InDesign 2017 is miserably slow when deleting text

[danielv87901415]

InDesign 2017 is miserably slow when it comes to deleting text, such as backspacing. It can take a full minute for it to respond to deleting even a single character. I've looked through the forums and tried all sorts of things, such as disabling preflight, disabling autocorrect, and disabling gpu performance. The only solution I have found that works is to quit InDesign when it gets bogged down. On a restart, InDesign typing is tolerable, but after fifteen minutes or so of use, trying to backspace in InDesign, or deleting selected text bogs InDesign down.

This is a problem with InDesign that has been ongoing for a long time. Previous versions of InDesign didn't slow down when you backspaced or deleted text. 2017 is a dog to work in.

[Srishti Bali]

Hi danielv,

We sorry about the inconvenience caused . I see the InDesign becomes slow after every 15-20 minutes of restarting the application.

Please try below mentioned steps after closing all Adobe applications

• Try Disabling "Type Contextual Controls" from InDesign preferences

         For MAC:  InDesign >Preferences

         For Windows:  Edit >Preferences

• Check for updates if there is any update available please install update from Creative Cloud.

• Reset preferences to defaults. Click here for details Set preferences in Adobe InDesign

If it still does not work, we would require some details like

• Exact version of InDesign
• Operating system (Exact version of Windows or MAC)
• Files which you are editing where they are saved (System HDD or Network Drive)
• Graphic Card and when it was updated last time

Regards

Srishti

[danielv87901415]

I have Type Contextual Controls off, and I am using the latest version of InDesign, 12.1.0.56. I am running Mac OS X 10.12.5, and the files I use are all on my system hard drive. They are not on a network drive. I'm using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) with an Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB.

[danielv87901415]

I also tried resetting InDesign preferences, but that does not solve the problem. After using InDesign for half an hour or so, hitting the backspace or trying to delete some text will cause InDesign to sputter for 26 seconds. Just deleting the last period I just typed will make InDesign grind to a halt. I need to quit InDesign at least every 30 minutes in order to type and be able to work. This was not an issue with versions of InDesign prior to 2017.

It seems to be some sort of memory bug as the longer I work in InDesign, the worse the problem gets. There is no problem adding text. InDesign has no trouble with that, but deleting any text, sends InDesign into a tailspin. It's almost like it is wanting to recalculate all the formatting for all the text from the beginning of the document to the page I am working on, even though deleting a word or punctuation only affects the flow of the text in the paragraph I am working on.

[Srishti Bali]

Hi danielv,

Please try following steps and share results.

1) Boot system to safe boot with same account and check how it works, if it works fine close all third party running services. For details click here Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

2) Log in to root account  For details check here How to enable the root user on your Mac - Apple Support

Check how application works there, If it works fine

• Go to Location ~/Library/Preferences
• right click preferences folder and click get info
• Click the lock icon to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.
• Change permissions to read and write.
• Click the Action pop-up menu , then choose “Apply to enclosed items.”
• If you do not see your account there click on plus symbol on bottom left corner and add account and follow same steps

Follow same steps for

~/Library/Caches

~/Library/Application support

/Library/Preferences

/Library/Caches

/Library/Application support

  Note: If you are on office system ,these (/Library/Application support and/Library/Preferences) folders may or may not allow you to add user , that is completely fine.

Once done login to normal user account.

Also as a work around try to download InDesign CC 2015.4 version and check how it performs.(You may keep both versions at same time)

For details click here Download and install Creative Cloud apps

Regards

Srishti

[danielv87901415]

I found that running InDesign in safe mode did not make much difference. I found that running InDesign while logged in as the administrator did run better, but eventually it did start to slow down say after several hours of use. What I did find is that logging in as administrator, running InDesign 2017, and then quitting and going back to my regular user, improved the performance.

The best solution I found was going back and using InDesign 2015. That version never experiences the slowdown when backspacing or deleting letters or words, and in general InDesign 2015 runs much better than InDesign 2017, which is disheartening. Software should be getting better with each new release, and yet, InDesign 2017 performance is not nearly as good as InDesign 2015 performance. It makes me dread how much worse InDesign 2018 is going to be, and at which point I need to look at other layout programs.

[danielv87901415]

I did find a partial solution to the problem of InDesign becoming unbearably slow when you backspace and delete a letter. Before, I was always quitting InDesign and restarting, but I found that just closing the document and reopening made InDesign responsive again to backspaces and character/word deletions. When InDesign starts displaying that behaviors, just going back a page or two and clicking in the middle of a paragraph to change some text could cause InDesign to sputter.

But close the document, reopen it, and InDesign works just fine. Which makes me think there is some issue with the number of changes InDesign is trying to keep track of so it can "undo" things is related to the problem. There must be a database of changes InDesign is maintaining as you work on a document, and the way it keeps track of text deletions is inefficient and gets bogged down over time.

[danielv87901415 · Accepted solution]

I upgraded to InDesign 2018, and the problem no longer exists. Yeah!