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1. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Fred Goldman Oct 13, 2010 4:53 PM (in response to zoon_unit)What happens if you export to tagged text and then reimport it (in a new document), is it still slow in the same spot?
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2. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
zoon_unit Oct 13, 2010 9:38 PM (in response to Fred Goldman)Unfortunately, that exposes another flaw in CS5. I tend to group my styles, but when I
export them to rtf, for instance, the exported style comes back in as "style name(style group)" when reimported.
You would THINK that that would correspond perfectly with the existing grouped style, but instead, the reimported styles are added as separate styles at the bottom of the paragraph style panel. There seems to be a slight style naming anomaly.
Tomorrow I will ungroup my styles, export the text, and then reimport and see what happens....
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3. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
zoon_unit Oct 13, 2010 9:57 PM (in response to zoon_unit)Well, after moving all my grouped styles, exporting to rtf, deleting the existing story, and reimporting it, the slow text comes back in exactly the same spot.
I'm totally baffled.
It sure would be nice if Adobe could fix grouped styles so you could reimport them without the styles breaking...
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4. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Harbs. Oct 14, 2010 4:30 AM (in response to zoon_unit)Can you share the doc?
Harbs
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5. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
zoon_unit Oct 14, 2010 6:55 AM (in response to Harbs.)I knew you were going to ask me that.

Unfortunately, I can't. It's a corporate white paper. I'm planning to reimport everything as plain text and reformat, as much as I hate to do that. I'm hoping that will solve the problem.
Meanwhile, I discovered yet another strange anomaly. While reimporting the rtf text, I had smart text reflow turned on with my two threaded text frames setup and a single, one page master page. But when I reimported, InDesign created all the necessary pages, but as one 10 page spread! Yikes!
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6. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
zoon_unit Oct 14, 2010 9:23 AM (in response to zoon_unit)FINALLY made some progress!
I reimported all the text as plain text and reformatted the entire document. (Uggh!)
And the problem was STILL there, so I knew then it had to be something in one of my styles. I started deleting styles one at a time and checking the speed. When I deleted a style that used the new "split column" feature, all the text entry went back to the original speed!
So it appears that the "split column" feature is the problem. It doesn't seem to matter where in the text the feature is applied, it seems to affect text entry in an area completely removed from where the "split column" feature is applied. The more paragraphs that have the split column applied, the slower text entry becomes. I can format text near the end of the document with "split column" and the text entry will be affected on text near the BEGINNING of the document but not at the START. There is always a chunk of text (several pages worth) that is not affected when entering new text, but at some point in the document, all text below this point will be painfully slow when adding or changing text, whether done in story editor or not.
If I had to guess as an old C programmer, this sure looks like a bad pointer error somewhere in the code.
As long as I remove all "split column" formatting from the document, (and from any style) everything works fine!
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7. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
BobLevine Oct 14, 2010 12:01 PM (in response to zoon_unit)That feature really requires a good deal of horsepower and in a long document I have no doubt it could really slow things down.
You might want to look into this instead: http://in-tools.com/wordpress/indesign/plugins/column-flow/new-improved-column-flow
Bob
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8. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
zoon_unit Oct 14, 2010 12:21 PM (in response to BobLevine)BobLevine wrote:
That feature really requires a good deal of horsepower and in a long document I have no doubt it could really slow things down.
You might want to look into this instead: http://in-tools.com/wordpress/indesign/plugins/column-flow/new-improve d-column-flow
Bob
Yeah, I would imagine that would be processing intensive. However, I've got a cutting edge Win computer and it's still intolerable. If it was simply a horsepower issue, I would expect ALL text entry to be slow, especially text at the top of the document, since all the text below it would have to be re-rendered with every new edit. Earlier I even tried setting the live screen redrawing (in preferences) to delayed or manual, but that didn't affect the speed at all. I'm "hoping" this is a new feature bug that will eventually get repaired, because I really like writing and editing in Indesign directly, rather than doing the Word-to-ID dance.
I'm an author and work with long documents all the time. I would also imagine that the beta testers who tested the split column issue probably missed the performance issue, if they were using a lot of non-threaded text frames. I would think that would isolate the problem to the text frame.
At least now, I KNOW what the problem is, so I can turn off split columns in my styles, while editing, then turn them back on when formatting. That's at least a tolerable workaround.
Thanks for the link!
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9. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Oct 14, 2010 1:13 PM (in response to zoon_unit)It would be really helpful if you wrote this up as an official bug report:
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10. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Oct 7, 2011 1:18 PM (in response to zoon_unit)I, too, love working with ID CS5. I am a Technical Writer and in my design/layout I push ID, as I did with Word and QuarkXpress previously, to the limit. I automatically nunber figures, tables, procedures, etc... I use features such as TOC, Text Variables and styles every where. Many of which I applied in Microsoft Word and few of which I found in Quark (many older documents were built with this appliation). My documents very in size from one page to more than 50. By applying my templates and styles, I can quickly migrate to ID.
I recently discovered the span feature and modified my masters to allow me to set my two columns in the text frame and span when needed. To my dismay, I suddenly discovered that:
- The system would crash when enough text was inserted in front of spanned styles to shift columns in the thread.
- Text would suddenly be slow to react (3 sec beteween typed characters).
I would hate to have to go back to using MS Word, and lothe going back to Quark for my DTP needs. This needs to be pached and soon.
In case you were wondering:
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11. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Dimitra.p Oct 8, 2011 6:15 AM (in response to zoon_unit)I have experienced the same behaviour in Indesign CS5 in many documents. Mainly what I found was causing this was that Indesign needed excessive memory to perform recomposing of paragraphs when some or all of the below were the case:
- Is a paragraph very, very large? When paragraphs are large, Indesign needs more memory to recompose the story after editing.
- Are you using a customized Dictionary, have you set up many custom hyphenation words? This can slow Indesign considerably during recomposing of a paragraph after editing, even when just entering a space or fullstop.
- Are you using too many restrictions for H&J's?
- What Display Performance mode are you working on?
- Is Preflight enabled during your editing the suggested pages?
- Is Dynamic Spelling enabled?
Workarounds are:
1. Try to disable Preflight. You can turn it back on after you have finished working on your document.
2. Try working in Fast Display mode
3. Try adjusting H&Js giving Indesign more freedom during recomposing of paragraphs.
4. Try splitting very large paragraphs.
5. Turn Dynamic Spelling off.
For me, just disabling Preflight and working in Fast Display mode was enough for most of the troublesome documents.
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12. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Oct 10, 2011 8:43 AM (in response to Dimitra.p)Thanks for the input, Dimitra.p. I would think 8GB is plenty of RAM, but my computer can accept up to 16GB.
I have tried all of what you recommend and nothing changes. Hyphenation is turned off and Justification is default values. My writing style does not allow for very large paragraphs and I have larger manuals, with paragraph spanning (no splits) that do not have the problem.Although the problem did not occur till I added an spanned image with figure caption.
I once linked to a heading within another document. That really slowed things down. I learned my lesson on that one.
Would not think it makes a differrence, but using NVIDIA GeForce GT330 with dual Dell E2310H monitors.
I even converted al my EPS images to AI, no change.
At this point, problem seems to point to the use of styles with span feature selected, but when I turn off spanning, the problem persists.
My current work-around is to create an non-threaded text frame, enter my text, then paste that text in the threaded text frame for editing.
I have already consumed far too much time working with this issue. I have far too much work to do to have to resolve such issues.
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13. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Jeff_Olson Oct 10, 2011 1:31 PM (in response to CME101)Did you have "Balance Columns" turned on?
I just ran into this problem too. I solved it by turning "Balance Columns" off.
I created a very simple 8.5x11 with one copy box filled with placeholder text (Helvetica Medium Condensed) to show my department the Split, Span and Balance features in CS5. I edited some of the Span headlines, even deleting the space before them to flow into body copy above and that's where I started slowing down. Preflight was off, Fast Display was on. I turned off the "Balance Columns" and it fixed the problem right away. Turn "Balance Columns" on and the slowness is back.I hope this helps.
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14. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Oct 10, 2011 2:02 PM (in response to Jeff_Olson)I am using an Object style for my text frames and "Ballance Columns" is turned off. It is funny, because typing is fine in frames that are not part of the thread.
I recently tried to copy and paste an image and auto-numbered figure caption from another document. This crashes ID. I will probably have to callup a fresh template and rebuild the document before I can proceed. That is what I had to do last time this happened.I have yet been able to effect the slooooooooooness, as you have, with turning on & off a feature. I do notice that, everytime I type a character, the blue rotating circle appears to let me know that it is updating the entire file.
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15. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Oct 11, 2011 7:56 AM (in response to CME101)In an attempt to correct the slow responding document, I opened a new template and transferred the content of the slow document into the new document file. In the process of doing so, ID crashed a couple of times. When recovering, ID told me the slow file may be damaged.
If I highlighted the entire thread, the blue rotating circle would popup and delay the process. I started at the beginning and worked my way through the content, moving chunks (graphics included) at a time. Finally, I grabbed a chunk where the blue rotating circle appeared after the Ctrl-C. I found that, if I highlighted two paragraphs (not in sequence) and copied, the blue circle would appear. I deleted and retyped the paragraphs in the original document. Problem solved, so I thought. Now I think I have a bad figure caption style, because when I try to cross reference to a caption, ID crashes. Going back to update and work in the new document file; it may be quicker.
Some of this text was originally copied and pasted from Quark file for updating. Not sure, but this may have resulted in my issue.
Maybe I should switch to Apple.
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16. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Dec 14, 2011 6:16 AM (in response to CME101)Just an update:
After working with this for a while, I think I have, at least, narrowed my slooooooooow typing issue to my practice of copy and pasting from one document to another. The problem is related to my above statment that typing is slowed when a cross-reference is linked to an external document.
When I copy and paste text from document A to document B and the copied text contains a cross-reference, it too is copied. However, the cross-reference in document B remains linked to document A. As I type, ID seems to refresh this external link with each keystroke, especially if the newly added text shifts the link on the page.
I have learned to identify these links by moving my mouse over each link in the link list. The pop-up displays link details and if it is linked to another document. After relinking locally or deleting the links, typing is, once again, normal.
As a footnote. Opening the link properties also opens the external document. If you intend to link externally to another document in this fashion, typing is faster if the external doucment is also open.
I do not know if others having slooooooooooow typing problems are due to this same issue, but I hope it helps some.
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17. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
RevRatspeed Dec 17, 2011 8:42 AM (in response to CME101)I can assure you that I'm having the same issue in performance. It's not to do with copying text from another document because I haven't done so. It seems all to do with having Title and section paragraph styles set to Span across columns. Definitely a bug. I even tried splitting up my 200 page book's 23 chapters into individual indd files in hopes that it would help things out, but still nothing. The current rate in which InDesign is generating characters at about 1 character per second at this point. This also by the way is affected in Story Editor as well, since it updates the formatted WYSIWYG text in real-time.
Edit: Balanced columns, actually! I toggled between the two and bamph, works tons better. Still a bug, really would love to see it corrected.
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18. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Dec 19, 2011 6:00 AM (in response to RevRatspeed)That may be true in your case, but I can duplicate and repeat the slow down with the copy and paste between files, if it captures a hyperlink or cross-reference that remains linked to the original file. I do not see it as a bug because, if the file being linked from is open, Typing is normal. My document also has spanned images and text, but I do not use balanced frames.
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19. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
RevRatspeed Dec 19, 2011 10:09 AM (in response to CME101)We might simply be talking about two separate situations then with similar symptoms then. And anything that brings my performance experience down to a crawl I consider a bug.
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20. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Ratthing Jan 12, 2012 1:26 PM (in response to zoon_unit)I am having the same problem with Slooooooowwwwwww text entry and believe the issue is the same as CME101 mentions. It appears that the problem is cross references to documents outside the current folder. My issue started when creating new books by copying old documents that have hyperlinks in them to write many manuals that are similar to each other. I want to continue to use the hyperlinks, but they end up pointing to the old document sometimes and then typing in any text frame in that doc becomes sloooowwwww (several seconds per character).
Any new thoughts on ways that are not too painful to fix this?
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21. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Jan 12, 2012 1:58 PM (in response to Ratthing)If you have cross-refs to external files, the only way to speed things up is to also open the other file.
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22. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Jan 12, 2012 2:19 PM (in response to Ratthing)Rathing,
Yes, this is exactly the issue I have when I copy and paste text with cross-references.
- You might like to open the original files from which the text was copied. This will speed up the typing.
- Go to the document to be fixed and open the Hyperlink panel.
- Use the mouse to point to each cross-reference, do not click. A pop-up will reveal the link's destination.
- If it links to another document, double click on it and relink to the local document (listed in Document: field).
Hope this helps.
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23. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 6:48 AM (in response to zoon_unit)This is definitely an issue in the Windows environment that has absolutely no impact in a Mac environment. I was just introduced to it, and I'm really scratching my head. I do most of my layout on a really nice Intel Mac using ID CS5, and I'm currently working on a huge project with multiple team members working on a variety of computers. I was unaware until yesterday that one of the team members who is working on a Windows 7 laptop was having problems making text edits in documents that work just fine on my Mac. There was a severe lag when typing. She could go get a coffee while waiting for one simple typed sentence to appear on the screen. We opened up system resources and everything is maxing out while text is being typed, CPU, memory, network. It's a real stumper. This is not a simple machine, it was purchased to be a graphic design computer and has really good specs, but just to make sure it wasn't the computer, I tried it on two other PCs. One is my laptop that I freelance on and the other is a fellow designer's machine that has absolutely amazing specs (actually better than my Mac), both running Windows 7. On all three computers I have the same typing lag, though I can reduce the lag some by turning off everything that saps ID performance (auto preflight, screen redraw, dynamic spelling, balance columns, etc.). The files are on a server, so I even tried copying them to the local harddrive and severing link and InCopy connections. I've tried turning off balance columns and still the lag. The lag is most prominent in a fairly complex table and I've noticed it is worse when editing text that is on a 10 percent black background.
I can provide a file to play with if anyone wants to see the behavior. I can reproduce it on any computer with a Windows environment (both CS5 and CS5.5). I would appreciate a fix either in the way my documents are created or for the app because I'm doing hundreds of these documents for the next couple years and this lag is a severe problem in our workflow.
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24. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 6:55 AM (in response to E Diane King)One additional piece of information that may or may not have value: the offending story can be edited in InCopy on a Windows 7 laptop without any typing lag.
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25. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Feb 17, 2012 6:58 AM (in response to E Diane King)Yes, please. Package and zip then send me a link by Private mEssage, or I can send you an upload link if you need one.
I'd really like to test here, where I've never seen a lag, on my Windows 7 system.
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26. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
CME101 Feb 17, 2012 7:01 AM (in response to E Diane King)Does the file have external links to other documents or headings in another document?
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27. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 7:55 AM (in response to CME101)Peter, I just sent you the message with a download link to a sample file.
CME, my files almost always link to external files (kind of defeats the purpose of ID if you can't do that). These files have links to AI graphic files and the story is exported as an InCopy story. However, I broke the links, to the story at least, with no impact to the typing lag. The particular file that I sent Peter does not contain hyperlinks or cross references, though some of them do have internal cross referencing.
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28. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Feb 17, 2012 8:14 AM (in response to E Diane King)Diane,
I can't get the file to open -- ID crashes as it's tellingme there are missing fonts, which I thought was a litle odd, but you've used a Mac TT WingDings and Zapf Dingbats .dfont. I fyou want to collaborate with Windows users you must stick to OpenType and Windows format TT (which can be installeed on OS X) or Windows T1 (which can be copied into the ID private fonts folder or used, I think, in the "Document Fonts" folder, but TT is a safer bet).
That said, a missing fornt shouldn't cause a crash, so something else is going on.
I notice also that you have used the Teacup patternmaker plugin. Is it involved with the table that is giving you grief? Does that table intereact in any way with span/split columns? Do you have span/split columns in use anywhere else? I think there are some known issues in CS5 with that feature, though off the top of my head I don't recall that any of them would be causing a slowdown.
Anyway, would you mind sending me a .idml and I'll see if that opens?
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29. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 8:30 AM (in response to P Spier)I am aware there are missing fonts. It doesn't really effect those on the Win machines on our end (no crashing, anyway), the fonts they can't use do not effect text flow. I'm the one outputting the final files, and I have the fonts. I was not aware I was using a dfont until you mentioned it. Zapf Dingbats is identified as TT inside Adobe. Wish I could replace it, but that's the only version of that font that I have, and it's a somewhat vital character in the layout. I'll have to see if I can find that character in another font. I'll have to check to see where the Wingdings is used. I don't recall using it anywhere. However, the IC user has not had an issue with the missing fonts other than having the pink text. Not sure why it would effect ID users or cause a typing lag.
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30. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 8:36 AM (in response to E Diane King)Opps, I lied. I do have OT ITC Zapf Dingbats. I will try replacing that in one of the files and see if that effects the typing lag. Can't do anything about Wing Dings, but at least that one isn't a dfont.
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31. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 8:41 AM (in response to P Spier)You asked about the plugins. I have several plugins installed on my Mac. The only one used in the creation of this document (and actually not directly to the document, but to the text in another document before being moved into the template) is the Side Heads plugin. The rest just taint the document because that's what some plugins do if you have them installed (something that actually seriously annoys me about plugin behavior in ID).
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32. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
Fred Goldman Feb 17, 2012 8:46 AM (in response to E Diane King)The nice thing about in-tools plugins is they don't leave that footprint (side-heads, I assume you mean from in-tools).
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33. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 8:51 AM (in response to Fred Goldman)Yes, InTools Side Heads. I would not be able to create these files without that valuable little plugin. Absolutely love it!
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34. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 8:53 AM (in response to P Spier)Peter,
I just performed a test on my coworkers PC. I opened the file that I sent you on his computer, replaced Wingdings with his system font and replaced Zapf Dingbats with the OT version. The file was preflighting with no errors, and it still had the typing lag in the table. So the fonts are not the issue.
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35. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Feb 17, 2012 9:05 AM (in response to Fred Goldman)Yeah, I saw no signe of the side-head plugin (but APID assistant is there in the instuctions file, so I don't know if that was required by Harbs -- he uses that a lot I think -- or Teacup). In any case, I don't think it's the plugin.
Diane's .idml crashed, too, but both files wire there when I relaunched ID, and haven't crashed since, so I don't know what that was about. I'll presume it was unrelated.
The story that is giving trouble is a linked InCopy assignment. I have zero experience with the InCopy workflow, but I managed to check it out so I could type in the table, and it was slow, but only a fraction of a second after the keystrokes, here. My suspicion is it may have something to do with being an assignment. I'll try unlinking and see if that makes a difference.
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36. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 9:08 AM (in response to P Spier)I've already tried that and it has no effect on the slow typing. In fact, we broke the link entirely on the test I just did on my coworker's machine. No change in the lag.
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37. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Feb 17, 2012 9:08 AM (in response to P Spier)Nope, that made no difference. I'm clueless.
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38. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
E Diane King Feb 17, 2012 9:09 AM (in response to P Spier)Maybe the AI icons in the table? Would that be an issue?
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39. Re: Sloooowwwww text entry in InDesign CS5
P Spier Feb 17, 2012 9:14 AM (in response to E Diane King)I don't think so, and I've just turned off track changes, too, without effect.





