InDesign saving large files

[Kyle36677048s5wy]

I have a staff member that is experiencing a huge increase of file size when saving. They are using normal amount of linked images and we have compared to other people working on same projects, they are not experiencing this. Is there a setting that may be causing this issue?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The only things that lead to file size increase are:

• Actual text/graphics content;
• Embedded images, or image previews for linked images;
• Undo information
• Photoshop image meta data (something of a bug that can really bloat file sizes).

You can purge the undo and image data by using a Save As to a new name, about once a day, which also gives you a useful way to maintain a chain of backups.

If the file seems really out of whack, export it to IDML, then re-open and save under a new INDD name.. That does a bigger purge and rewrites parts of the file that may have been corrupted, often link-related.

If these two actions don't consistently reduce the work file size, something else is wrong. There are settings about how page and image previews are saved, which can be set too high and thus cause unusual file bloat.

[BobLevine]

Excellent summary but just to be clear, there's no need to save as to a new name.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Technically, no. You can Save/As to the same name, but the small odds of corrupting your only copy during a glitched write combined with the advantage of keeping a rolling backup isn't worth any, er, savings of effort. IMHO. 🙂

[rob day]

Hi @Kyle36677048s5wy , assuming you are not emedding very large images, a 1.8 GB ID file sounds like the Photoshop metadata bug. See this thread:

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

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Kyle36677048s5wy 

A lot of graphic objects / links with transparency and effects and Display Performance set to High Quality?

This will force InDesign to generate and store high res previews.