Inspiring

Question

Why is InDesign getting worse and worse

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
December 27, 2024
10 replies
3905 views

I've used InDesign for at least 15 years and until a few years ago it was great. But over the past few years it has gotten worse and worse in regard to crashing and just doing odd things. This has been my experience, first when I got a top of the line 2020 iMac with an M1 chip, and now with a brand new Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, 64GB memory and Apple Studio monitor.

The main issue is that it crashes on an almost daily basis. Fortunately I haven't lost a file yet, but it's still annoying. I've been on the phone with Adobe tech support a number of times, but despite removing the preferences, updating the OS and app version, etc, etc, any improvement lasts maybe a week.

It also does weird things like defaults to a different workspace arrangement everytime I leave InDesign to momentarily work in another program. I've reset my preferred workspace (no docs open) numerous times.

Occasionally things like text color or edits don't view properly. I have to toggle back and forth between "normal" and "preview" views multiple times to get the "real" version to show. Other settings also stop working on a random basis.

It would be really nice if Adobe could get the basics working instead of focusing on "improvements" to justify the monthly fee.

Performance

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Yasemin25319221s20s

Participant

One year after your post - and I can feel you! I am looking for an alternative now. InDesign really has become a pain. Using it for about 10 years. Not worth the money anymore. Instead it has become all about money!

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @Yasemin25319221s20s,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Could you please share more details, such as the version of the OS/InDesign installed, and your workflow when you encounter this problem, so we can better assist you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

unique_mind5D66

Inspiring

This happens on Windows too. I am actualy trying to find another software, but it will be a huge problem to switch, because of the 17 years of history and large archive of my work! InDesign is getting unusable, I lost few files just before exporting final files... That is unspeakably bad!

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Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

It’s really tough to help without a few more details. Try checking and sharing the following:

What version of InDesign are you using? (e.g. 2025, 2024, 2023, etc.)
- Specific version number
Is it crashing during specific actions (e.g. exporting, opening files, etc.) - steps to reproduce?
Any crash report or error message? Even a screenshot helps.
Are your files stored locally or on a network/cloud drive?

What operating system are you on? (e.g. Windows 11, macOS etc)
- And what version of the opearting system you are running

System specs, especially RAM, processor, and available disk space.

Are your InDesign files large or have many linked assets/fonts?
Any third-party plugins installed?

Has it started recently maybe after a system update or software change?
Have you tried resetting InDesign preferences? (Sometimes helps with weird issues.)
Have you tried exporting problem files to IDML to see if the issue clears up.

With some of that info, people here can offer more targeted help or workarounds.

All else fails - you don't have to use the latest version of InDesign - you can install and use the previous version.

I am using 2023, and I have 2024 and 2025 installed. But primarly work in 2023.

I'll move to 2024 after testing the software and files to ensure no weird issues. But for now I work in 2023 unless otherwise required.

unique_mind5D66

Inspiring

Thank you for your response.

I am using Windows 11, and always latest version of InDesign.

I usually send reports, adding just short message as: trying to export PDF
or closing the program or adding pages etc. Some files are large, such as
300 pages of book or smaller 36 pages of newspaper. Problem to solve my
issues looked promising was to do some CTRL+ something to solve text field
problem – I have now no option to find that comment I found in some chats
online, but the command did not do anything on Windows and I had no idea
what it should actually do.

Anyway. I have in Photoshop issues with graphic card installed (I am
working on notebook, so that is Nvidia, not just Intel) – time to time I am
getting message that graphic card is not compatible (after about 1,5 years
of having thi NB). I tried to actualise everything, setting it right with
YouTube, but I am getting this message anyway.

Other problem is with InDesign, where files crashed often, mostly I can
open them again ang continue working (by loosing few minutes of work only),
but time to time, my file (which I was exporting many times before) crash
and I can not open them anymore. I started to make second file, so I am
saving it tvwice to another file, but you know how it is, when you do
something manualy.

I am not too good in computers, i am unable to fix this. I can use older
version on InDesign to try (your 2023 version), I also was thinking to
install my DVD based CS5 version, to avoid all problems, but this will
cause another issuers with IDML needed from everything I will need to go
back to from many pased years.

I will also need somebody who will go through my computer and have a look
on my settings, graphioc card etc. I also have free slots for adding more
RAM, so there is way to make NB faster...

If any more help You can give, I will appreciate that.

S pozdravom, Andrej Mišina.
<Persona info removed by MOD>

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daniel_1431

Participant

InDesign 20.3.1 is THE WORST VERSION YET. Adobe, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you all completely mental?

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Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Very open ended question - can you elaborate on what's happening for you - perhaps we can help.

Can you tell us what your OS version is and also the exact version of InDesign.

And also exact issue you're facing - with steps to reproduce.

Thanks

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mgdibblee

Participating Frequently

I have just spent the past HOUR fiddling with RESTORING my workspace. theere was a popup that said i could export settings to file>user settings so i did that. EXTREMELY IRRITATING.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I don't understand your frustration? What is the problem? Are you implying you lost your workspace from v19.x to v20.x--or from a v20.x update to newer 20.x version?

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

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LauraFigAuthor

Inspiring

I loose my workspace settings almost evertime I switch out of InDesign. I either have to reset, or set it to a different worspace and the switch back. And yes, I have exported my settings--multiple times. Drives me nuts, but I now realize after spending hours trying well meaning suggestions, that InDesign is permanently glitchy in many ways and that's not going to change.

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Ollie_Watson8834

Participant

I share your frustration!

It's been my go to programme for quick layouts for many many years but it is so unstable at the moment, getting very unreliable. Just this minute I can't select any start and and arrowheads for lines which seems like a small detail but when you're busy it really grates at your patience. Plus the regular crashes which will probably push me over to solely using illustrator which just isn't a fast for what I do.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Ollie_Watson8834

What is your platform, OS and InDesign FULL versions?

If you're on a Mac - do you have Magnet app installed? Or something similar?

And when your problem started?

rickt38612460

Known Participant

@LauraFig Where abouts do your InDesign documents and links reside. Are they in the cloud, local storage, external storage or on a connected sever? We have crashing issues with our InDeesign documents and links (large & small) which reside on a server which we connect too via SMB. Our server is old and does not support the latest version of SMB and I belive Apples support/implemtation of SMB in the operating system is not great. We had far less problems with the old AFP protocol and working with the same documents and links from Dropbox the crashing issues are mostly gone.

Also what monitor are you using? We have problems with InDesign Worspace arrangments on Mac Studios but only with the LG Ultrafine 27" monitors.

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LauraFigAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for your thoughts on this, you never know when little clues can provide a solution. It's just me so I work on the local drive. My monitor is a brand new Apple Studio display and I also have an Acer as a second monitor, but I just shove things over there and don't work on it per se.

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Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I get it's frustrating. But I have to say, I don't have those issues and being using InDesign for about 20+ years. Albeit, at least half have been on Windows, which I wish I could go back to.

Where I don't have these issues, I do have an issue with Macs, they're expensive, and I have an M3 32gb and be honest I don't think it's fit for purpose for the price that is paid for them.

I think they are bog standard computers - nothing special. And since they moved away from Intel to their own processors it's just gotten worse.

My experience is that Macs don't play well with any software that is not Apple.

Microsoft Teams constantly logs out, meaning if it's in the background I don't know if I'm being contacted for an urgent request.

The entire OS locks up and requires a restart, sometimes restarting 4 or 5 times.

I've encountered the situation where it won't accept my password to login then I get logged out and have to get a Passkey or whatever it's called to log in and reset the password.

Apple Keychain often forgets essential login or just wipes itself.

I don't do anything except open the laptop, launch InDesign and work.

I am on InDesign 2022 and testing 2023 (have it installed from before) and won't move unless I have to. There's no new features and InDesign 2022 is stable with OS 14.x or whatever I'm on at the moment.

I'm sick of Apple - I think they're products are completely substandard and overpriced. It's supposed to be thin and light but it's heavier than my ten year old laptop with a mechanical 1tb hard drive (not SSD).

That being said - I do get the frustration that you pay a lot for a computer and expect the software to work flawlessly. I've commented on these forums for a long time - maybe 20 years as well - and I very rarely see anyone with Windows comment that InDeisgn is not working for them.

Maybe it's because a large percentage of people are on Mac, maybe that's the reason. But certainly for the 10+ years I worked on Windows I very rarely had an issue with InDesign or any of the Adobe programs.

My original workflow was Mac based in a print production environment and I always remember having to run Disk Warrior on the Mac - taking out parts and replacing with other parts from other Macs that were redundant and used for spares.

I thought those days were gone, I thought after 10/15/20/25 years going back to Mac those issues would be gone.

No it's bad as it was in 1999.

----------------------

I know it doesn't help your situation I just felt like it was relevant to share my experience and frustration with Apple.

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LauraFigAuthor

Inspiring

I appreciate your perspective. Mine has been really positive until until I got an iMac a few years ago to replace my eight-year-old Mac Pro. I had four top of the line Mac's (desktop, not laptop) over about a 28 year span with no hardware issues ever, and very rarely any software issues. In the mean time I watched my husband constantly having PC problems. Since the issues began just a few years ago with the new chip, you may be right about that being the root of my current problems, which would be sad for Apple users. That said, I do wonder if software companies create problems when they are under constant pressure to "upgrade" their product, and if the subscription model adds pressure to release not-quite-ready software versions. For a while I had to run an old version of Acrobat to get the scroll bars back. Since I've tried all the preference trashing, reinstalling, etc. a few times already, I'm going to try running in safe mode as Abihshek suggested, and will just have to temporarily figure out another way to access fonts in place of Extensis Connect.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @LauraFig,

I’m sorry to hear about the ongoing crashes and glitches—this sounds incredibly frustrating. Since the issue persists across multiple devices, it may be worth testing with Extensis Connect’s auto-activate feature turned off, as suggested by Dave. Also, try creating a new user account on your Mac and running InDesign there to rule out conflicts. Reference: https://adobe.ly/40gily0

Let me know how it goes!

Best,
Abhishek Rao

davecourtemanche

Inspiring

While I empathize with your frustrations and would like to see some core functionality bug fixes, I don't agree with the assessment that it is getting worse. I've been using it since the beginning and it has steadily improved. 2025 release is a bit meh - I have no use for AI in Indesign and don't work with math layout (though I could see it being quite handy for those that do). There are a great many features that have introduced that I use regularly (para shading/border) that have inspired improvement suggestions which I post on the Feature Request site. I certainly encourage people to use that more - wish it was somehow tied into these forums.

The crashing on the regular for you is very frustrating. I'm on an M2 Mac Mini and don't have the issues you do. I've never had a crash report return a solution (I think I'd fall out of my chair if it did). The workspace annoyance had me replace "Essentials" with my customized workspace, so that "fixed" it for me.

I would try to create a new user acct on your computer and try running it in that (without any extras that may have been added to your current user account). Often, it's other apps or plugins conflicting which makes it much more challenging to troubleshoot.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Like the Magnet recently.

BobLevine

Community Expert

What operating system?

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LauraFigAuthor

Inspiring

Constantly updating the OS. Never helps at all.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@LauraFig

Is/was 2024 so bad as well?

2025 is quite terrible and it's best to downgrade.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @LauraFig,

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve been experiencing with InDesign-it sounds incredibly frustrating, especially given your long history with the app. Let’s try to get to the bottom of this!

Have you been submitting crash reports when InDesign crashes? These reports are vital for the engineering team to diagnose and resolve issues. If you haven’t already, you can follow this guide to submit them: Submit Crash Reports.

Could you let us know:

Does the crash occur in newly created documents as well, or is it specific to certain files?
Are there particular actions or workflows that seem to trigger the crash?

In the meantime, a few steps that might help:

1. Articles to Check:

- Crash on Launch Troubleshooting

- Crash While Working on Documents

2. Try Running in Safe Mode (Mac) orRoot Account:
This can help identify if a third-party app or system issue is causing the problem.

3. Reset Preferences Manually:

- Close all Adobe apps.

- Go to ~/Library/Caches and ~/Library/Preferences.

- Rename Adobe InDesign to Adobe InDesign.old and com.adobe.InDesign to com.adobe.InDesign.old.

- Relaunch InDesign from the Creative Cloud app.

Reference: https://adobe.ly/4iURCi4

4. Rename Adobe Folders:

- Navigate to /Library/Application Support/Adobe and rename the CEP folder to CEP.old.

- If this doesn’t resolve the issue, rename the UXP folder to UXP.old from the same location.

Please try these steps and let me know if they help or if the issue persists. I’ll do my best to assist you further!

Best,
Abhishek Rao

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LauraFigAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks very much for your fast reply Abhishek. I appreciate your thoughful answer and will make an effort to send the crash reports since maybe someone does pay attention.

The crashes are equal opportunity, selecting files randomly. Main common denominator is that I'm working in InDesign, probably on a deadline. Starting to suspect that one of the InDesign upgrades is AI that can pinpoint the least convenient, most stressful time to crash!

I've been through most of the items that you suggest with the help of the very patient Adobe tech support folks, but will try again and report back!! One question. How is running in safe mode different than regular mode? Are there things I won't be able to do while in safe mode, e.g. use my Extensis Connect font organizer, check email?

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi LauraFig,

Thank you for the quick response! I completely understand how frustrating it can be when the app crashes at the worst times, especially under deadline pressure.

Regarding your question about Safe Mode-running InDesign in Safe Mode helps isolate whether third-party apps, plugins, or extensions are causing the issue. It’s essentially a stripped-down version of InDesign that disables those extras to test if they are contributing to the crashes.

While in Safe Mode, some functionality may be limited, like access to third-party plugins (such as Extensis Connect) or certain system-level integrations. However, you should still be able to perform basic tasks within InDesign. Safe Mode does not interfere with your ability to check emails or perform other non-InDesign tasks.

I recommend running InDesign in Safe Mode briefly to see if the crashes persist. If they stop in Safe Mode, we may have a clue that one of your third-party apps is contributing to the issue. If it continues, we can explore other troubleshooting steps.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need further assistance as you go through these steps.

Best,
Abhishek Rao

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