38 Replies Latest reply: Sep 1, 2011 4:03 PM by sarajkramer RSS

    Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking

    3ABNPublishing Community Member
      Curious whether anyone else is experiencing this.... Had no problems with this under CS3 or earlier. A coworker has confirmed the same issue, and affects more than one, maybe all, publications.

      When I turned on Dynamic Spelling while editing a CS4 document, I got hit with a beach ball. I didn't want to risk corrupting the document by force-quitting, so I just let it go. I think it took 15-30 minutes to spring back to normal. In the meantime, as with all beach ball moments, the application was totally unresponsive. Activity Monitor did not show any high CPU usage; in fact, it was very low, like 5% usage.

      I had no more problems while working with the document after that. That is, until the last day, when I decided to actually check the spelling. I saw a flagged word, and when I right-clicked on it and chose "Ignore All," I got another application hang. I waited and waited, but with an imminent deadline, I decided to try logging out. During the log out process ID became responsive and asked me if I wanted to save, and I clicked yes.

      After that, I had a similar hang when first opening the document. This occurred whether I turned Dynamic Spelling off or on. I finally turned it off, and decided to do a manual Check Spelling....

      This went *extremely slow*. Each word took about 30 seconds on average, and I was just hitting "Ignore All" each time. It took me about 20 minutes or so to do 1/3 of the publication, before I gave up. This also happened when I tried it in another user account.

      Later, I started the publication and went to lunch. When I came back, it had recovered from the hang, and I was able to finish my spell checking with Dynamic Spelling turned on.

      I had a coworker verify if this affected his machine. His words:

      > There certainly seems to be a problem. I opened the document that I sent you, which only contains my pages [about 8 of the 48 pages]. I switched it over to dynamic spelling and started spell check. I alternated between skipping words and using ignore all. As soon as I started using ignore all it really slowed down. A few times it would hang up for a minute or two. I finally got through the document in about 7 minutes or so.
      > Then I shut the doc and opened it again, turned off dynamic spellcheck and tried it again. This time everything went perfect, no glitches.
      > Next I opened the Oct issue which contained the full set of pages. This time I started spell check with out the dynamic spellcheck on. It did fine most of the way using both skip and ignore all. One time it hung up for about 4 minutes after hitting ignore all. I was able to make it through the document ok.
      > Tried it the second time with dynamic spellcheck on and it hung up right away after hitting ignore all. Its been about 6 minutes and its still spinning. [Eventually he decided to force-quit it.]

      I would really like to get to the bottom of this. I've already filed a bug report with Adobe. But I'm assuming this doesn't affect everyone, because I can hardly imagine such a serious bug would slip through to production. But if anyone else can confirm this or provide troubleshooting tips, I'd appreciate it.
        • 1. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
          Nini Tjäder Community Member
          One thing to check for is if IDs prefs for Dictionary points to your dictionary or not. With ID open go to Preferences, Dictionary. If it points to the wrong place and not your user dictionary it will have a red sign for that. Then select it and relink to the Dictionary. If it cannot find it when doing its work spellchecking becomes very slow.
          • 2. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
            Brikaa Community Member
            Just purchased cs3 with a cs4 upgrade. Converted a CS1 file and hang hang hang, force quit, force quit. Went through hell reloading CS4 with no luck. 8 hours later.. I went home, thinking I'd have to layout the file out all over again in CS1. I then opened it up with my iMac dual core and no problems. (First computer is a G5 1.8 dual) Until, I went to SPELL CHECK. Hell again. But this time I waited and each time from one to three minutes of beach ball hell. Turning OFF spell check took about 20 minutes waiting after every move I made. Back to my G5 and turned off spell check... still no go. I turned of nearly EVERYTHING.... no good. So back to my iMac and got it done... and since my G5 was set for printing my plates I opened it back up and printed okay. So it looks like I will have to make the file again in CS1 then convert to CS3 until there is a fix for CS4.
            • 3. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
              3ABNPublishing Community Member
              Nini: I just checked, and the dictionary links appears to be correct. It is not marked red, and the folder exists at the specified location.
              • 4. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                Community Member
                Same thing happens here too, only with larger documents. The only thing that works is using CS3.
                • 5. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                  3ABNPublishing Community Member
                  I received a confirmation and workaround from Adobe on this issue:
                  > The issue is specific only to CS4 on Mac. Basically, if there are document user dictionary entries and multiple languages are used in the document, the background spelling task brings the app to its knees. The app will become unusable until dynamic spelling finishes. This looks like its being caused by the component which is providing linguistic services to InDesign.

                  > For now, what you can do to get around the problem is turn off dynamic spelling (of course). Alternately, you can remove any words from the document dictionary and add them instead to the user dictionary, and also limit the number of different languages in the file.

                  In our case, we had Spanish language characters and spaces, because we copy elements between English and Spanish publications. We also had one item in the document dictionary. After doing a search and replace to change all Spanish language text to English, and after clearing out the document dictionary and using only the global dictionary, everything seems to be running smoothly.
                  • 6. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                    Community Member
                    Indesign CS4 is awful. Dynamic spelling hangs the computer. I've replaced hard disks, added memory and upgraded the graphics card - over $1,500 and dynamic spelling still hangs the computer. Adobe CS4 is the biggest rip-off ever! I want my money back.
                    • 7. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                      BobLevine CommunityMVP
                      So ask Adobe for it....they have a 30 day money back policy.

                      Bob
                      • 8. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                        Community Member
                        Why can't Adobe EVER get the bugs out of their programs BEFORE they ship. It's not like they update programs quickly. This dynamic spelling issue is extremely upsetting.
                        • 9. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                          Community Member
                          Yeah, that's a great idea except FOR THE FACT that CS4 Indesign documents are NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE. Would you like to redo all my documents for me?
                          • 10. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                            BobLevine CommunityMVP
                            No, and painfully apparent that all you want to do is rant, not get help.

                            If you wanted help you would have calmly explained the problem in detail
                            along with your complete system specs.

                            Bob
                            • 11. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                              Community Member
                              Robert:

                              If you spent two days trying to fix this problem and over $1,500 on hardware - not to mention $600 for the upgrade - I think A RANT IS IN ORDER! Is it asking too much for Adobe to actually test their program before shipping it? It's not exactly a hidden feature.

                              As for explaining the problem in detail, perhaps you failed to read my post. Turning on dynamic spelling in the prefs file causes the beach ball spinning and the program not to respond. Period. It must be forced quit. I think that's pretty clear?

                              Below is the information you wanted:

                              Here's the info - sys config
                              Model: MacPro1,1, BootROM MP11.005C.B08, 4 processors, Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 2.66 GHz, 11 GB
                              Graphics: kHW_NVidiaGeForce8800GTItem, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, spdisplays_pcie_device, 512 MB
                              Graphics: kHW_NVidiaGeForce7300GTItem, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, spdisplays_pcie_device, 256 MB
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 1, 2 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 2, 2 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 1, 512 MB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 2, 512 MB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 3, 2 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 4, 2 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 3, 1 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 4, 1 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz
                              Network Service: Built-in Ethernet 2, Ethernet, en1
                              PCI Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, display, Slot-1
                              PCI Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, display, Slot-3
                              PCI Card: pcibdbd,a114, sppci_video, Slot-2
                              Serial ATA Device: WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0, 232.89 GB
                              Serial ATA Device: ST31000333AS, 931.51 GB
                              Serial ATA Device: WDC WD10EACS-00D6B0, 931.51 GB
                              Parallel ATA Device: SONY DVD RW DW-D150A
                              USB Device: hub_device, (null) mA
                              USB Device: CanoScan, (null) mA
                              USB Device: hub_device, (null) mA
                              USB Device: Flash Card Reader, (null) mA
                              USB Device: Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop® 1.00, (null) mA
                              FireWire Device: built-in_hub, unknown_value, unknown_speed
                              FireWire Device: iSight, Apple Computer, Inc., 200mbit_speed

                              PROBLEM DETAILS:
                              Date/Time: 2008-12-24 12:47:24 -0700
                              OS Version: 10.5.6 (Build 9G55)
                              Architecture: i386
                              Report Version: 4

                              Command: InDesign
                              Path: /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe InDesign CS4
                              Version: 6.0.0.352 (6000)
                              Parent: launchd [121]

                              PID: 326
                              Event: hang
                              Time: 35.01s
                              Steps: 308

                              Process: Adobe InDesign CS4 [326]
                              Path: /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe InDesign CS4

                              ADDRESS BINARY
                              00001000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe InDesign CS4
                              00008000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/InDesignModel.framework/Versions/A/InDesignModel
                              0000c000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/InDesignModelAndUI.framework/Versions/A/InDesignModelAndUI
                              00010000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/PMRuntime.dylib
                              00049000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeARE.framework/Versions/A/AdobeARE
                              00092000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeBIB.framework/Versions/A/AdobeBIB
                              000b5000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeBIBUtils.framework/Versions/A/AdobeBIBUtils
                              000e3000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/libboost_thread-mt-1_34_1.dylib
                              000f4000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeCrashReporter.framework/Versions/A/AdobeCrashRe porter
                              0012b000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeACE.framework/Versions/A/AdobeACE
                              00256000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeAFL.framework/Versions/A/AdobeAFL
                              00317000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/ObjectModelLib.dylib
                              00459000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/DataBaseLib.dylib
                              0049f000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/adobe_caps.framework/Versions/A/adobe_caps
                              00501000 /usr/lib/libmx.A.dylib
                              00678000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeAGM.framework/Versions/A/AdobeAGM
                              00cf0000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeCoolType.framework/Versions/A/AdobeCoolType
                              01007000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeMPS.framework/Versions/A/AdobeMPS
                              01460000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/PublicLib.dylib
                              0192b000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/WRServices.framework/Versions/A/WRServices
                              01b36000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/ICUData.framework/Versions/3.6/libicudata.dylib.36.0
                              024e9000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/ICUInternationalization.framework/Versions/3.6/libic ui18n.dylib.36.0
                              02661000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/ICUUnicode.framework/Versions/3.6/libicuuc.dylib.36. 0
                              02796000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/libboost_regex-mt-1_34_1.dylib
                              02842000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/amtlib.framework/Versions/A/amtlib
                              02a2f000 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/vmutils.framework/Versions/A/vmutils
                              02a90000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/WidgetBinLib.dylib
                              02c5d000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeOwl.framework/Versions/A/AdobeOwl
                              02ed2000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/AdobeOwlCanvas.framework/Versions/A/AdobeOwlCanvas
                              1cd16000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/Frameworks/asneu.framework/Versions/A/asneu
                              1cd3d000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Required/Metadata Database Filter.InDesignPlugin/Metadata Database Filter
                              1cdcb000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Required/Global Preferences Panel.InDesignPlugin/Global Preferences Panel
                              1ce0e000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libTraditionalChineseConverter.dylib
                              1ce24000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libSimplifiedChineseConverter.dylib
                              1d19e000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/Frameworks/amtservices.framework/Versions/A/amtservices
                              1d28d000 /System/Library/Components/AppleScript.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleScript
                              1d292000 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleScript.framework/Versions/A/AppleScript
                              1d77e000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Required/Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin/Workgroup Client
                              1d79b000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Required/Workgroup Client UI.InDesignPlugin/Workgroup Client UI
                              1d7de000 /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS4/Adobe InDesign CS4.app/Contents/MacOS/Required/Document UI.InDesig
                              • 12. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                Community Member
                                One wonders if you read the messages prior to yours in this topic. It appears there is a known bug with dynamic spelling if you're using a mix of languages in your document. Until Adobe fixes the bug the only workaround (if you can call it that) is to not use dynamic spelling.

                                The whole issue had been discussed and resolved (to this point anyway) before you joined the conversation.

                                Dave
                                • 13. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                  Community Member
                                  Dave Saunders asks: One wonders if you read the messages prior to yours in this topic. It appears there is a known bug with dynamic spelling if you're using a mix of languages in your document.

                                  We'll I'm not using a mix of languages and it still doesn't work.

                                  >Until Adobe fixes the bug the only workaround (if you can call it that) is to not use dynamic spelling.

                                  Yeah, and how lame are they that the couldn't check that out before they shipped the product. I mean, really, do only a few people use the Mac version of CS4?

                                  >The whole issue had been discussed and resolved (to this point anyway) before you joined the conversation.

                                  Yeah, big deal. It's not "resolved" and since Adobe charges premium prices they should at least make a faster stab at fixing their mistakes. How long are we suppose to wait until this bug is fixed? It truly kills productivity. Hey, maybe after they fix this they can fix all the bugs and problems with Acrobat 9 - wouldn't that be nice.
                                  • 14. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                    Community Member
                                    There was a software company once who decided never to release a product until all the bugs were dealt with.

                                    You've never heard of them.

                                    They never succeeded in getting all the bugs out.

                                    The one that affects each of us always seems to be the one that should have been fixed because it's so obvious that everybody does that.

                                    I spent the afternoon crashing InDesign CS4. I won't tell you how because that will just increase your frustration.

                                    Dave
                                    • 15. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                      Community Member
                                      The workaround from Adobe that one contributor mentioned -- switch off dynamic spelling -- doesn't help much. I never have it on, and I just checked the spelling of the first reasonably lengthy document I've done in CS4. Every time I hit Ignore All, up came the spinning beach ball. Nothing like the multi-minute delays some have reported, maybe 10-15 seconds. That's still wildly unacceptable.

                                      Btw, I'm a FrameMaker refugee. One facility FM has in checking spelling is "Allow in Document", which adds a string to a document-specific dictionary, so that if you check the document later, that string won't be flagged. My docs often have expressions that mix English and logic symbols, which I don't want to add to a User Dictionary, so this is very useful. ID forgets what you told it to ignore between sessions, but maybe there is some other way of getting the effect of "Allow in Document"?
                                      • 16. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                        3ABNPublishing Community Member
                                        Graeme, ID does have document-specific dictionaries, but using them seems to make the spell checking slowness worse, according to Adobe. My own experience seems to back that up. I had one word in my document dictionary, and deleting it seemed to help.
                                        • 17. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                          Community Member
                                          Hello,

                                          I had the same problem and had to force-quit several times. But in fact, every time, I was trying to check "Enable Dynamic Spelling" when some documents were still opened in Indesign CS4. And every time, Indesign hung with the beach ball.
                                          Finally I had the idea of opening Indesign CS4 and immediately close all books and documents. Then I went to "preferences/spelling" and checked "Enable Dynamic Spelling" when no document was opened. No beach ball appeared and everything seemed fine.
                                          Finally, I opened my documents and the dynamic spelling worked fine and incredibly quick compared to CS3.

                                          Hope it helps...
                                          • 18. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                            Community Member
                                            I'm having the same problem. When I add a word to the user dictionary, it takes several minutes for the beach ball to stop. I switch to email or something while I'm waiting, but my whole system slows down.

                                            I'm on a 2.66 Dual Mac Pro with 16Gb of ram. I've got my CS4 programs on a striped raid pair of drives to try to make the program a bit faster...

                                            I've also had considerable problems with document corruption causing multiple crashes. I'm working on a 45 chapter novel and I've switched out fonts, deleted and rebuild styles, to no effect. The only thing that has improved stability was trashing the book file and starting, from scratch, to add documents back to the book, one at a time.

                                            It's all very discouraging.

                                            Oh, and I'm not using additional languages. English only.
                                            • 19. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                              3ABNPublishing Community Member
                                              Cameron, if you want to regain performance, you will have to remove all entries in the user dictionary, and/or turn off dynamic spell checking. That is the only solution until Adobe fixes this bug. In the meantime, you can add the words to the application dictionary, or simply ignore the flagged words.
                                              • 20. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                Community Member
                                                We are experiencing the same slowness issues with spell check.

                                                Michael Prewitt first posted this issue way back in November. In that post he mentions he had filed a bug report with Adobe.
                                                I recently sent a message regarding this to InDesign Secrets and David Blatner replied that this is strange. He asked if I had tried rebuilding my preferences and if this was happening in one document, or all. I replied yes, I tried preferences, and that it was happening in all documents.

                                                Hopefully the hosts of InDesignSecrets will have some influence with Adobe about fixing this bug.

                                                I couldnt agree more that it is hard to imagine such a serious bug would slip through to production.
                                                • 21. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                  Apropos-NZ Community Member

                                                  I also have this problem. When I read some threads about the issue, it seems not everyone is. The Adobe knowledgebase article talks about multiple user dictionary languages http://www.adobe.com/go/kb407991. As far as I can tell, I'm only using one. I wonder if it is because I installed CS4 with English International and use English (UK).

                                                   

                                                  So I'd ask people to try this:

                                                  1. Open a new indesign doc

                                                  2. draw a text box and fill with placeholder text

                                                  3. Start spellcheck & choose ignore all for each word

                                                   

                                                  After about 15-20 'ignore alls' the spellchecker slows down dramatically.

                                                   

                                                  If this DOESN'T happen to you I'd be interested to know the language settings (install language, document dictionary language etc) to see if it is something to do with the issue.

                                                  • 22. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                    Elmo the Magnificent Community Member

                                                    I also have this problem (when trying to add a new word to dictionary I get the beachball) and would appreciate some sort of answer.  It occurs in files with graphics and without graphics.  The goofy thing is sometimes it does NOT happen ...

                                                    • 23. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                      lars_p Community Member

                                                      I can confirm your findings Apropos-NZ.

                                                      I created a new document, text box and filled it with placeholder text.

                                                       

                                                      After 20 or so "ignore all" it slows down to unbearable; language of InDesign and language of text is German.

                                                      IDCS4, 6.02, Mac OS X 10.5.7, Mac Pro 4GB RAM.

                                                       

                                                      Does this happen with IDCS4 on windows as well?

                                                      • 24. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                        Apropos-NZ Community Member

                                                        Thanks for confirming that lars_p. I have opened a tech support case with adobe but no answers yet.

                                                        • 25. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                          Barry W. Community Member

                                                          The 6.0.3 update was posted earlier this week and contains a fix specifically addressing dynamic spelling performance when document dictionaries or multiple languages are involved. It's Mac only. The previous workarounds should now be unnecessary. I'd be interested to hear if it resolves similar dynamic spelling problems when doc dictionaries or multi languages are not specifically involved.

                                                           

                                                          The issue with the slow down after multiple Ignore All is likely a different issue. We're currently investigating.

                                                           

                                                          Regards,

                                                          Barry

                                                          • 26. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                            Apropos-NZ Community Member

                                                            6.0.3 seems to have improved things a bit but still spell check still runs very slow after hitting 'ignore all' 20 or more times.

                                                             

                                                            Chris

                                                            • 27. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                              Apropos-NZ Community Member

                                                              I logged this issue with Adobe and they are able to reproduce the issue so it has been logged as a 'known bug'. Hopefully they'll get to the bottom of it and release a bug-fix soon.

                                                              • 28. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                Barry W. Community Member

                                                                Thanks, Chris.

                                                                 

                                                                I think the Ignore All is a separate issue, and I've pushed the bug you wrote through to Engineering.

                                                                 

                                                                Regards,

                                                                Barry

                                                                • 29. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                  suzanne42431 Community Member

                                                                  I had the same problem as well. My CS4 was an upgrade and I still have CS3 on my machine. I tend to keep the old one until I am certain I can work well with the upgrade. I opened InDesign CS3 went to preferences and the dictionary. I deleted ALL the entries in the user dictionary, closed out CS3 and opened CS4. Dynamic spelling now works fine. I wonder if the upgrade was searching for the CS3 user dictionary? I'm not a computer guru by any means, but this worked great for me.

                                                                  • 30. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                    Elmo the Magnificent Community Member

                                                                    My problem was in adding a new word to my dictionary. I installed the "fix" recently posted and adding a word now takes much less time.  I work with  large files (lotsa graphics) and lots of technical terms that need to be added (beetle names and body parts) to my spell checker.  It seems that when the file got to a certain size, the slowdown began.  BUT I did not keep track of file size, so I have no empirical data.

                                                                     

                                                                    It still is way too slow when adding a word, but at least it doesn't take 10-15 minutes like it used to.  It would be nice if it worked better - but hey, I upgraded from version 1 of Creative Suite, so it's still lots better than my old software.

                                                                    • 31. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                      suzanne42431 Community Member

                                                                      I'm glad it helped a little. I think the problem lies in the user 

                                                                      dictionary. When trying to link a dictionary in the preferences pane, 

                                                                      I follow the path and the dictionary is grayed out. I'm not happy 

                                                                      with the performance of InDesign CS4 either. Hope they fix it soon. 

                                                                      Too many people use it for large documents.

                                                                      • 32. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                        Missapple27 Community Member

                                                                        I tried using InDesign CS4 months ago and the spellchecker was so slow, I had to go back to using CS3 or I wouldn't get my newsletter done each month. I recently bought a new Mac Pro which is way faster than the Desktop 2GHz G5 I was using and I decided to try doing the newsletter in CS4 again. It is a little faster but it is still way too slow compared to the CS3 spellchecker. Although, I noticed when I created a new document that was a few pages long but simple text, the spellchecker worked much faster than it does in my newsletter which is saved as a new copy each month. Maybe if I started a new newsletter from scratch it would work faster but that sounds like a lot of work.

                                                                        • 33. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                          P Spier CommunityMVP

                                                                          Did you update to 6.0.4? There were quite a few bug fixes, and I think this might have been one of them.

                                                                          • 34. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                            Missapple27 Community Member

                                                                            Yes, I am using 6.0.4. It may be a little better but it is still very slow. Certain things seem slower than others--like "ignore" seems slower than "skip."

                                                                            • 35. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                              Crea8te Community Member

                                                                              I know this is outdated and probably solved by now, but I just wanted to point out that I had issues with Indesign using up to 75% of both cores of my dual core cpu after EVERY text change.  Dynamic spelling was disabled.  However, at the bottom of the screen I noticed that it would 'check' for preflight errors after every change.  I was editing a 300 page catalog so this was a huge annoyance.  There was an option to turn off preflight checking for the document, so I turned it off and the lagging stopped.  I was able to make changes quickly and simply turned it back on once I was done editing the document.

                                                                               

                                                                              Perhaps this will help someone.

                                                                              • 36. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                                sarajkramer Community Member

                                                                                oh man, I really wanted that tip (turning off preflight) to help, but I still have a very slow-moving spell-check. Oh well!

                                                                                • 37. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                                  Missapple27 Community Member

                                                                                  My InDesign is finally working a lot better but it happened when I installed Mac OSX Lion on another hard drive (rather than the Snow Leopard drive I was using). I started booting up from Lion and have also updated InDesign to CS5, but the InDesign updated didn't help by itself when I was running Snow Leopard. For some reason, now that I am on another hard drive and a different system, InDesign is working much better. I wish I could say what it is that was the problem before but I just don't know.

                                                                                  • 38. Re: Hangs and slowness in InDesign CS4 spell checking
                                                                                    sarajkramer Community Member

                                                                                    Finally, something seems to have helped with the infernal slowness of "ignore all." I followed the advice here  about "deleting my preferences folder (Library > Preferences> Adobe InDesign > Version 7.0)". I actually just moved the preferences to another folder so they wouldn't all go away. Then I slowly restored the ones that included my shortcuts, workspaces, etc. Don't just delete everything in one go if you've customized the program.