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Resolved CS5: Why is dragging and resizing in Indesign CS5 so laggy?
- Thread starter NXTMIKE
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I just upgraded from a mini with two gigs of ram to an iMac i7 with 12Gigs of ram.
Also in the past I've worked on MacPros with 2Gigs of ram.
After seeing what a difference ram makes, I hope all my systems will have at least 12Gigs. I cant believe how people are so willing to buy whole new systems when they havent even upgraded the ram. How can they say their system is slow when their running with such a minimal amount of ram.
Its like buying a race car and driving around in first gear, then selling it for next years model because it just didnt go fast enough.
Especially now with CS5, now you can have photoshop access more than 2-3 gigs of ram. I love this new iMac, i never wanted one before, i always go for the MacPros, but this thing is a monster, I have Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop, Bridge, Safari, Mail, Contact Manager (Daylite), iTunes....whatever i want, all open at the same time and no slow downs. If Photoshop is crunching away on a process, i just smooth as butter go over to Indesign and do some layout work.
Before, i was an idiot. Using my computer with only a few gigs of ram is stupid if its for business. The biggest waste of time. Now, its like I opened up the doors, no more working in a small box, the sky's the limit. Its beautiful. And im still using CS3. I cant wait to get CS5.
Also in the past I've worked on MacPros with 2Gigs of ram.
After seeing what a difference ram makes, I hope all my systems will have at least 12Gigs. I cant believe how people are so willing to buy whole new systems when they havent even upgraded the ram. How can they say their system is slow when their running with such a minimal amount of ram.
Its like buying a race car and driving around in first gear, then selling it for next years model because it just didnt go fast enough.
Especially now with CS5, now you can have photoshop access more than 2-3 gigs of ram. I love this new iMac, i never wanted one before, i always go for the MacPros, but this thing is a monster, I have Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop, Bridge, Safari, Mail, Contact Manager (Daylite), iTunes....whatever i want, all open at the same time and no slow downs. If Photoshop is crunching away on a process, i just smooth as butter go over to Indesign and do some layout work.
Before, i was an idiot. Using my computer with only a few gigs of ram is stupid if its for business. The biggest waste of time. Now, its like I opened up the doors, no more working in a small box, the sky's the limit. Its beautiful. And im still using CS3. I cant wait to get CS5.
Stick to CS3 for now, the CS5 isn't worth the upgrade. Besides, it's still not 64 bit and multi-core efficient. I went back to CS4, using CS5 only for compatibility issues when receiving external files.
But you are totally correct about the RAM, the more the better.
Thanks for this tip - my Wife's been pulling her hair out with this one all week and there was no way it was a hardware issue - we run two dual-quad 2.8GHz mac pro's with 10Gb Ram. This solved the problem. Legend : )
Don't upgrade!
I'm running Duel QUAD Core, 6GB RAM MAC PRO. Installed CS5 and it is running very sluggish! Drag and drop seams to be the worst problem. Anyone figured out what the problem is? I know this Thread isn't new but it is doing my head in!!! I need to stop it running like this. Help?
I'm running Duel QUAD Core, 6GB RAM MAC PRO. Installed CS5 and it is running very sluggish! Drag and drop seams to be the worst problem. Anyone figured out what the problem is? I know this Thread isn't new but it is doing my head in!!! I need to stop it running like this. Help?
hmmmm....I'm surprised. Your system seems much more powerful than mine, and even though it is somewhat slower than cs4 for me, it's not too slow other than InDesign (which I now found out was only lagging when viewing CS4 or CS3 docs). Maybe if you have too many CS versions installed, it may cause some problems.
I remember the snappiness of CS3. Ohhhh I miss those days.
I remember the snappiness of CS3. Ohhhh I miss those days.
I am editing CS4 Indesign files in CS5. Could this be the problem? I only get sluggish performance in Indesign, other programs seam fine. I noticed that someone posted about changing the performance of the real time rendering - I cannot find this option. I have gone through all the prefs. Are you getting the same problems?
@Danzo,
You can't really edit CS4 files inside CS5. When you open an older version of InDesign inside a newer version the file name at the top will say <filename> (converted). You need to save a copy in order to save the file.
If you are experiences issues with your file, I have two suggestions for you.
1. Do a file > save as. This will rebuild the InDesign file and usually reduce it's file size.
2. Export the file to .IDML (InDesign Markup Language). Normally you do this to save between versions, but you can export to .idml and then reopen the file back up and save out a new file. This will not degrade your file at all and usually can resolve issues that you might be having.
Good Luck!
You can't really edit CS4 files inside CS5. When you open an older version of InDesign inside a newer version the file name at the top will say <filename> (converted). You need to save a copy in order to save the file.
If you are experiences issues with your file, I have two suggestions for you.
1. Do a file > save as. This will rebuild the InDesign file and usually reduce it's file size.
2. Export the file to .IDML (InDesign Markup Language). Normally you do this to save between versions, but you can export to .idml and then reopen the file back up and save out a new file. This will not degrade your file at all and usually can resolve issues that you might be having.
Good Luck!
Why is Indesign CS5 lagging and has anyone got a solution?
hey all, i have read all the responses and to date my new CS5 has been lagging since installation. I have more than enough in my MacPro to run it...so am at a loss as to why?
system is:
Graphic - ATI Radeon HD 5770
Quad-core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8Ghz
Number of processors: 4
Memory - 6GB
Even with overprint preview off, live screen drawing set to delayed and image quality set to typical display (as its almost impossible to work in fast display when putting a catalogue together... I'm still getting at least 3-5sec lagging when resizing and dragging. It is now happening each movement of the stylus....creating slow work flow and much swearing...anyone have any suggestions?
hey all, i have read all the responses and to date my new CS5 has been lagging since installation. I have more than enough in my MacPro to run it...so am at a loss as to why?
system is:
Graphic - ATI Radeon HD 5770
Quad-core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8Ghz
Number of processors: 4
Memory - 6GB
Even with overprint preview off, live screen drawing set to delayed and image quality set to typical display (as its almost impossible to work in fast display when putting a catalogue together... I'm still getting at least 3-5sec lagging when resizing and dragging. It is now happening each movement of the stylus....creating slow work flow and much swearing...anyone have any suggestions?
Let's stop discounting the issue please.
There is a certain type of authority on messageboards like these who is very quick to dismiss perceived issues of software performance, immediately chalking it up to unrealistic expectations of the thread author, or the inadequacy of their hardware. And truly, those are always possibilities.
But while we now know that the doubts about the author's CPU were unfounded, I've got a crazy idea for you guys.
How about just giving the benefit of the doubt to the author, eh? Consider: Anyone who bothers to login and post an issue like this, who is then big-upped by a chorus of other people who ALSO bothered to Google this thread and respond, might actually know what they're talking about.
As a Mac user from 1985, a user of Mac design software since 1986, from Pagemaker through Quark to all iterations of InDesign, and as the owner of a 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo iMac with 4gb of ram (plenty!) I am here to say that this version of InDesign CS5 lags about like QuarkXPress from the late-1990s did on machines that were a thousand times slower.
I remember a few years ago, a bunch of messageboard "authorities" telling other Mac users who had problems playing low-def Flash video on very capable G5 computers, that their computers were incorrectly configured, had inadequate video cards, all kinds of nonsense. It turns out Adobe just didn't want to pay anyone to write a Flash player that worked on the Mac PowerPC architecture. The Mac Flash player for PowerPC was, and is, some ridiculously compiled cheap-arse non-native code that used 100% of CPU power and overheated the machine.
Sometimes, the software is just badly written, and not only in someone's imagination. InDesign CS5, for users I've talked to who depend on this kind of software professionally and know it well, is just noticeably laggy on redraw/resize. Not with hi-res images, not with complicated layerings - it is just plain slow on ordinary performance. Maybe not to you, casual user. But I notice it, and plenty of other people notice it.
Some people just like to apologize for large organizations like Adobe, Apple, whoever. But folks, organizations also do lazy things sometimes. And let's not forget - companies as big as Adobe actually hire PR people to go on messageboards like this, and downplay the problems with their products.
Please, if you don't know why it lags, or maybe why Adobe didn't rewrite InDesign for Mac properly this time, spare us the "Maybe it's you" answers. And thanks to everyone else for posting their experiences.
Macstudent - turning off "immediate" redraw did not help for me. Thanks for the suggestion though.
There is a certain type of authority on messageboards like these who is very quick to dismiss perceived issues of software performance, immediately chalking it up to unrealistic expectations of the thread author, or the inadequacy of their hardware. And truly, those are always possibilities.
But while we now know that the doubts about the author's CPU were unfounded, I've got a crazy idea for you guys.
How about just giving the benefit of the doubt to the author, eh? Consider: Anyone who bothers to login and post an issue like this, who is then big-upped by a chorus of other people who ALSO bothered to Google this thread and respond, might actually know what they're talking about.
As a Mac user from 1985, a user of Mac design software since 1986, from Pagemaker through Quark to all iterations of InDesign, and as the owner of a 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo iMac with 4gb of ram (plenty!) I am here to say that this version of InDesign CS5 lags about like QuarkXPress from the late-1990s did on machines that were a thousand times slower.
I remember a few years ago, a bunch of messageboard "authorities" telling other Mac users who had problems playing low-def Flash video on very capable G5 computers, that their computers were incorrectly configured, had inadequate video cards, all kinds of nonsense. It turns out Adobe just didn't want to pay anyone to write a Flash player that worked on the Mac PowerPC architecture. The Mac Flash player for PowerPC was, and is, some ridiculously compiled cheap-arse non-native code that used 100% of CPU power and overheated the machine.
Sometimes, the software is just badly written, and not only in someone's imagination. InDesign CS5, for users I've talked to who depend on this kind of software professionally and know it well, is just noticeably laggy on redraw/resize. Not with hi-res images, not with complicated layerings - it is just plain slow on ordinary performance. Maybe not to you, casual user. But I notice it, and plenty of other people notice it.
Some people just like to apologize for large organizations like Adobe, Apple, whoever. But folks, organizations also do lazy things sometimes. And let's not forget - companies as big as Adobe actually hire PR people to go on messageboards like this, and downplay the problems with their products.
Please, if you don't know why it lags, or maybe why Adobe didn't rewrite InDesign for Mac properly this time, spare us the "Maybe it's you" answers. And thanks to everyone else for posting their experiences.
Macstudent - turning off "immediate" redraw did not help for me. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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It is absurd. Especially since, hold on while I run on a tangent here, but I just got out of the shower, and in there, with the hot water on my cranium, I thought, what does an Apple look like 5 years from now?
iOS and OS X merging... but how?
Consider something like a macbook pro, but with essentially an iPad instead of its horizontal (keyboard) surface. Sure, touch typing is a little bit of a hassle, but with a programmable keyboard GUI, who'd need a keyboard? Go into Photoshop, open your file, and there are all your photoshop menus and palettes laid out instead of a keyboard. No memorizing a million hotkeys, just see the the tools, adjust with your fingertips, navigate with a customizably large trackpad area... forget it, get your tools set right, pull the image down to the horiz portion of your MBP, and paint your effects and settings on accurately by hand ...convenient magnifier for accuracy... etc.. Your machine is off? Need to access something quickly? Hit your home button, and bam, instant on, there's iOS, with mail, admin, viewer, & your iOS apps handy. Fire up the rest of the Macbook Pro if you need it and your ipad portion becomes a mere built-in peripheral. You're in finder? No keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard space displays proper context menus. You're in any application, and if they've written in their keyboard commands properly, you get em... if not, it defaults back to a qwerty keyboard and you send the devs emails until they get up to speed.
Time to get away from the typewriter.
That in mind, there's no excuse for Adobe to be stumbling over something so simple as resizing a window. Good gods, get up to speed would you.
iOS and OS X merging... but how?
Consider something like a macbook pro, but with essentially an iPad instead of its horizontal (keyboard) surface. Sure, touch typing is a little bit of a hassle, but with a programmable keyboard GUI, who'd need a keyboard? Go into Photoshop, open your file, and there are all your photoshop menus and palettes laid out instead of a keyboard. No memorizing a million hotkeys, just see the the tools, adjust with your fingertips, navigate with a customizably large trackpad area... forget it, get your tools set right, pull the image down to the horiz portion of your MBP, and paint your effects and settings on accurately by hand ...convenient magnifier for accuracy... etc.. Your machine is off? Need to access something quickly? Hit your home button, and bam, instant on, there's iOS, with mail, admin, viewer, & your iOS apps handy. Fire up the rest of the Macbook Pro if you need it and your ipad portion becomes a mere built-in peripheral. You're in finder? No keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard space displays proper context menus. You're in any application, and if they've written in their keyboard commands properly, you get em... if not, it defaults back to a qwerty keyboard and you send the devs emails until they get up to speed.
Time to get away from the typewriter.
That in mind, there's no excuse for Adobe to be stumbling over something so simple as resizing a window. Good gods, get up to speed would you.
LOL
was that a parody?!? - i sounded a little cranky, right? hehee
but it really ticks me off when somebody has a legit issue, and half the responders say ridiculous stuff like "no probs here mate, maybe you need 32GB of ram".
gave me deja vu, obviously.
was that a parody?!? - i sounded a little cranky, right? hehee
but it really ticks me off when somebody has a legit issue, and half the responders say ridiculous stuff like "no probs here mate, maybe you need 32GB of ram".
gave me deja vu, obviously.
andr nimm , should calm down
most of us post here to help, some more helpful than others.. ranting doesn't help. I could only see a few post here that suggest adding more RAM would help. .
Posting this as i was shock reading your comment .. LOL, as i thought everyone here was helping, again some comment more helpful than others.
i myself used indesign with 4gb ram ram on macbookpro 2008 , works faster than my macpro 8gb that i use in the office. the difference on these machine my 2008 macbookpro is using snow leopard, the macpro is using only leopard.
So maybee its badly written for leopard? who knows, again i'm just posting my opinion.
Peace.
most of us post here to help, some more helpful than others.. ranting doesn't help. I could only see a few post here that suggest adding more RAM would help.
. Posting this as i was shock reading your comment .. LOL, as i thought everyone here was helping, again some comment more helpful than others.
i myself used indesign with 4gb ram ram on macbookpro 2008 , works faster than my macpro 8gb that i use in the office. the difference on these machine my 2008 macbookpro is using snow leopard, the macpro is using only leopard.
So maybee its badly written for leopard? who knows, again i'm just posting my opinion.
Peace.
I've noticed the same thing. In PS it can be very unresponsive as well when I am resizing images, sometimes there is a 4-5 second delay. That's on an 09 Mac Pro with 8gb ram.
Patches adobe, patch it!
Patches adobe, patch it!
thanks for the moral support, if not the answer
Andr Nimm and nikmac68, it made me feel much better to read your posts! The fact that they are recent made them even better (or worse) but at least I know I'm not alone, and that is some comfort, as not everyone is experiencing this slow redraw problem and can be dismissive of it. There is a problem and it is extremely frustrating.
I'm a long time freelance designer, primarily print, and have been through all the Quark and InDesign iterations. Quark had some really buggy offerings in the past and after one of them I switched to all Adobe apps. This reminds me of that time and undermines my confidence in Adobe's commitment to it's users.
I've been struggling with the slow, laggy screen redraw in Ind cs5 for months now. I have tried all of the suggested changes: delayed or no screen redraw, page thumbnails off, auto spell check off, etc, etc and none of them work. I am now exporting to .idml and reopening in ind cs4. What a solution. Glad I spent $1,000 and upgraded to the Master Suite this time. InD is my primary design app and InD CS5 is useless to me.
Adobe was no help at all despite several hours on the phone w tech support. Never heard of this until I happened to call.
I've been searching regularly and this redraw problem is all over the place. It exists on Mac Leopard, Snow Leopard and Windows, too. The variety of hardware combos I've seen are numerous.
I am running direct from my hard drive, OS 10.5.8 on a Mac Pro with 24 GB of RAM, so it's not a RAM issue. my video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. But it's also happening with nikmac68's Radeon card.
Thanks for the moral support. If you find a solution, please post, but I think it's got to come from Adobe, as, imho, it's the software.
Andr Nimm and nikmac68, it made me feel much better to read your posts! The fact that they are recent made them even better (or worse) but at least I know I'm not alone, and that is some comfort, as not everyone is experiencing this slow redraw problem and can be dismissive of it. There is a problem and it is extremely frustrating.
I'm a long time freelance designer, primarily print, and have been through all the Quark and InDesign iterations. Quark had some really buggy offerings in the past and after one of them I switched to all Adobe apps. This reminds me of that time and undermines my confidence in Adobe's commitment to it's users.
I've been struggling with the slow, laggy screen redraw in Ind cs5 for months now. I have tried all of the suggested changes: delayed or no screen redraw, page thumbnails off, auto spell check off, etc, etc and none of them work. I am now exporting to .idml and reopening in ind cs4. What a solution. Glad I spent $1,000 and upgraded to the Master Suite this time. InD is my primary design app and InD CS5 is useless to me.
Adobe was no help at all despite several hours on the phone w tech support. Never heard of this until I happened to call.
I've been searching regularly and this redraw problem is all over the place. It exists on Mac Leopard, Snow Leopard and Windows, too. The variety of hardware combos I've seen are numerous.
I am running direct from my hard drive, OS 10.5.8 on a Mac Pro with 24 GB of RAM, so it's not a RAM issue. my video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. But it's also happening with nikmac68's Radeon card.
Thanks for the moral support. If you find a solution, please post, but I think it's got to come from Adobe, as, imho, it's the software.
Adobe released a patch released yesterday for InDesign CS5 with the slow screen redraw listed as one of the bugs fixed. I'm now running 7.0.4 and so far today, it has been stable and working normally. A day after my exasperated post.
If Adobe had admitted there was a problem and indicated it was being worked on, I would have had a totally different reaction, ie patience, faith in their excellent products. Instead I was forced to jump through all kinds of pointless software/hardware, try this/try that hoops. Typical tech service from the bad old days.
Right now, although very happy to have the problem go away, I'm still exasperated by the gamesmanship. Stock prices are important, but so is the customer base.
If Adobe had admitted there was a problem and indicated it was being worked on, I would have had a totally different reaction, ie patience, faith in their excellent products. Instead I was forced to jump through all kinds of pointless software/hardware, try this/try that hoops. Typical tech service from the bad old days.
Right now, although very happy to have the problem go away, I'm still exasperated by the gamesmanship. Stock prices are important, but so is the customer base.
Just noticed the same update!
I agree that if adobo wants people to actually love them as they used to, and not just depend on them, what they have to do is communicate. like human beings. (that, and keep working on improving the software of course).
I agree that if adobo wants people to actually love them as they used to, and not just depend on them, what they have to do is communicate. like human beings. (that, and keep working on improving the software of course).
Hey Guys, thanks for all your help on this issue. It's surprising how many days I'd browse through MacRumors with this thread still getting many posts.
Oddly for me, this issue would be hardly noticeable with files that were natively created in CS5 (however CS4 and CS3 files were causing more of an issue with this), and seems to have mostly disappeared. Either way I will open up Adobe Updater and run the patch update, even though updates from Adobe are long and in my opinion - a hassle.
Thanks for the assistance on this thread. I will rename the title to have a Resolved prefix.
Oddly for me, this issue would be hardly noticeable with files that were natively created in CS5 (however CS4 and CS3 files were causing more of an issue with this), and seems to have mostly disappeared. Either way I will open up Adobe Updater and run the patch update, even though updates from Adobe are long and in my opinion - a hassle.
Thanks for the assistance on this thread. I will rename the title to have a Resolved prefix.
Laggy is back
I'd just like to pop back in and say that after a few weeks of improved (and appreciated) performance, the lag is back, it's ugly, and it's badass.
Using this program is like using pagemaker with 4MB of memory. It's rudurrrculersely slooowww.
I say let's mark this thread Missolved!
NxtMike? Everybody else? Still groovin' with the update, or is it slow for you too?
I'd just like to pop back in and say that after a few weeks of improved (and appreciated) performance, the lag is back, it's ugly, and it's badass.
Using this program is like using pagemaker with 4MB of memory. It's rudurrrculersely slooowww.
I say let's mark this thread Missolved!
NxtMike? Everybody else? Still groovin' with the update, or is it slow for you too?
Good question. I don't remember. I do install all the updates as soon as they come out, though, despite my mistrust of Adobe. My hope is that if they're still coding, they at least stand a chance of improving something. On that note, I'm running the new updates now.
I did find one interesting thing out. My most laggy file recently, through various revisions, had reached a size of 130MB, gigantic. I remembered an old trick from Quark days, and did a "save as" of the same file. Suddenly it was only 60MB and nothing was missing, and the lag was much reduced.
there is some kind of file bloat happening. We'll see if things improve
I did find one interesting thing out. My most laggy file recently, through various revisions, had reached a size of 130MB, gigantic. I remembered an old trick from Quark days, and did a "save as" of the same file. Suddenly it was only 60MB and nothing was missing, and the lag was much reduced.
there is some kind of file bloat happening. We'll see if things improve
CS5 has poor display performance.
I am placing a vector pdf into an indesign CS5 document and the CS5 display performance is horrible!
Makes awesome images look like REALLY BAD jpegs. Lots of pixelation on my beautiful vector graphics that I import. I cranked the settings up under "InDesign>Preferences>Display Performance> Raster Images: (maxed out the slider) / Vector Graphics: (maxed out the slider) / Transparency: (maxed out the slider) "
It ALSO is set to high under View>Display Performance>High Quality Display
Still CS5 display performance sucks.
The exact same thing looks GREAT in CS3! Yay CS3! Still a superior product.
I am placing a vector pdf into an indesign CS5 document and the CS5 display performance is horrible!
Makes awesome images look like REALLY BAD jpegs. Lots of pixelation on my beautiful vector graphics that I import. I cranked the settings up under "InDesign>Preferences>Display Performance> Raster Images: (maxed out the slider) / Vector Graphics: (maxed out the slider) / Transparency: (maxed out the slider) "
It ALSO is set to high under View>Display Performance>High Quality Display
Still CS5 display performance sucks.
The exact same thing looks GREAT in CS3! Yay CS3! Still a superior product.
We were having the same problem with CS5.5, even after changing the settings as recommended above. Still getting 1-2 second delay on dropping the object after a drag.
Anyway we deleted com.adobe.indesign preferences file, also in Preferences-Adobe-Indesign there are a bunch of small cache files (previews I think). We also got rid of them. Deleted a bunch of Workspaces that had built up also.
Anyway it cured the lag problem, so try this also.
Anyway we deleted com.adobe.indesign preferences file, also in Preferences-Adobe-Indesign there are a bunch of small cache files (previews I think). We also got rid of them. Deleted a bunch of Workspaces that had built up also.
Anyway it cured the lag problem, so try this also.
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