InDesign CS4 running slow

InDesign CS 4 (version 6.0.6) runs intermittently slow. It will often hang up for a few seconds during pretty much any operation (typing, scrolling, zooming, selecting -- type or objects, etc.). Restarting InDesign and the computer has no effect. Any ideas?
It's running on an iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, OSX 10.6.8.

Pretty much all files, as far as I know. This is a computer at an office I work at. My own version of ID CS4 at home doesn't have this problem. Since posting, I saw a number of other postings about similar problems. I have yet to do any of general maintenance, such as repairing permissions or running disk 1st aid. Is that a first step? Is there some kind of cache in ID that can be cleared?

Similar Messages

Indesign CS4 Running Really Slow

Hi,
I've done a search on this topic and tried all the suggestions without success. I'm using Indesign CS4 to write a lengthy technical document. The file is mainly text (~250 pages), with about 25 Illustrator figures (placed) total size ~16MB. About a week ago, I noticed things were slowing down, and I'm now at a point where one character typed takes about 2-3 seconds to render. This obviously makes the program unusable. A different document of the same size with about the same number of Illustrater figures has no problem. Below is a summary of what I have tried.
a) turned off preflight - no difference
b) turned off dynamic spelling and autocorrect - no difference
c) tried numerous display methods - no difference.
One thing I am doing, which is different in this document, is that I'm cutting and pasting a lot of text from other Indesign and Word documents. I have gone back and updated all the cross references. I've also noticed that this problem has got progressively worse as time has gone by. Could it be something to do with storage of temporary files or buffers that need to be cleared out? I have repeatedly exited, rebooted my system, saved the file under another name, all to no avail.
Please help,
Thanks in advance.
Anthony

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the response. I think you nailed it. I had actually updated all the cross references that generated errors, but a few crept through (no errors generated) that referenced a paragraph in the document I copied from. I replaced these with the references in the current document and this solved it. The old document was also on a remote disk, so I'm sure this made matters worse. In addition, I found links to illustrator files on the remote disk. I also copied these files to the local disk and updated all the links (actually I did this first and it made very little difference, it was really the cross references that were the issue).
Thanks,
Anthony

Will adobe indesign cs4 run under lion???

does anyone have experienced problems with adobe indesign cs4 after upgrading to os x lion?
or any other cs4 programs that will no longer run?
thx

No.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=icloud+snow+leopard&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8

Indesign CS4 really slow with CMYK images

Can anyone help me solve this? InDesign CS4 document with a few pages, and approx 24 images on a page. With CMYK images imported the rendering and re-rending is very sluggish. The Processes shows 99% usage for InDesign. Makes it almost impossible to work on a document.
Any ideas to fix this?
I'm using an 27" iMac with 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 - Memory: 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Doesn't surprise me. I find getting help in Adobe forums/support/community very confusing to find my way around.

Why is Indesign CC running slow after opening CS4 doc?

Hi all,
I have a problem with InDesign CC.
After I opened an CS4 document in CC the program is starting to run very slow.
Even creating an empty new document is a problem.
The CS4 document is a newspaper with a lot of links in it with a filesize of around 65mb.
Any one familiar with this problem and know a way to fix this?
Thanks!

Did you already save it as CC version and after re-opening still slow?
If not slow after saving, consider it as an effect from conversion to CC.

InDesign CS4 very slow on a Mac

Hello!
I'm using ID CS4 on an iMac with 2,4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM. I'm writing my thesis in InDesign, so I have basically one big textframe per chapter in which all the text goes. My problem is, that InDesign is getting really slow when I type text, also in the story editor. There is a delay of around 3 seconds between typing and the appearance of the word in the document. During this delay, the CPU usage raises to almost 100 percent. I circumvent this problem by writing in a plain text editor and C&P it into InDesign, but since I have to make corrections here and there, it really drives me nuts.
Are there any means of speeding this up?
Thank You very much!
Till

Peter:
I have tried and tried to post on the forums again. Signed in with 2 different names (don't ask!) and still can't get a new topic button. Here is my issue:
I have a large scale file (several) that I'm working with. It is 60" x 210". The file made in ID is fine, but I am having a hard time making a proofing PDF. Tried Distilling, directly from the app (export), and making them into eps and opening them in Acrobat to create a 4 page file. All ways cropped the files.
Do you by chance have a tip??? Please?!!
And I figured out my loading of the application problem. It was so strange and many steps:
1. Install software
2. If you get a "licesnse expired" notice the...
3. Change the date on your computer to Dec. 20, 2008 (it's stated differently in the Adobe info, but the phone support stated this date).
4. Launch the app or any of the CS apps if you've loaded more.
5. Go to HELP> Deactivate>Erase my serial number.
6. Close the program.
7. Open each application.
7. Change the date back to today's date on your computer.
8. The products should all launch correctly!

InDesign CS4 painfully slow in W7 64 bit

Hi
I've been having real trouble with Adobe products since doing a clean install of W7 Pro 64 bit, which seems (perhaps) to be related to antivirus software. Simple stuff like importing a pic can take a minute - even if it is simple 1MB jpeg. Adjusting the tracking of a font in 1em increments allows me to do maybe 5 increments, then it has to stop for 30 seconds for a think, before continuing. It makes the software all but unusable. Interestingly, Quark 8 seems to work fine.....
Some actions are instant, some are really slow, there's no discernable pattern.
I started my new machine with Kaspersky 2010 AV, which made DW unusable, so I removed that and replaced it with Norton 360, which improved DW but knackered various other programmes including Indy, so I removed that and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. Initially everything ran ok, but over a few weeks Indy got slower and slower, until it is now unusable. So I really don't know whether it is the AV software doing this or not.
My PC is a Core i7 machine with 6 GB RAM and a new ATi graphics card & SSD, so it should be very fast. But in real world use, all adobe products are running much less well that they did on a three year old Intel Core Duo pc with 4 GB ram and Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
Has anyone out there had similar problems and is there a fix?
Here's hoping....
TP

Hi all
Thanks for all your contributions.
My W7 install was clean onto a brand new machine. The CS4 premium installer put everything where it wanted to, I didn't interfere. So PS is in the 64 bit apps, the rest are in 32 bit, all on the c drive which is a 250GB SSD. I only keep Windows and apps on that drive, so it has over 170GB free.
All docs are on my D drive, which is an internal SATA 2 drive, this includes all the images as well. That's a 1TB Hitachi 7200 rpm disk, so should be fine.
It is on an ethernet network, but it isn't accessing anything from within Indy over the network.
The weird thing is that initially after I installed MSE as my AV, everything seemed fine. But over the last 6 weeks it's just got progressively slower.
It's baffling......
TP

Indesign CS4 Very Slow - can move objects easily anymore!

We are running CS4 - Even the most simple files are difficult open. When opened, it is hard to move objects or type any characters. All we get is the Apple pinwheel. We are running OS x 10.5 with 4 GB of memory. We dont know what to do-please advise.

I use CS4, mostly InDesign and Photoshop. I recently upgraded my iMac from 1 GB to 3GB of RAM, and everything was awesomely fast. CS4 worked well. Then I updated my system from 10.6.1 to 10.6.2, and immediately both InDesign & Photoshop developed a pause approx. every 5 seconds. No matter what I’m doing within either program, no matter how large or small the file, no matter how many or few applications I have open, I still get the very same beachball-spinning pause with every little thing I try to do, always. It’s very frustrating, I am having a lot of trouble getting any work done. The performance is way worse with 3 GB RAM than it was with just 1!
I am not having this problem with the rest of my applications within my system, such as Mail and Safari, and I haven't really noticed it with Acrobat. It does seem that the update caused this with CS4. I've tried a couple of things, such as zapping the PRAM and closing a bunch of fonts but nothing has made the slightest difference.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Cissy

Photoshop CS4 running slow on MAC OS X

I bought myself a MAC OS X recently with a student edition of Photoshop CS4, i am currently studying photography and have been told many times that a mac would be the best option to edit images- this coupled with Photoshop CS4. However since loading the program onto my MAC i have had nothing but stress it is being extremely slow.
For example when i start to add layers to my work it immediately slows down, esp when i start adding effects to any of the layers such as 'surface blur', the 'elliptical tool' is also slow as when i create a shape i see nothing come up on the actual image... For me to actually be able to see what i am doing i usually have to toggle between the icons on the tool bar on the side. Another slow feature is the cropping tool, when i want to move the crop the slightest bit by using the arrows on my keyboard the shape doesnt follow where its meant to go. What i have also noticed is that the 'preview' image doesn't apply on the image im working on, usually when an effect such as a blur is applied it shows what it would look like on the image before you click ok. At least this is my experience with Photoshop CS2 and a PC. This is all happening with just one image open, so you can imagine what it is like when i open multiple images... I will admit my images are large in size, but surely photoshop should be able to handle this? The macs in my university are able to handle this AND more (adding multiple layers and images on-top of each other) and they also use CS4.
I have troubleshooted it to death, even rung the store where i bought the program and MAC from and they have updated all the features on the mac and photoshop and this has not helped. Ive even checked if it could be the video card, my mac currently has the- ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. I believe this to be the most recent and up to date card however i haven't ruled it out as the source of the problem. The ram has also been doubled and is now 4GB.
One thing i do notice is that at FIRST everything seems fine, and then when i really start to get into editing an image it slows down hugely and starts to show the problems mentioned before. I have just rung the MAC support line and they advised me to open a new account on the mac and load photoshop onto there to see if its any of the settings on my particular account, again everything seemed fine at first- but then it fell back into its bad habits of being slow.
Any help or suggestions would be great as this is really getting me down, im a university student studying photography for my degree and i really want this resolved before i go back and start taking more photos.
Liz

The web psd files may be 100mb... not the actual files on a web site. 100mb files on the web would be silly All the actual final web images are almost always under 200k at the very most, more often ~50k max.
I do several different types of projects -- web development, print production, direct mail, advertising, illustration (mostly vector in AI though), and photography retouching. My working files always hit 100MB easy.. in print production or illustration is very easy to hit 700MB - 1GB with a file if not more. Final production files are rarely that large... But I retain all working files as well for easy editing in the future. Photography retouching doesn't often create such large files. That's not to say they can't... but it's just more rare with retouching since most of the work is spot retouching or overall tonal shifts.
File size is also greatly effected by how you work. The more non-destructive methods you use, the greater the file size can get. If you flatten layers file sizes are reduced. I don't ever flatten any layer if it can be avoided.
Forget OWC.. they're great but not the best for RAM.. 18004memory.com has the same ram.. the same warranty.. at better prices. 4x4GB sticks = $396 for 667mhz RAM and $463 for 800mhz both with free shipping. I've got 16GB of RAM in my MacPro from 18004memory and have been wonderfully happy for over a year with it. When I loaded my machine prices were easily triple those. But then.. the economy was much better then too.

Preflight makes Indesign CS6 run slow?

Hi
I have problems with my indesign CS6. It takes a lot of time until files "let" me start working on them - Around 1 minute and more.
No matter the size of the file.
I've noticed that during all the time I'm waiting for a file to let me work on him; the Preflight is running. To check that, I've disabled preflight and it seems to help, but not all the time. there are still "hang" (The beachball clock is running) from time to time, especially if I'm going to another application and getting back to indesign.
I've also removed all plugins in the plug-n manager in my Font Explorer Pro 3.5.2 but that didn't solve anything.
This is very annoying and frustrating because i have a new iMac, with upgraded Graphic card and new CS6 Design and Web Premium.
The Machine I use is:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
MacOs 10.8.3
Model Name:
iMac
Model Identifier:
iMac13,1
Processor Name:
Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:
3.50 GHz
Number of Processors:
1
Total Number of Cores:
4
L2 Cache (per Core):
256 KB
L3 Cache:
8 MB
Memory:
16 GB
Boot ROM Version:
IM131.010A.B05
SMC Version (system):
1.30f3
Serial Number (system):
C02LH7CQDNCT
Hardware UUID:
E3732BD5-146F-5DCD-8B8C-AB8BE3BFFA05
David

No, not exactly.
While you work on them, the ID files are in memory (RAM) and it doesn't really matter where they are saved except during read or write operations (save, open, checking links). But ID can only address a bit less than 4 gb of RAM, so at some point a portion of what's in memeory must be written to temporary storage on a disk someplace -- the scratch disk -- where it can be swapped in and out of active RAM when needed. In Photoshop and Illustrator you can designate any drive, even more than one drive, to use for scratch space, but not in ID.
As I said, in Windows it uses the temp folder in your user profile, which by default is on the drive where you installed the OS (but can be moved with some work). On Mac I don't know for sure, but I presume ID is using the user library, which I also presume is on the drive with the OS by default. It looks to me like this is know as the Home Folder, but I'm not a Mac expert. I did find a lot of potential information though, but googling "move user library mac" without quotes.
If you can move your home off the hard drive you might see a difference, but I won't swear to it, and I'd defintiel advise doing a full backup so you can undo any changes you make in case of bad results.

CS4 Really slow all of a sudden!

I am really struggling to work at any reasonable speed with InDesign CS4. It has been fine ever since I got it, but all of a sudden it is crawling along and it is driving me mad. I have tried using fast display, but not good.
I am running a Mac with OSX 10.5.6, Dual 2.66 Intel, and 11 gig of RAM.
Any ideas as to why InDesign is running slow? Everything else seems to be running fine.
Thanks
Mat

Thanks for the suggestions, they sort of have an affect, but, it all starts going pear shaped after about an hour or so.
I have switched off the preflight, colours panel and the auto correct for spelling which seem to make it last that bit longer before it starts to drag its heels, but I am finding that I am basically having to quit a couple of times a day, and also having to restart more often than I like.
To be honest, I am finding it to be a little unstable, is anybody else? The same with photoshop too...

Slow typing of letters (InDesign CS4)

Getting really frustrated here. I am writing a user guide using InDesign CS4. I created an .indb book file and added 5 documents where 4 of them are of approx 2-3MBs each. The main document is on approx 10MB, and the number of pages are 63. That's not a very large document, is it? I am not too eager to share this confidential document, thus I try to explain my problem thoroughly...
When typing within the main document the letters enters slower than syrup poors. I type, and then I must wait. It takes up to one second each letter! Does not matter if I type from the beginning of the document, or the end of it. Does not InDesign handle large documents, or is it a matter of content. All other functions and panels work as normal.
The main document consists of text, and screenshots in .png format styled with shaddow and frame. The text is formatted with a set of paragraph rules. In addition I have created a group of objects for textual Notes, consisting of an icon left to the text and then a grey background with frame surrounding the note text. This group has object, character, and paragraph styles attached to it. I cannot believe this is slowing the document down.
I perform some testing. I save the main document separately outside the .indb file, and then do several tests removing stuff in separate operations. After stuff is removed I try to type some text to see if typing still performs as syrup. Removing all screenshots in one operation, a table in another separate operation, then headers, note styles, and at last reducing content. After each removal operation I test typing from the beginning of the document, same place each time. None of the removals seem to have any effect to the document size. However, when reducing the 63 pages large document down to 45 the typing speeds up like a charm. Reducing to only 55 pages, however, make no difference at all. But why should reducing 10 pages from a 63 pages large document have such great effect? Is 50 pages the size limit for InDesign files? Or what?
I would be tremendously greatful if somebody could enlighten me in this matter.
Eva

I wanted to let you know that your post was very helpful. I have been bashing my head into the wall trying to figure the same problem out. It is clear the problem is InDesign because the other programs I run simultaneously don't have these speed, mouse, or keyboard issues. I've tried not running anything simultaneously and emptying the windows programs running in the background. It has no effect on InDesign. I have gone so far as to have my IT specialist go through the windows OS looking for anything eating up the CPU or causing conflicts. No improvement in InDesign.
In fact, my InDesign has gotten so slow that I have to click over and over again to select with the mouse. It is actually easier to highlight by keyboard commands than by mouse, even with the keyboard delays. I will do something and the mouse completely disappears until I move it outside the InDesign window. It's as if InDesign is so busy that it can't draw the mouse within the software. But the computer is not busy because the mouse appears if I move it to the desktop (I use two monitors).Yes, I replaced the batteries in my microsoft USB mouse. Yes, I tried a chorded mouse. The computer is 6 months old.
I've been working with InDesign for 2 years. We upgraded immediately to CS4 between announcement and shipping of the product last year. We publish workbooks for grades k-12. Let's just say that a third of the document is conditional text.
The file I'm working on right now is a HS math workbook. I have to typeset full-size, algebraic fractions. For this, I set up a text box with a numerator paragraph style and a denomenator paragraph style. The box is then embedded in the main text flow as the fraction. I probably have a thousand of these embedded boxes.Of course, some boxes are not only embedded, but also conditional.
There are diagrams that accompany/illustrate the problems. They are created within the document and anchored to the problems. Linking to anything outside of the file is not an option. The file must be self-contained.
The final page count is expected to be about 80 pages, (64 are already typeset). There are four master spreads (8 pages) and I don't think any are related to each other.
I did the "Save As" which cut my file size from 40 mb to 22.2 mb. Wow, did not expect that. Unfortunately, it didn't help. I tried closing ID and reopening. Still didn't change the speed of the mouse or text.
I will try to figure out if live preflight is turned on. I don't know since we don't use preflight. Which would be better, turning off smart text flow or closing the pages pane? I'd like to leave the pages pane open, but I will try it closed if you really think that will make much of a difference.
I will look at anything you can think of. Unfortunately, I cannot upload the file as a whole. I have trimmed it down to two sample pages.
Thanks,
Tonea
Alpha Plus Learning Systems

CS3 script runs slow with CS4 and CS5

I have written a table transformation script for InDesign CS3, which formats an imported Excel table.
With InDesign CS3 the script runs well. Now I tried the same script with InDesign CS4 and CS5 and it runs very slow. It's about 10 times slower than with CS3.
I tried to turn off redrawing, but this didn't help. It even got slower again!
Does someone has made similar experiences? Could you solve the performance issue?
Do scripts in CS4/CS5 generally run slower than in CS3?
Does CS4 differ so much to CS3 that the script runs 10 times slower?
What can I do to improve the execution performance?
Thanks for any tips / advices etc.

I now have made some tests with profile / timing. Here are the results.
you find the code snipped below. It iterates first over all rows and then over all cells inside of the row. In the cell iteration, the function hasGapInLineBelow(...) does more iterations.
The example is with a table of 42 rows and 9 cells.
I have compared CS3 and CS5
there are 3 test cases:
for 1/1 means: first for-loop is in iteration 1 and second for loop is in iteration 1 (statements for first row and first cell done)
for 1/9 means: first for-loop is in iteration 1 and second for loop is in iteration 9 (statements for first row and all 9 cells of the row done)
for 2/9 means: first for-loop is in iteration 2 and second for loop is in iteration 2 (statements for second row and all 9 cells of the row done)
it's strange that normal variable assignments take lot of time (like the statement startPos = indexLeftNeightbourOfCurrentCell;) -> I don't understand why this can be so time consuming!?!
it's also strange why in "for 1/9" and "for 2/9" variable assignments take much longer than in "for 1/1"...
could I use another data type than array for the variable isMergedRow? Which one?
do you know any performance optimizations?
in which time unit ExtendScript Toolkit shows the measured periods?
how are the times calculated in loops? Are these the times sumed up over all iterations or is it just the time for a single statement?

Slow installation for indesign CS4 trial

I have downloaded the trial issue for indesign cs4 and try to install it on my PC, it is really slow, it is about 10 hours now and the install progression is only at "Adobe Output Module", it is about 25% of the total installation if I look at progress bar.
My computer is an Acer Aspire 7720, Intel core duo, cpu 2 GHz, RAM 3 Go and 250 Go of Hard drive.
I have followed the instruction to disabled the Antivirus program and Firewall too. So how to speed up this install, it is the first time I encountered that kind of problem.

User Access Control and Pain In The Arse.
There's something going on with the system if the profile check is taking two hours. How much free space is left on the hard drive?
Is there some sort of minimum-required configuration you can boot to, similar to running MSconfig in XP and turning off startup programs and non-Microsoft services? It really sounds like there is still something running in the background that is conflicting. You are certain that anti-virus is not running? I'd also be sure that no browser toolbars are loaded, nor any instant messenger or music programs, and have a local printer, rather than a network printer, set as the default and online.
Peter

Indesign CS4 - now very slow

On one identity (mac), our indesign is super slow. Pinwheel displays every time we try to move an object or type character, etc. Its seems to be less of a problem on a different identity on the same mac.
We tried everything we know to troubleshoot this issue.
Please help.

I'm having the same problem with Dreamweaver CS4. For the first couple months, no problems. Now I can't get anything done. Apparently, this is a widespread problem because I see many similar complaints in other forums. Just FYI, I'm running a Mac Pro with 10GB of RAM and no anti-virus. I've tried a couple supposed fixes, such as deleting the CS4 preferences file, but it has no effect. Everytime I click in the properties window to change a table cell size for example, I have to wait about five seconds to enter a value. This is unacceptable and if I can't find a solution soon, I'm deleting Dreamweaver and going with another designer.

InDesign CS4 running slow

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for