Rebuilding InDesign Preferences
Preference files for applications can become corrupt without warning: They hire their relatives for high-paying jobs they’re not the least qualified for, they bribe judges, plant evidence, hide ill-gotten gains in unnumbered offshore accounts, steal candy from babies and make your mama cry.
Or they just make your program act strangely.
The fix is to replace the bad, bad preferences file with a fresh new one. It’s the first line of defense when trying to solve an intermittent and often random problem that appears to affect all the documents a program works with. If an application can’t find an existing preference file, it builds a new one with factory defaults when it starts up, so simply deleting an existing preference file and restarting the program is usually enough to do the job.
The fastest way to do this for InDesign CS2 (and any CS2 program) is to quit the program, then hold down Command-Option-Shift-Control immediately after starting it up again, and keep those keys held down. (On Windows, hold down Control-Alt-Shift.)
If you mashed on those keys quickly enough, you’ll get an alert when the splash screen appears offering to “Delete InDesign Preferences File?”. Click Yes, but don’t release the modifier keys while you do so, because you’re going to get a second alert to which you should also click Yes. (It’s part of the InDesign voodoo as far as I know … if anyone can tell me what that second alert is referring to I’d appreciate it.)
Now you can release the keys and InDesign will complete the boot-up process with fresh, clean Preferences.
When you rebuild preferences, you lose any custom application defaults you might have made in the Preferences dialog box, as well as other places like the Swatches palette and even custom Glyph sets — poof, they’re gone. So when your InDesign preferences are healthy again, back up the actual “InDesign Defaults” file (see below) for safekeeping. That way, the next time you need to rebuild sickly InDesign preferences (and there will be a next time), you could replace the generic InDesign Defaults file with your healthy backup containing your custom settings.
The good news is that some application-wide settings you might have added (as opposed to modified) do survive the rebuilding process. These include custom Workspaces, words you’ve added to AutoCorrect, and custom dictionaries. Also, scripts and plug-ins you might have installed aren’t part of the program’s preferences, so those will always remain intact.
Where are the Preferences files stored?
In Macintosh OS X and Windows XP, each user of the computer has their own user account; so Preferences are stored in that user’s own set of application preferences.
On a Mac, start at your Home folder, and go to:
[Home] > Library > Preferences > Adobe InDesign > Version 4.0
On a Windows PC, the user’s account folder is found at:
Local Disk (C:) > Documents and Settings > [username]
Starting from there, go to:
[username] > Application Data > Adobe > InDesign > Version 4.0
Version 4.0, of course, means CS2! Crystal clear.
Inside the Version 4.0 folder you’ll find a whole mess of files. The ones that get rebuilt if you hold down the magic keys at start-up are, as far as I can tell:
Color Settings
FindChangeData
FindChangeDataTmp
InDesign ClipboardScrap
InDesign Defaults
InDesign DragDropScrap
InDesign OSXServicesScrap (Mac only)
InDesign Recovery
InDesign Saved Data
Please don’t ask me what each of these do, I have only a vague idea. But I can tell you that when I delete my own Preferences (instead of having InDesign do it for me), I just trash two files, InDesign Defaults and InDesign Saved Data, and that usually brings InDesign back to health again.
More Preferences Tips
If InDesign freezes up or quits while you have documents open, the next time you start up the program you’ll see those documents re-open, like Lazarus back from the dead, very often with unsaved-changes intact. Woo-hoo! Save those suckers immediately (after giving them a once-over), they’re in a fragile state. You might want to save them with a different name in case you have to go back to the “good” saved file on your hard drive.
These zombie documents were created because InDesign had versions of them in its InDesign Recovery folder, also located in its Preferences (Version 4.0) folder … you’ll only see this when there are documents to recover.
On occasion I’ve had a document get damaged enough that when InDesign starts up again, as it’s attempting to open the recovery file, it throws up its hands in disgust (I always imagine two little Hand tools waving in the air) at the mess I’ve made and immediately quits.
When that happens, I hie myself over to the Version 4.0 folder and delete both the InDesign Recovery file and the InDesign Recovery folder (including any files inside it). In most cases I can start up again with no problems, open the last officially saved version of my problem child layout, and keep working. (Though I’d probably export it to .inx and re-open it, saving it with a new name, to clear out any document corruption that might have contributed to the issue.)
Finally, if all else fails, try this: Drag that entire Version 4.0 folder to your desktop and then start InDesign again. It will recreate the entire Version 4.0 folder and its myriad files. I say “drag it to the desktop” instead of deleting it because you might have finely-tuned workspaces or long lists of AutoCorrect entries that you’d like to hang on to.
So if deleting the folder puts InDesign back in the pink again, you can try bringing over a Workspace xml file or two at a time from those precious subfolders in your old Version 4.0 folder to their homes in the new one, testing InDesign all the time to make sure everything’s okay before bringing over the rest.
And then … when everything’s working great … back it up! I keep a copy of my entire, healthy, customized Version 4.0 folder (renamed My Version 4.0 – backup) at the same level as the real one (don’t worry, InDesign sees the strange folder name and ignores it), so I always know where to find my healthy prefs.
Good post! I like the way you wrote it too. A bit of humor makes it even better readin’! I’ll keep it in mind when Indesign decides to crash upon me again
Good info, we use InDesign CS as the front-end to our publishing system and the InDesignSaved Data file goes sideways so often, I had to write an Applescript so that designers could quickly trash it. BTW, the symptoms are when features like Copy-Paste all of a sudden stop working. Also the stops in the Tabs palatte disappears. Thanks again for the info, I’ll be checking your site out often.
Thanks Anne-Marie — just what I needed to know to get on with my work. (My text wrap palette wouldn’t come up.)
Thanks Anne-Marie. IT WORKED!!!!!
Well, I thought maybe this would fix my problem, but no such luck.
It did however, take care of a couple of other problems I was having.
My initial problem is when I select a swatch, enter my own cmyk values, click add CMYK swatch, a new swatch shows up in the palette. But, the new swatch is not even close to the CMYK I entered. For instance, I entered C=100, M=0, Y=75, K=0; selected add CMYK swatch and the swatch that added has the CMYK of: C=0, M=10, Y=77, K=0…WTC?
Well written and helpful.
Thanks
I am frequently running into this problem. And I always come back to your site. And I can never get the fix to work, or the preferences to rebuild. Here’s a note to myself. The last time you were here, you unplugged and replugged your usb kensington mouse, and the problem was solved. Nice memory, psycho.
I have a problem where, everytime I open a CS2 doc. and close immediately without editing the file in anyway, it asks me to save. Really annoying when I’m try to run a batch. Trashing my preferences didn’t work. Please help thanks.
Ah, it sounds so good … but it didn’t work for me. Somehow a file has become corrupted and it seems nothing I do will recover / open it. Other files open fine. Looks like I just lost a day’s work. SH*T
How about this one: A co-worker is using InDesign CS and about every 2 days, it will crash and his prefs default out. Any particular reason why they continue to reset? If it’s because of corrupt prefs, what could be causing this every other day?
Thanks for the help.
By the way, we manage about 150 computers and his seems to be the only one with this issue.
Thanks again!
Thanks Anne Marie.
I have had a crash today, when IndeSign suddenly started to freeze when trying to either open or saving a job.
I have often followed your suggestions above, but this time it did not help at all.
I even tryed to create (Windows) a new account on the machine – where everything worked – and took the Indesign preference folder from that and installed in my usual account – NOT WORKING.
This time the only thing that worked was to remove the entire ADOBE folder in Application Data. What is wrong I do not know, but it seems that there is a conflict in the other programs in the CS2 collection.
Thanks so much! Renaming just ’saved data’ fixed the problem a user of mine was having. I have no clue how to actually use InDesign, but I’m the IT guy and had to provide support, so your blog saved the day!
[quote]The fastest way to do this for InDesign CS2 (and any CS2 program) is to quit the program, then hold down Command-Option-Shift-Control immediately after starting it up again, and keep those keys held down. (On Windows, hold down Control-Alt-Shift.)[/quote]
thank you thank you thank you this helped me A LOT
You’re a lifesaver. Thanks for the tip.
Wow this dug me out of a long standing issue. I had been deleting the preferences with the usual keyboard shortcut on startup and nothing still the usual crashes whilst editing text. But on removal of the whole folder by physically navigating to it no more crashes! Thank-you Anne Marie I owe your more than a drink!
Thanks a ton, Anne-Marie!
Still working !! great way . Thank you …
well i had to use the options to trash my prefs and it deleted all my printers and my font suitcae now doesnt work either
Tom, rebuilding your InDesign preferences cannot delete your system printers, and I can’t imagine how it would effect your font management. That it weird.
Make sure you have the most recent versions of the font management plug-ins. They seem to get updated all the time. I do not use the auto-activation plug-ins for this very reason; they break InDesign too often.
Actually Mr. Blatner, it will trash your printer presets. I know, as I did this on a Mac and a Windows machine last night and saw it happen both times. The difference was that I had planned for it on the Mac and reloaded the printer presets.
Here’s a strange one…and deleting preferences did not fix.
I get weird fuzzy fat text on screen, but it prints fine.
I place hi res tifs, but they look lo res, jaggedy on screen. Prints fine again.
Before you ask, yes I have display on high quality.
Lastly, as if having everything I see onscreen look lo res and jaggedy wasn’t annoying enough, now when I try to export an InDesign page into pdf or jpg, the jags follow into that image.
Repairing permissions did not work either. Neither did reinstalling InDesign.
I have not found anyone else who has this problem, but it is happening on all the Macs I have in this office.
I literally have to reset my preferences every time to get ID CS3 (Windows) to open. I’ve tried: a new “Version 5.0″ folder, reinstalled CS3, uninstalled Trend-Micro (thought there was a conflict). But ID works okay as a Guest user log-on… And I’ve copied that application data to my regular user login account. No fix. I’m stumped. There’s a conflict somewhere and I don’t have a clue….
Good news! After living with the above-mentioned problem for months, I finally found the conflict on the very day I posted it…(knock on wood…). I had gotten used to opening documents from the introduction window that shows up every time you launch the program unless you tell it to go away. Well, I had noticed that it would quit at the same place that that window appeared every time. So I told that window to not show up (checked the box), and the application opens up every time now without resetting the preferences. Like butter. Not sure exactly what the conflict was, but know its gone…. yeeee haaaa!
Thanks a lot, that is what i was looking for the whole evening. keep on blogging!
jan
Running Mac OS 10.4.11
Linotype Font Explorer 123 build 833
Indesign CS2, Cs3 crashes or closes immediately after launching.
Illustrator CS2, Cs3 crashes or closes immediately after launching.
Acrobat CS2, Cs3 crashes or closes after program opened.
PhotoShop CS2 crashes or closes after program opened.
PhotoShop CS3 works–don’t understand it but it works.
Problem began yesterday after updating Creative Suite CS3.
I think it’s something to do with Version Cue not installing properly on an update.
There’s a patch on Adobe’s site, here.
Thank you for this article-it worked for me in InDesign CS3 when things started going wonky too!
How to create script for Mapping the Styles and Tags and viceversa.
My scripts weren’t working so I rebuilt the preferences and now they are working beautifully.
Just remember to save all your print presets, because after you rebuild the preferences they will be gone.
Wonderfully clear instruction…helped me fix some funky panel width glitches in CS3. Thank you!
Worked like a charm! Thanks so much… Kind of hard to work with a blank swatches palette! Guess I better get back to it
[...] Anyone? Anyone? I haven’t experienced this in a long time, so my response was vague: . . . the first thing to try would probably be moving your preferences folder to the desktop and forcing InDesign to rebuild it. That’ll get the program to launch properly, at least, and then maybe you can recover the file from there. Details: InDesign Secrets: Rebuilding InDesign Preferences. [...]
I have suffered with a completely BLANK toolbar in InDesign2, which is scarey! Rebuilding the prefs as suggested has fixed it. There were no tools on it at all, it was there, but with no tools. (I did searches for ‘Help my toolbar is blank’, ‘missing toolbar tools’ and your post came up in Google. Many thanks!
Thank you so much. After corrupting it through normal use, I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. You rule!
THANK YOU!!
Thank you so much for this information. I am working on a big project and had NO idea what I did. This was a HUGE help.
hi, i tried the trick but doesn’t work….. any other suggestion? My toolbar keeps being empty… ):
I have de same problem but those maps and files that I must delete aren’t there. Is there an other solution?
THANKS!!! What an easy fix! I’ll remember that one!
I’m so glad this post has proven itself helpful! Thanks so much.
Tried reinstalling, uninstall-install, even deleted preference folders…nothing worked. Got a empty window with “K2 CS3″ title. This time, the Ctrl+Alt+Shift worked – perhaps I got it pressed the right moment! Thanks for your tips.
wish Adobe would acknowledge these glitches on their site!
Awesome thanks worked for me on cs3 indesign