I work with large XML files to create catalogs several times a month. This results in InDesign giving me a lot of "Continue without Undo" prompts anytime I do any action (even scrolling and zooming), so I save the file and quit InDesign. Upon reopening InDesign, it says that it cannot read my preference file and resets everything.

This is extremely frustrating, as while my workspace is saved, all of the character/paragraph/object styles, swatches, and program settings are completely wiped, as are all the tool tips and notifications. Barring being able to not have this problem occur regularly, is there a way to backup my preferences so that the next time this happens it doesn't take me hours to get things back up to speed?

InDesign sometimes, seemingly randomly, replaces pairs such as hn, il, io, sy, ek, etc. with completely wrong glyph, such as accented Y, U, etc., when regular Ligature setting is applied. This has been a problem since CS5 and we recently had it occur in CC2015, so it is still there. Affected fonts have been many over the years, including licensed Adobe fonts. Fonts can be Open Type or PostScript. Language setting can be English US, UK, or seemingly anything else. The only thing that works to avoid it is to turn off Ligatures which is generally unacceptable, so the only workaround is a targeted GREP style to apply ligatures to only the pairs that should have them for that file. This is a long-standing problem which has been reported in forums various times and needs to be addressed. There is no sure fire way to reproduce the bug. Only thing that sometimes works is to brute force load/unload fonts until the problem occurs. It seems that once the problem occurs the first time it may then become more frequent on that computer. I know someone who has even seen the effects of this problem in printed material (i.e., in a book they were reading).

Machine: MacBook Pro 13 in mid-2012 (i7, 2.9 GHz, 16 GB RAM)
OS: macOS 10.13.4
App: InDesign 13.1.0.76 (but basically every subversion of 13)

1. I have several INDBs containing from 6 to around 20 INDDs each.




2. Most INDDs contain from 3 to 60 cross-references (since book-spanning TOCs often crash InDesign, but that’s for another topic) – mostly within the respective INDD, but one INDD per book always has CRs to other INDDs within the same book or in other books.
   (My typical INDD contents: 2–48 facing pages with threaded, 1-column text boxes, therein several dozens of “custom” anchored objects, mostly containing text and auto-resizing in height, some containing linked INDDs or dynamic captions. Everything tidily formatted with object, paragraph, and character styles with moderate use of GREP styles.)




3. I try to open more than one (or every) INDD from the book panel in one go (select & shift-select several chapters, double-click on one of the selected).




4. A couple files open, and with the first one to contain modified links …




5. … I click “Don’t update links” (but it’s the same if I click “Update links”).

InDesign reliably crashes faster than the sound waves from the mouse click reach my ear.

This never happens when I open (double-click from the book panel) one INDD at a time from the book panel.

InDesign CC shows obscure behavior for Arabic subtending marks. Some times it kerns these marks towards right as shown in line 1, 3 & 4. Sometimes it adds extra space on both sides of these glyphs as shown in the line five and sometimes it automatically makes the digits size smaller as shown in line 1 & 2. While MS Word 2013 shows the correct shapes for all these marks as required. The Arabic script is written in right to left direction.
Image shows the correct shape in MS Word 2013 and wrong behavior in InDesign CC.
Test font and test document are also attached.

While working on an Arabic font I need to kern the space U+0020 between certain letters. So the required lookup is added to the font, with instructions to apply kerning whether the preceding letter have marks (above or below) or no marks at all i.e. the kerning is not effected by the preceding letter's marks. The Arabic script is written in right to left direction.

Now the MS Word is showing the correct behavior as shown in the image. The first pair (without marks) and the second pair (with brown marks) both are kerned as instructed by font but the InDesign CC is not showing the correct behavior as InDesign is kerning the first pair (without marks) but not the second one (with marks). This problem appears only when we try to kern space U+0020 while the other adjacent letters kerning works fine as instructed by font with marks or without marks.
Image, test document and test font are attached.

Conclusion: In InDesign, the Arabic kerning works fine between paired letters but if you want to kern space U+0020 then the kerning will not work if the preceding letter contains above or below marks.

For experts: The lookup flag is to process all marks with the exception if the letter after space has below marks. So if the letter after space has below marks then the kerning should not work.