Join David Blatner for an in-depth discussion in this video 280 Screen redraw problems, part of InDesign Secrets.
- InDesign does its best to show you a really accurate view of your page, but sometimes it, well, it fails. Usually it's just a small oddity. Like, see how the top edge of this rounded corner rectangle up here, it looks wrong. It's the wrong thickness. It goes from thick to thin. Now, that might be hard to see on the video, but believe me, it really looks wrong on my screen. Now, it's not really the wrong size. It just looks wrong on screen. And this is called a screen redraw problem.
Now, sometimes the problem is way bigger, like one common problem I've had with InDesign is tables that just disappear from the screen while I'm editing them. It's really annoying! But I can't show you that one because I never know when it's going to happen. But, believe me, sooner or later it'll happen to you! And so I need to tell you about a great keyboard shortcut. Command, options, slash. Or control, alt, slash. That forces InDesign to redraw the screen. And it almost always fixes stuff, like those disappearing tables.
Or text that isn't reflowing properly and things like that. But, here, that shortcut isn't doing anything! It's not fixing that stroke-weight and that's because this screen redraw problem has to do with something called GPU rendering. It's a relatively new feature that was added to InDesign CC in 2016. And it's great, but sometimes it's a little bit buggy. Now, just for some background, a GPU is a Graphics Processing Unit and it's a separate chip inside some computers.
Basically, the CPU, the Central Processing Unit is like the main brains of your computer but when it needs to do graphics intensive work, the CPU can hand it off to the GPU. But, this only works with certain systems. For example, you'll only see the GPU features if your computer has at least a gigabyte of VRAM and if your display is high res, what they call high DPI, like the retina displays on some Mac laptops. So, if your system supports GPU, then you'll see a little rocket up here in the application bar.
See that icon? And, next to the name of your document, up here in this tab, you'll see a little GPU Preview in brackets. Now, that little rocket icon is actually a button, and if you click it, it opens up the GPU performance pane of the preferences dialog box. And here, inside preferences dialog box, you can see your GPU details down here. This is my graphics card. And, notice that you can turn on and off the GPU performance features up here with this check box.
I'll go ahead and click OK because I want to point out that you don't have to go to your preferences dialog box to turn this on and off. Generally, the GPU thing is great because it makes your screen redraw much faster. Especially when you have a lot of images, or a complex layout. But, as I said, it doesn't always draw everything exactly right. So, if you ever see something like this, where you rub your eyes and say, "Huh? What's going on there?" All you need to do is come up to the View menu and choose Preview on CPU.
That means turn off the GPU thing temporarily. Now, you'll see up here in the document title bar, GPU Preview goes away. And, more importantly, that little screen redraw bug is cleared up down here on this corner rounded rectangle. So, okay, now I know this was just a GPU screen redraw bug, it's just inside InDesign. This will still print or export to PDF just fine with the GPU preview is turned on or off. Screen redraw bugs are annoying, but they usually won't get in your way too much.
Especially now that you know that redraw screen shortcut. You know, command, options, slash. Or control, alt, slash. And also, the CPU Preview trick.
Updated
12/23/2020Released
8/25/2011New techniques will be added to the collection every other week, so check back early and often. Find more tips and tricks at indesignsecrets.com.Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?
A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.
Related Courses
-
InDesign CC 2018 Essential Training
with David Blatner6h 30m Beginner -
InDesign: Interactive PDFs
with David Blatner2h 27m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2018: EPUB
with Anne-Marie Concepción4h 35m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2019 Essential Training
with David Blatner5h 23m Beginner -
InDesign Quick Start
with David Blatner22m Beginner
-
This Week's Secret
-
Introduction
-
Welcome to InDesign Secrets1m 10s
-
-
December 2020
-
November 2020
-
October 2020
-
September 2020
-
Use one frame, not many4m 37s
-
August 2020
-
July 2020
-
June 2020
-
May 2020
-
Threading filled frames3m 14s
-
Custom page numbering tricks5m 13s
-
November 2012
-
October 2012
-
061 Embedding images7m 44s
-
-
September 2012
-
057 Text wrapping6m 54s
-
-
August 2012
-
July 2012
-
June 2012
-
May 2012
-
April 2012
-
March 2012
-
January 2012
-
April 2020
-
Making speech bubbles3m 32s
-
Working with ligatures5m 9s
-
February 2012
-
December 2011
-
016 Running a script9m 33s
-
November 2011
-
October 2011
-
August 2011
-
September 2011
-
March 2020
-
February 2020
-
Auto-expand acronyms4m 39s
-
-
January 2020
-
December 2019
-
November 2019
-
October 2019
-
409 Copy and paste effects4m 39s
-
-
September 2019
-
408 The master page trick1m 46s
-
August 2019
-
July 2019
-
June 2019
-
May 2019
-
April 2019
-
March 2019
-
February 2019
-
376 Make cast shadows3m 35s
-
-
January 2019
-
November 2018
-
December 2018
-
369 Shared CC Libraries tips5m 15s
-
October 2018
-
360 Find spacing problems4m 50s
-
363 Export all text8m 16s
-
-
August 2018
-
351 Change default fonts5m 51s
-
352 Best default RGB4m 45s
-
-
September 2018
-
July 2018
-
May 2018
-
343 Border spacing fix4m 59s
-
June 2018
-
346 Export to HTML55m 38s
-
April 2018
-
February 2018
-
March 2018
-
January 2018
-
325 Link text frames6m 10s
-
December 2017
-
November 2017
-
September 2017
-
October 2017
-
313 Quick Apply preferences6m 35s
-
August 2017
-
July 2017
-
May 2017
-
290 Work with scripts3m 35s
-
June 2017
-
April 2017
-
286 How to format ellipses5m 39s
-
March 2017
-
281 Share a CC library7m 10s
-
January 2017
-
February 2017
-
December 2016
-
271 Add images to an index4m 39s
-
November 2016
-
September 2016
-
October 2016
-
260 Batch process images7m 33s
-
263 Sync master pages5m 51s
-
-
August 2016
-
July 2016
-
June 2016
-
April 2016
-
May 2016
-
240 Side-by-side tables5m 35s
-
March 2016
-
February 2016
-
228 Setting text at an angle6m 24s
-
December 2015
-
January 2016
-
222 Adding paragraph shading1m 50s
-
October 2015
-
November 2015
-
September 2015
-
July 2015
-
August 2015
-
204 Creating a8m 14s
-
205 Managing scripts5m 38s
-
May 2015
-
189 Placing InDesign files5m 14s
-
-
June 2015
-
193 Printing tracked changes5m 41s
-
-
April 2015
-
186 Making long shadows5m 41s
-
February 2015
-
March 2015
-
January 2015
-
December 2014
-
November 2014
-
October 2014
-
September 2014
-
August 2014
-
July 2014
-
148 Cropping with paste into5m 18s
-
-
June 2014
-
May 2014
-
141 Inserting glyphs6m 42s
-
April 2014
-
March 2014
-
February 2014
-
January 2014
-
December 2013
-
November 2013
-
October 2013
-
September 2013
-
August 2013
-
105 Working with MiniBridge5m 45s
-
106 Customize your QR codes6m 17s
-
July 2013
-
June 2013
-
May 2013
-
April 2013
-
March 2013
-
February 2013
-
December 2012
-
069 Ten uses of the Story Editor11m 39s
-
-
January 2013
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: 280 Screen redraw problems