KB, but the saved, single page  ID file is 1.15GB.

Once a corrupted file is placed, deleting it doesn’t necessarily change the bloated ID file size.

[BobLevine]

Yup...and at this point we have to wait for the OP to come back and clear this up.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@rob day, any chance you have some bloated Photoshop file that I could play with - in order to create new Rule for my tool? Looking at your code, you are using XMPMeta() to get it nicely structurised?

[rob day]

Here are some .psds and .jpegs along with a 500MB ID file:

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/1a3211c0-aec4-4994-7d11-dd43b15fe73e

you are using XMPMeta() to get it nicely structurised?

The InDesign script uses BridgeTalk to open placed image files, and the Photoshop portion of the script strips just the ancestor portion of the metadata. The bug has been discussed at length in the Photoshop forum.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Thanks for the files.

I meant you are using this:

https://extendscript.docsforadobe.dev/scripting-xmp/accessing-the-xmp-scripting-api.html

But it's not available in VB...

[rob day]

That’s right—it’s a Photoshop problem that corrupts InDesign files.