Legend

Answered

Why do INDD files bloat over time?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 8, 2022
4 replies
4416 views

Is there any simple reason that ID files slowly bloat over time, sometimes to absurd sizes? I know most "intelligent" doc formats keep adding app data like undo content, macros, etc., and Word is absolutely terrible at ever cleaning out or removing any of it. Cutting the content to a new file is often the only solution.

But I just had an experience with an INDD file that shocked me. Working on a long-time, episodic project (the book in the footer, actually), I started getting frustraing problems with EPUB export. Tried every fix including a wholesale cut and drop into a new doc. No go. So I did a laborious move of content to a new INDD file, which of course meant time rebuilding the TOC and some other details... but bingo. All of the quirky problems went away. Time well spent.

Then I compared the files. The new one is about 440k. The older one was a whopping 9.5M! What does ID do to keep adding junk to the basement when a document is edited and maintained over a long period of time?

Performance

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Correct answer TᴀW

The extra stuff is the "undo" information, which is stored with the document (even though it's unusable as soon as the doc is closed).

Doing a "Save As" will clear out this bloat.

It's been like this forever AFAIK.

Ariel

Derek Cross

Community Expert

IDML cleans up the document and rebuilds it, Save As doesn't, it just adds an extra layer of data. So if you want to clean up your file and start with a blank slate and avoid the build up of crud that can cause document corruption, Export your file as an IDML document.

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

I haven't fully explored Bob's information above, but here's my results, from experimenting before I made this post:

Original file, with EPUB export issues: 9400k
IDML export: 430k
IDML save-as: 430k
Save-As: 4600k

None of the save-as'es fixed the glitchy issues, so I moved the content to a new file (in sections; a wholesale move didn't fix things), which started out in the ~500k range again.

After a day of fairly minor work, text editing mostly, it's back to 7500k. But without glitches (again) (yet).

Sigh.

rob day

Community Expert

Can you share a packaged document?

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Besides the undo's and metadata, I wonder if some of the bloat is a "fast save" feature. Acrobat used to have this problem; in order to save faster, the software did not rewrite the file during save, but simply recorded the changes.

An example I used to use in my classes was to have a PDF with 100 pages and deleting 99 of them. A proper save would leave just 1 page--a "fast save" remembers the 100-99 pages even though once can't access the deleted pages. (A proper save would be the equivalent of a save-as.)

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @James Gifford—NitroPress, There also can be a problem with placed images bringing Photoshop ancestor metadata into the document. If that’s happening the metadata has to be cleared out of the placed files.

Ancestor metadata bloat usually is more extreme than your example—see this thread which includes a metadata clearing script, in it I posted an example of a single page ID doc, with one flattened PSD link, saving at 256MB:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/is-there-a-script-to-clear-indesign-metadata-redundancy-or-the-clipboard-just-like-photoshop/m-p/12638735#M460299

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

I have a few images in this doc (actually just one, placed at several different scalings) (plus a few small logo files) but it's not large and it's not heavy on metadata. The same image is in the newly rebuilt file as well.

I just don't think I've ever seen a doc file do a ~20X bloat, not even the most corrupt, circulated Word doc. 🙂

rob day

Community Expert

but it's not large and it's not heavy on metadata

The bloated metadata is ancestor metadata coming from Photoshop and isn’t always obvious in the InDesign file. The problem you are experiencing might not be related, but there are a number threads in the Photoshop forum on the ancestor problem.

This 8-bit blank 1920 x1080 pixel canvas weighs 65MB—the problem metadata is buried in the Raw Data:

When this file gets placed, the Raw Data can replicate itself in the ID file:

After running the ID script:

TᴀWCorrect answer

Legend

The extra stuff is the "undo" information, which is stored with the document (even though it's unusable as soon as the doc is closed).

Doing a "Save As" will clear out this bloat.

It's been like this forever AFAIK.

Ariel

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

I figured undo was a big part of it. However, I 'Save As' at regular intervals to archive development versions, and in trying to debug the glitches I also did an IDML export/open. I'm not sure if any of those fixed the file size but none fixed the weird glitches.

I'll keep an eye on Save As results next time.

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