InDesign 18.2 is extremely slow especially when editing text on windows 11 machine

[stefanp910592]

My InDesign has gone EXTREMELY slow since the update to 18.2.1. I'm working on a Windows 11 laptop. Placing images works fine, but editing a simple text box, typing a word, any formatting takes several seconds to materialise. Typing a word in a text box will make the word appear letter by letter and each letter takes a few seconds to appear. It is unworkable and simply unacceptable for a paid-for product.

The laptop's resources are not at their limits. I still have spare processor capacity and spare RAM when InDesign decides to think about every little edit, so that's not it.

It never used to be anywhere near this slow, but I can't keep on working like this. Any ideas?

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[stefanp910592]

Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5, AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB RAM

[stefanp910592]

I've heard this elsewhere that Windows 11 is causing issues. I'm reluctant to wipe and install Windows 10, because I think it should work and it did work without issues until a couple of months ago. I'm wondering if it's to do with fonts, because the extreme slowness is in relation to text editing, although opening any dialogue boxes is also extremely slow, eg opening the dialogue box to set the parameters for a new document, or opening the hyperlinks box, etc.

I'm wondering if it's to do with fonts. My latest magazine file has 25 incomplete fonts. This doesn't appear to cause any issues when outputting a PDF for print, but I notice the warning in the file/package dialogue box. Could this be the reason for the slow performance?

I have deleted the fontcache.dat files, but this doesn't appear to have made a difference. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Maybe...

Can you remove / uninstall all fonts that you've added? 

Then try to add them one by one? 

[stefanp910592]

After many months of suffering from extremely poor performance, I have identified and resolved the issue. I was running Avast free antivirus. Even when created an exception for the entire creative cloud folder and even when I temporarily disabled it, the slowness issue was still there. That's why I excluded this as the culprit in my early investigations.

I have now completely removed Avast and just use Windows Defender instead, and my InDesign is back to full speed now! 
I was running Avast previous to the issue occurring, so I don't know if it was one particular update to either InDesign or Avast that caused slowness/incompatibility, but in any case, the issue is resolved.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Strange, I have avast as well - although free version - ID 18.4 - and no problems at all... 

[AnnaLundh]

Hello!

This has been a constant problem for me using InDesign since about version 18.0 (could be 18.2 as in your case).  Without going into too much detail, I concluded that it is not a hardware or network issue.  Deleting preferences, changing computers, changing network, reinstalling, upgrading to new version, fixing potentially corrupt files...nothing hit the spot. 

However, i just wanted to add a piece to the puzzle that might help the experts.  What surprises me is that I experience a huge difference in performance (specifically in text editing) when switching been Essentials and Essentials Classic workspace.  Essentials is not great but usable, whereas Essentials Classic is not usable at all.   Anyway, I hope that might unlock a door for somebody with better knowledge of the program's inner workings than I have :).  

Thanks!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@AnnaLundh 

InDesign is always very slow if you have Links pallet open - or in case of Essentials Classic - CC Library might be a problem.

[AnnaLundh]

Hi Robert!

Thanks for getting back to me.  I haven't ever payed much attention to CC Libraries, so that was an interesting point.   I often have Links palette open and as long as I am using the Essentials workspace, everything usually flows pretty well on my machine.  (Although not quite as well as previous program versions).   

I did a little experiment closing the CC-Libraries and Links Pallettes, both individually and simultaneously.  I can't say I notice any major changes in performance.  Essentials works better than Essentials Classic in alla scenarios.  So it still feels like a bit of a mystery.  Please let me know if there are any other functions i should look att.  

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@AnnaLundh 

That's my "minimalistic" setup:

With optionally Cell/Table Styles if I have a lot of tables.

Links, Lines, Color, Align collapsed but quickly accessible.

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Please try the suggestions shared by Robert and if you still need assistance, you can try the steps shared in this article. Feel free to reach out if you need further assistance.

Thanks

Rishabh

[AnnaLundh]

Thanks guys for coming with suggestions.   I'll respond If I make any breakthroughs.  🙂  

[mgsummer]

Having the same performance issues. Selecting text in Indesign takes 3-5 sec.  If I type a few words I have to wait 2-3 sec. to see the words pop in. I can fly through complex Unreal Engine scenes rendering 100 million polygons butter smooth but Illustrator locks up when pasting a 10kb vector graphic? I wish I was kidding.

Indesign and Illustrator worked fine 10 years ago yet are now unusable on a high end workstation? (AMD 24 core, RTX 4090, 128GB RAM) This is completely unacceptable. I have tried tweaking program settings in nvidia CP, methods listed in this thread, and more with no change. We cancelled 3 CC seats for our video team due to similar Premiere issues moving them to Resolve. Looking at alternatives for INDD, AI, and PSD now. Adobe has been on the decline for 10 years, ignoring its customers and focusing on shareholder value. It's almost as if they are taking our monthly subscriptions for granted.  = (

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@mgsummer

I don't think it's a CC problem - rather your specific system configuration.

Network - server / cards / drivers, AntiVirus / AntiMalvare software, fonts, additional hardware, drivers for this additional hardware, etc.

What is your machine / configuration? 

Can you strip it to the barebones - cpu / ram / ssd / built-in/generic network card - install fresh system and CC - avast as AV?

[Joel Cherney]

So, I'm working right now on an I7 6700 with 16GB of RAM, and I don't see the behaviour you're talking about. Text selection and font selection work rather faster than you'd expect fom such an old machine. Oh yeah, my video card?  It's a GeForce GT 730! 

There are a few different things at play, here:

1) If my client sent me a package with a Document Fonts folder, I always rename it. My low-spec machine acts like yours, with a 3-5 second delay to select text (or a font) if I allow InDesign to see the Document Fonts folder.

2) InDesign is a very old single-core app; your mention of the number of cores makes me wonder what your single-core speed is

3) InDesign can't take advantage of GPU, at least on Windows (I think Mac users get some GPU acceleration)

4) I keep my selection of fonts pretty well groomed; I don't leave thousands of fonts installed all the time, and I avoid the use of Adobe Fonts when possible. It's usually not possible to avoid, but I do what I can.

So, most of the power in your monstrous desktop is unavailable to your twenty-year-old page layout app. In your shoes, I'd look at either the size of my fonts folder, or perhaps my single-core speed. 

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble. If it's slow while working on a specific file, please export the file as IDML, open it, and save it with a different name to test again. If it's happening with multiple files, please try the suggestions shared in this article. Let us know if this helps or if you need further assistance.

Thanks

Rishabh

[mgsummer]

Robert, Joel, and Rishabh - Thank you for your suggestions. I tried Rishabh's suggestion saving as IDML, opening and resaving as INDD.  This worked! Thank you! This also creduced the file size from 33MB to 21MB with no loss of data or issues that I can see. Love to know why this worked. Maybe Adobe can add this to the next update and improve their INDD save process? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

Robert, Joel, and Rishabh - Thank you for your suggestions. I tried Rishabh's suggestion saving as IDML, opening and resaving as INDD.  This worked! Thank you! This also creduced the file size from 33MB to 21MB with no loss of data or issues that I can see. Love to know why this worked. Maybe Adobe can add this to the next update and improve their INDD save process? 

By @mgsummer

You are probably only using Save, right?

When you work on your document - InDesign is constantly adding Undo History so you can go back to an empty document - untill you close it.

When you do Save - all this info is preserved in the file - but when you close your document - it stays there but isn't accessible anymore - so your file is getting bigger and bigger and is getting slower to open and work.

When you do Save As - with a new name - InDesign is removing this Undo History.

IDMLing is even deeper housekeeping - it also purges all previews.

When you open IDML file - InDesign is rebuilding it from scratch.

This also helps to fix corrupted documents.

You can use Save as often as you want - but you should do Save As with a new name at least once a day.

This has two benefits:

1) removes Undo History so your file will open quicker,

2) you have a backup copy.

[mgsummer]

Thanks Robert, very helpful.

[Alex_Gibson]

One big problem with following this advice is the way InDesign deals with cross-references in books. They point absolutely to a document, so if you rename any documents in the book you have to manually redirect the cross-references. In some books this can be quite a big task, and is error prone. You would think that InDesign could deal with this, but despite asking for the way cross-references are handled to be improved for years Adobe show no signs of listening.  

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Alex_Gibson 

In that case - you can always rename old file as a backup copy, then rename the new Saved As copy to the "correct" name - and InDesign won't know the difference 😉

Beside probably showing you the message that some things needs to be updated - but I don't hink you'll have to "touch" Cross-Refs? 

Or if you work on a PC and need to do a lot of this kind of mundane, repetitive stuff - you could use my ID-Tasker tool - not free, but well worth it. Can save you a lot of time and stress.

[mgsummer]

Performance issues are back a year later... But somehow, even worse. 10 seconds to select a text box? 10 seconds to draw a new text box. Cannot even select text. Save to IDML, save to INDD workarounds dont work. The program is entirely unusable. Adobe leaves its customers to waste time finding workarounds and hacks to fix years of duct tape. Thanks so much for all the AI improvements! Can you make the text tool work?

[Anubhav M]

Hello @mgsummer,

Could you share more details, like the version of the OS/InDesign, and a small screen recording of the problem, so I can better assist you?

Also, try running InDesign under Safe Mode (Windows / macOS) and under a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[AntwanFisha]

Sometimes turning off Preflight while working on the document speeds things up immensely. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

As someone pointed out on another thread - Cross-References can also make InDesign slow and unresponsive.

[morsy74]

Try remove the font folder in package it will work, it worked for me.