Background:
I have a catalog type that I work on regularly. The catalog is 200+pages (it varies by program) broken into several InDesign files about 30-40 pages each. The data is from one or two linked Excel file(s) and is imported as a table (no formatting). The document has no images and uses only black ink. The file sizes aren’t huge (about 18-30 mb for the InDesign file and 250 to 500KB for the Excel files). We are using some GREP the Paragraph styles, but nothing overly complex.The table itself isn’t complicated either using 4-6 columns. We are using tables because the 2nd and 3rd columns often varying in length and we need it to be able to wrap.
The Issue:
These files take an unusually long time to load & save. And have huge lags when doing the simplest things.
Loading the file takes 2.5 – 3.5 minutes. (By contrast a full color 108MB file with over 300 images takes 19 seconds.)
Saving takes 40 to 90 seconds.
Unlinking a box (that doesn’t even contain the table) from a master page takes 30+ seconds. Deleting a group of frames (again not containing the table) takes 30-45 seconds.
And relinking or updating links to the excel file takes almost as long as opening the document.
Even selecting Find Font takes 30 seconds or more.
When relinking I have noticed that it takes a bit for InDesign to redraw all of the tables. So I can scroll through the document and all of the pages look blank. And then one by one they start to appear.
We have a template file we start with that is linked to the same file, but only has 7 lines imported. That file works fine.
The workflow is currently do something, wait. Do something else, wait.
What we tried:
The files are located on two different servers. InDesign on a Mac Pro Server and the Excel files on a Windows SMB share. So we tried moving everything local. No change at all.
Originally the excel files could be up to 50,000 rows. We split up the files so now the larges is about 7,00 rows. Absolutely no change.
We’ve tried it out on 5 different Macs. All show exactly the same behavior. No change when we moved form CS4 to CS6.
We’ve replaced fonts. No Change
Disabling all of the GREP styles. No Change
Tried changing the display performance to fast. No Change. (Hey it was worth a shot.)
Anyone have any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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