InDesign CS4 'out of memory'

[Frilly]

I was using CS4 InDesign recently to print out/pdf large image laden catalogues. It would get to almost the end and crash out of InDesign or give me an 'out of memory' message if I tried to pdf instead. The machine had plenty of ram. I'm not sure if it was an intel processor though.

How/where can increase the allocated memory to say InDesign and also how can I get the print/pdf task to be in the background so I can still work on in a programme?

Any help appreciated as I've looked all over the net for some clues and I'm following advise to blanks.

Frilly

 

[Consultant]

Update software / contact Adobe support?

 

[MechaSpanky]

I'm not really sure what might be causing the problem but I have a possible work around. When I first got into graphic design and printing, we would often have problems with memory shortages. When printing pdfs we would export half of the pages first and then the second half later and then put them together using Acrobat.

Actually we didn't export them back then, we printed them as Postscript files and then Distilled them but same basic concept. I have seen pages so large that I had to do them one page at a time and in the end, it was easier to have 40 separate (but manageable) pdfs than to try to put them all into one super large pdf. The printer usually breaks them apart in order to paginate them anyways so it wasn't a problem. You might give it a try and see how that works. Best of luck.

 

[Frilly]

Allot memory

Thanks for your help so far. Was thinking in an emergency, can you allot more memory to applications on mac's any more? I know you could with previous operating systems.

 

[MechaSpanky]

Frilly,

Memory under OS X is a lot different than it was under OS 9 (and before) and so you no longer need to allocate memory to specific applications. As far as I know, there isn't even a way to allocate more memory to a specific application, OS X handles it for you.

If you the time and the money, you could always try adding more RAM, unless you have already maxed out the RAM on your Mac. You could also try quitting all other programs which might free up some extra RAM that can be used by InDesign. Good luck.

 

[Frilly]

Once again thank you for you help. There seems to be plenty of RAM and I've exited all other programs. The more I work on the files the quicker Adobe or InDesign are quitting so something must be building up and taking up memory somewhere. I can pdf in stages - slow but you get a pdf in the end but printing I thought I could try omitting for OPI as it's just text changes I need to run out. Is this a work around do you think?

 

[davedee65]

Hi OP just as a matter of interest how much free space have you on your hard drive?

D

 

[Jim Campbell]

I have a suspicion that Adobe just use "Out of Memory" as a placeholder for more meaningful error messages, TBH. Illustrator routinely reports insufficient memory to open a file if I double-click it from the Finder, but opens the same file without issue if I use File -> Open from within the application.

I know that's not a lot of help, but I wouldn't go immediately pointing the finger at a memory shortage. I've had Activity Monitor running in the background on this machine, and I have to have all three CS5 apps (AI, ID, PS) open and doing stuff at the same time to max out a mere 8Gb of RAM.

Cheers

Jim