10
Replies
But it's a little weird...
A lot of people talk about the software as very slow...
And it's strange... because Adobe is a company of many years!
By @משה25790846slki
I have i7 on my laptop, 16GB RAM, swap off - and I don't experience any slowness...
How long have you been working on your document?
Are you doing ONLY Save / CTRL+S - or Save As with a new name - from time to time?
Can you try IDMLing?
Export as IDML, open, save WITH A NEW NAME - do not overwrite your original file!!
A friend from the network suggested it to me.
And he gave more ideas, but he also agreed that there was a problem...https://indesign.tips/slowly_indesign/
By @משה25790846slki
Translation of the link - just in case others would like to know what's there:
1. Instead of working on one large file, try to split the work into small files and work with the Book option.
2. Try to split the text boxes into as many threads as possible. In terms of speed - 30 stories are better than one long article. Of course, I don't mean that each page should stand on its own and have no connection between them, but when it comes to different chapters or different parts of the book - it is better to split, for example each chapter will start in a new thread (this is not always possible and recommended - exercise discretion). The splitting can be done with Adi Ravid's StorySplitter script.
(Update: in the new versions, a folder called Community was added to the scripts folder and contains a script called BreakTextThread.jsx that allows you to split a thread not only before or after the selected frame but also before a certain paragraph style, which allows you to split an entire book into many threads in one operation)
3. Cancel the Preflight (the red/green dot that warns of errors at the bottom of the document. It can also be reached through the Window > Output menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F). Run it again just before exporting the file, make sure there are no errors.
The PreFlight panel
4. Try to avoid anchoring objects as much as possible. I'm not saying don't use, but use wisely. For example, in a book with 400 pages, you should not create a window under the first word in the paragraph using this method.
5. Cancel all previews, for example in the Pages panel (in the menu (1) select Panel options (2) and in the panel that opens remove the V from the option Show Thumbnails (3)). If you reduce the page size to small (4), the preview is automatically canceled.
6. Try to work in a lower level display (View > Display performance > Typical Display and in particularly difficult cases Fast Display).
7. In the search - even in a simple text search, it is preferred to use the GREP search, its speed is much higher (mostly it is not noticeable, but in huge and slow files it is very noticeable).
8. Delete unused styles - character, paragraph, object, table and table cell styles. To do this, click on the menu of the styles panel and select Selcet All Unused. All unused styles will be selected. Now click again on the menu and select Delete styles (or right click on one of the selected styles, then delete styles). Repeat this operation in all types of styles, as well as in the color swatches panel.
9. Remove fonts from memory and try to use only the fonts you need for this specific job. To remove fonts from memory, you can use font management software (I work with an old and lightweight software - ShellTools) and/or put desired fonts only in the Document Fonts folder. See tip #7.
10. If you have to write a sequel to an old book you made. You want it to be the same font, the same settings, the same page size, etc., so what most people will do is open the old file, delete all its contents and start over. It's a mistake!!! InDesign saves lots and lots of unnecessary information even if you deleted everything inside the file. What you can do is, after deleting all the content, export it to an IDML file, open and save again as an InDesign file. (I did an experiment: I had a document with 800 pages that weighed 25MB. I deleted everything except the title page, and saved it. The weight of the new file is 21MB. I exported it to an IDML file, opened it, re-closed it as an InDesign file, and behold, it was a miracle - it weighed only 1MB). In most cases it will be enough to overwrite the file by saving as (Save As).
11. When working with columns - cancel the alignment of the columns. Return the alignment only before exporting to PDF. There are those who prefer to cancel the column definitions altogether, stand in one column, and only at the end of the work return to the columns.
12. If you use the Span/Split Columns option - try to use this option as little as possible. For example, if the book has two columns and the titles span the entire width of the row, it is better that the basic definition of the frame be columns, and only the titles be defined as span columns in style, and not the other way around.
13. Cancel in the software settings in the Type tab all options for smart text reflow (Smart Text reflow).
Preferences panel in the type tab. Disabling the Smart Text Reflow option
In the same window in the second line appears the option Type tool converts frames to text frames. What this option does is make the text tool (Type tool) turn shapes that are not text boxes into text boxes. Some say it slows down InDesign. You can cancel it.
14. Fully balancing a text box can also cause slowness. If this is important to you, give the text boxes an object style and activate the full balance only at the end of the page, before exporting. If it is one thread, you can select all the text with Ctrl+A and select the desired alignment in the frame settings. That is, instead of Justification, put Top, at least when working on the document.
Text Frame Options panel - canceling the two-sided vertical justification (Vertical Justification)
15. If there are a lot of repeated treads, it is better to give them a note style. Overrides slow down the file.
16. For those who use the Adobe Paragraph Composer (in Hebrew we use the World-Ready composer and there the problem does not exist). You should cancel the presentation of the contextual alternatives and all OpenType settings. (unchecking the frame marked in red, in the preferences window on the Advanced Type tab)
The Preferences panel in the Advanced type tab.
17. When possible, in long documents it is better to work with real character styles and not nested styles or GREP styles, because if they exist InDesign constantly tries to look for them and apply them. {There is a solution to temporarily silence the GREP styles: adding an asterisk * at the beginning of the expression will cause InDesign not to apply the code}
18. Lower display settings (less good user experience, but faster). To do this, we will enter the preferences settings and select the interface tab, and go to the bottom of the window.
The first definition (1) refers to the hand tool - as soon as we use it, the display quality can be temporarily lowered and thus speed up the software. There are three options: the highest quality - No Greeking - will not blur anything, but the performance will be less good, the best performance - Greek images and text - blurring of both the text and the images, and in the middle - blurring of the images only, while the text will remain smooth and beautiful.
The second setting (2) Live Screen Drawing refers to displaying the image while dragging, and it also offers three options. The immediate option redraws the image on the screen throughout the entire drag, which makes for a nice display, but from a performance point of view, it makes the computer harder. The option Never moves the frame only, and redraws the image only in the new place of the frame, which makes it easier on the computer. The Delayed option offers an intermediate solution. Basically, it only moves the frame, like the Never option, but temporarily allows dragging when the image is displayed, by briefly pausing the mouse after selecting the object and before dragging.
The third option (3) also blurs vector objects by dragging.
19. Import images and vectors into InDesign using Place (possible with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D) and not by pasting or dragging. Apart from the other problems caused by the images, the images are embedded in the file and burden it, unlike the images imported in the usual way, in which the images are only displayed in the file but are actually links to the original files, and only when the file is exported to PDF are the images embedded in the PDF file. Images imported using place can also be embedded in the file by clicking on the link in the links panel and selecting the embed link option, but as mentioned - this will weigh on the file.
20. Disable the dynamic spelling that checks spelling in the document live (usually it doesn't work, but you should make sure):
dynamic spelling
21. For Mac users only (unfortunately) - make sure the video card is used. In the preferences settings, go to the GPU Performance tab (located at the bottom) and make sure it is marked with a V. Without the use of the graphics accelerator, InDesign uses the computer's processor and this may affect performance. So why is there even an option to cancel the check? Because there are video cards that are not compatible with Adobe software in full compatibility and this may damage the stability of the software. As mentioned, this option is available in InDesign for Mac users only (unlike Photoshop and iOS, where there is also an option to configure the use of the graphics accelerator on a PC).
22. In documents that contain hyperlinks, cancel the automatic check of the status of the links: open the Hyperlinks panel (you can access it in the menu View > Interactive) and press the menu button. There you will uncheck the last option:
23. Cancel saving the preview to the files: when you open InDesign, a screen appears with the last documents we used. In the preferences panel on the File Handling tab you can define the amount of documents to be displayed (1). Option #2 means always saving a preview with each file. You can disable it or change the settings of the preview. In option 3, you can define how many pages will be saved from the document - only the first page, the first 2, 5, or 10, or all pages. In option 4 you can set the size of the preview. The smaller the size, and the fewer pages InDesign makes less effort to save.
24. Give InDesign more resources (on windows). Activate the "Task Manager", and select the "Details" tab. Look for InDesign there and right-click, and choose "set priority". There instead of "normal" you will define "high" or "real time".
I wrote down what I remembered but there may be more things. If you remember other things that slow down InDesign, feel free to email me and I'll add them to this list.
AdChoices