Indesign refreshes all references after one change in document - a lot of waiting in local network

[jacekb68211345]

Hello,

I'm working with file that is in my local network on serwer. My InDesign file have a lot of references. My network disk is slow about 100Mb/s. The problem is with InDesign that after some changes refresh all references to about 20 files, (perhaps he open this files in background, check numer pages, and close files).

After small chenges in my working document i must wait 😞

All related with references files hase about 700 pages.

How to do it that indesign turn of refreshing references after changes?

[Joel Cherney]

I don't typically work over a network - but recently my desktop & my laptop both failed within a few days of each other, so I've been stuck for some weeks working on my backup computer with an HDD, an actual stack of magnetic spinny-disks, so my computer sometimes performs as if I am working on a slow, glitchy network. I found, like you, that InDesign files that had cross-references to other files work very slowly. My strategy was to simply open up all of the necessary files in the background, so that I wouldn't have to wait around for it to update all of those cross-references.  You could probably do better by copying your files locally, assuming that you have a recent machine with sufficient RAM and a sufficiently fast SSD. 

I don't know of any way to supress InDesign's background cross-reference checks. I've always thought it odd that using live cross-references would bring InDesign to a halt, when there are clearly controls to update xrefs manually in the flyout menu on the Cross-References panel. Many years ago, when I was stuck working on a slow, glitchy network, what I did with such files was to write my own Javascript that would update all of my manually created cross-references. Other than "not using InDesign's native xrefs and rolling one's own," I'm not sure what else I can suggest for you.

[Willi Adelberger]

If you turn off preflight, would it help you?

[jacekb68211345]

No 😞

[Willi Adelberger]

If I work with indb I often work without opening the indb file to speed up things. At the end I open it of course to get everything updated in a single task. 

[jacekb68211345]

It dosn't matter. If You have references to another indd files I have this problem. A saw that indesign open and close all files that he heve reference and the BIG issue is that Indesign search references in main file... open file to which it relates, update, and search next reference. For example: at first he find some reference to file X and next indesign find references to file Y and of course update and i next if he find next references to file X indesign open file X again :(((

How to unchec refreshing references ?

[adam_5340]

For anyone still experiencing this in 2025...

The only thing I found to help with this issue is to manually open all referenced documents. You can't disable the check, but you can skip the open and close in the background part, which takes the most time. 

[jacekb68211345]

Thanks for Your information. Yes the best way is to open all referernced documents. There is a faster update but still we lost a lot of time. For example when I have cover with all references to big catalogue I copy cover file to local drive, and turn off the internal network connection and make changes in document offline with wornings that I have no linked links. When I put all updates in cover file I connect network and update links. Of course with all opened referenced files.