12 Replies Latest reply: Nov 23, 2014 2:08 PM by asdfasdfasdfasdfasdffghjg RSS

    Cross-references slow ID5 down

    Dr Axly Community Member

      I'm using ID5 (7.0.2) on Win XP.

       

      I'm editing a 10 document book and as soon as I started cross-references the editing became unbearably slow - every character takes a second to update and hard drive is constantly in use.

       

      Performance is set to fast, live update disabled, hyphenation is off, etc. etc., but no luck.

       

      As a test, I copied one of the documents and deleted cross-references - the speed returned to normal even at high quality display and live redraw.

       

      Any ideas how to resolve the issue? Any chance of switching updating cross-references off? Any good advise is appreciated.

       

      An update: it seems that only cross-references that point to the external files cause the delay - I've got the impression that ID5 tries to open, update and close all the referenced files after every key stroke!

       

      As an addition test, I opened all referenced files at once and - voila! - almost no delay (only due to the immense usage of memory by the opened documents).

       

      I still would appreciate if anyone knows how to switch off dynamic cross-reference update.

        • 1. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
          peter at knowhowpro Community Member

          Dr Axly wrote:

           

          I'm using ID5 (7.0.2) on Win XP.

           

          I'm editing a 10 document book and as soon as I started cross-references the editing became unbearably slow - every character takes a second to update and hard drive is constantly in use.

           

          Performance is set to fast, live update disabled, hyphenation is off, etc. etc., but no luck.

           

          As a test, I copied one of the documents and deleted cross-references - the speed returned to normal even at high quality display and live redraw.

           

          Any ideas how to resolve the issue? Any chance of switching updating cross-references off? Any good advise is appreciated.

          Dr Axly wrote:

           

          I'm using ID5 (7.0.2) on Win XP.

           

          I'm editing a 10 document book and as soon as I started cross-references the editing became unbearably slow - every character takes a second to update and hard drive is constantly in use.

           

          Performance is set to fast, live update disabled, hyphenation is off, etc. etc., but no luck.

           

          As a test, I copied one of the documents and deleted cross-references - the speed returned to normal even at high quality display and live redraw.

           

          Any ideas how to resolve the issue? Any chance of switching updating cross-references off? Any good advise is appreciated.

          [EDIT] I saw your update. It's pretty clear that the trade-off is using memory to keep files open and gain speed, or saving memory and working slowly. Perhaps a compromise would be to open only those files referred to from the file you're editing? [/EDIT]

           

          Have you seen any improvement when you close the book and unused files, and edit one file at a time? I believe the changed x-refs should update when you reopen them and the book.

           

          If you are a very patient person, you can file a feature change request at https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform, and someday, perhaps, InDesign will offer the option to switch live x-ref updates off.

           

          If you're in a production-deadline situation, you may want to look at the commercial InDesign Cross-References Pro plug-in from dtptools.com. It can convert your existing InDesign x-refs to its own, quickly, and it has the option to turn live x-ref updates on/off.h

           

           

          HTH

           

          Regards,

           

          Peter

          _______________________

          Peter Gold

          KnowHow ProServices

           

          Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro

          • 2. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
            Dr Axly Community Member

            Thanks for the advise, Peter. I'm on a tight deadline and so will have a look at the recommended tool.

             

            All my book documents are heavily cross-linked and editing one file at a time is slower than having all of them open at once.

             

            Thanks once again!

            • 3. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
              peter at knowhowpro Community Member

              Dr Axly wrote:

               

              Thanks for the advise, Peter. I'm on a tight deadline and so will have a look at the recommended tool.

               

              All my book documents are heavily cross-linked and editing one file at a time is slower than having all of them open at once.

               

              Thanks once again!

              You're welcome, and thanks for the note that all files open when there are multiple cross-file cross-references, is the faster method.

               

              Have you tried the additional speed-up settings often mentioned in this forum:

               

              * Turn off thumbnails, transparency and page size and orientation indicators, in the Pages panel's menu.

               

              * If you have lots of graphics, you may want to adjust Preferences > Display Performance > Adjust View Settings to Fast or Typical, and Preferences > Interface > Options > Live Screen Drawing to Delayed or Never.

               

              Does any of these settings improve performance?

               

              HTH

               

              Regards,

               

              Peter

              _______________________

              Peter Gold

              KnowHow ProServices

              • 4. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                Harbs. CommunityMVP

                My advise:

                 

                Don't use Books when using cross-refs. CS5 is better than CS4, but it's not good.

                 

                DTPTools' plugin is (much) better, but I'm pretty sure I've seen issues with those docs as well.

                 

                Just avoid using books if you can. Do the whole doc in a single document if you need cross refs!

                 

                Harbs

                • 5. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                  Harbs. CommunityMVP

                  BTW, The issues I've seen is huge memory usage which seems to constantly increase.

                   

                  Harbs

                  • 6. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                    Dr Axly Community Member

                    @Peter. I have tried all sorts of performance settings, but it all seems to come to having all relevant files open at once, otherwise ID constantly tries to re-open an update them.

                    • 7. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                      Dr Axly Community Member

                      @Harbs. Thanks for the advice, but can't avoid using books - a single 200-pages-long document is very difficult to navigate, unless there's an outline feature - any suggestions?

                      • 8. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                        peter at knowhowpro Community Member

                        Dr Axly wrote:

                         

                        @Harbs. Thanks for the advice, but can't avoid using books - a single 200-pages-long document is very difficult to navigate, unless there's an outline feature - any suggestions?

                        You can open multiple windows for a single InDesign file, so you could scroll through a chapter file in one window while keeping your current cursor location in one or more others.

                         

                        TOCs can work as outlines, if heading-level paragraphs are granular enough. Format the toc to be narrow and tile it adjacent to your working document. You can make TOCs for each chapter as well as for the whole book. When  you see the topic you want, in the working document use Cmd/Ctrl+j and type the page number, then Enter.

                         

                         

                        HTH

                         

                        Regards,

                         

                        Peter

                        _______________________

                        Peter Gold

                        KnowHow ProServices

                        • 9. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                          Harbs. CommunityMVP

                          What kind of navigation do you need?

                           

                          Like Peter said, you can use multiple windows.

                           

                          Command/Control J is also very useful for jumping around quickly.

                           

                          It should be really easy to make a script to jump to the next/previous section...

                           

                          Harbs

                          • 10. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                            peter at knowhowpro Community Member

                            Harbs. wrote:

                             

                            What kind of navigation do you need?

                             

                            Like Peter said, you can use multiple windows.

                             

                            Command/Control J is also very useful for jumping around quickly.

                             

                            It should be really easy to make a script to jump to the next/previous section...

                             

                            Harbs

                            Another way to navigate is to set the pasteboard margins narrow in Preferences > Guides and Pasteboard, to reduce wasted white space around page content, and scroll through the document, using zoom keystrokes (or gestures on keypads, if set with Preferences > Interface > Enable Multi-Touch Gestures is checked (enabled.)

                             

                            Similar, but better is to file an enhancement request for a "ginormous" page size option in the Pages panel, with legible type. Currently, the largest size, Jumbo, greeks small type sizes. The advantage of the Pages panel is its ability to arrange pages in columns and rows, ala Acrobat's Pages navigation pane, vs. the single-column arrangement of pages/spreads in the workspace.

                             

                             

                            HTH

                             

                            Regards,

                             

                            Peter

                            _______________________

                            Peter Gold

                            KnowHow ProServices

                            • 11. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                              Dr Axly Community Member

                              @Harbs & Peter. Thank you, gentlemen, for the advice - much appreciated!

                              • 12. Re: Cross-references slow ID5 down
                                asdfasdfasdfasdfasdffghjg Community Member

                                A 4-year-late thank you to Dr Axly for the tip of opening all book files. This solved a very vexing chronic slowdown when dealing with cross-refs in my book project. Once all files were open ID was back to its old self.