This is Illustrator CS (not CS2) on a Win2K, 3GHz, 1GB memory, 256MB video.

Working on lengthy documents is, to put it politely, a bit of a chore.
Changing text, paragraph styles, inserting graphics with text wrap, etc. can
take an extended amount of time just waiting for the display to update.
Checking Task Manager, Illustrator has the processor pegged during the
longer tasks.

I've looked but have yet to find a way to either dumb down the display
characteristics to a lower grade or Registry tweaks that might increase the
response time and found nothing.

Any hints?

It sounds like to me that Illustrator CS is being used here like
high-end page-layout software like Indesign or QuarkExpress. Have you
linked your graphics instead of embedding them in the document?
Illustrator is an application for drawing vector artwork. Although it
does have extensive text and limited page layout functions, it's not
meant as a substitute for page layout software....esp. "lengthy"
documents.  Maybe you should be doing this page layout in Indesign
instead and linking the large, graphics-instensive files.

"JohnLouisville" <slimick@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
news:1148439870.778807.215460@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> It sounds like to me that Illustrator CS is being used here like
> high-end page-layout software like Indesign or QuarkExpress. Have you
> linked your graphics instead of embedding them in the document?
> Illustrator is an application for drawing vector artwork. Although it
> does have extensive text and limited page layout functions, it's not
> meant as a substitute for page layout software....esp. "lengthy"
> documents.  Maybe you should be doing this page layout in Indesign
> instead and linking the large, graphics-instensive files.

<...sigh...> Had I QuarkExpress or Indesign, they certainly would have been
a superior alternative to Illustrator but are unfortunately woefully absent
from my collection of software. Even M$ Word would have been a better
alternative but it doesn't acceptably do some of the things I require.
PageMaker (v6.5) is in the arsenal but it doesn't appear to have the
capability to flow text from page to page. CorelDRAW8, also in the arsenal,
has its fair share of shortcomings to match. In retrospect though it would
have been the better of the evils at my disposal.

Lacking the right tool for the job I have to settle on a hammer 'tho I need
a screwdriver.

On Wed, 24 May 2006 09:35:36 GMT, "MyndPhlyp" <nobody@homeright.now>
wrote:

>
>"JohnLouisville" <slimick@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
>news:1148439870.778807.215460@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... 
>
><...sigh...> Had I QuarkExpress or Indesign, they certainly would have been
>a superior alternative to Illustrator but are unfortunately woefully absent
>from my collection of software. Even M$ Word would have been a better
>alternative but it doesn't acceptably do some of the things I require.
>PageMaker (v6.5) is in the arsenal but it doesn't appear to have the
>capability to flow text from page to page. CorelDRAW8, also in the arsenal,
>has its fair share of shortcomings to match. In retrospect though it would
>have been the better of the evils at my disposal.
>
>Lacking the right tool for the job I have to settle on a hammer 'tho I need
>a screwdriver.
>

On Wed, 24 May 2006 09:35:36 GMT, "MyndPhlyp" <nobody@homeright.now>
wrote:

>
>"JohnLouisville" <slimick@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
>news:1148439870.778807.215460@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... 
>
><...sigh...> Had I QuarkExpress or Indesign, they certainly would have been
>a superior alternative to Illustrator but are unfortunately woefully absent
>from my collection of software. Even M$ Word would have been a better
>alternative but it doesn't acceptably do some of the things I require.
>PageMaker (v6.5) is in the arsenal but it doesn't appear to have the
>capability to flow text from page to page. CorelDRAW8, also in the arsenal,
>has its fair share of shortcomings to match. In retrospect though it would
>have been the better of the evils at my disposal.
>
>Lacking the right tool for the job I have to settle on a hammer 'tho I need
>a screwdriver.
>

I guess that I sent a blank reply also, sorry about that if I did.
You nic name seems familiar but I can't recall from where. The reply
email address in your message header doesn't help much. Mine is valid
if you remove the NO  SPAM.

jbl

If you're stuck with using Illustrator for page layout try either of
these:

1) Under the "View" menu choose "Outline"   This will turn everything
to wireframe-looking black images. The text will remain black. It can
considerably speed things up with documents with highly complex
graphics

2)  Use the Layers palette to separate your graphics from the text.
Then, on the Layers menu, click the eyeballs at left to hide images
that you don't need to work with. This might considerably speed things
up.

"JohnLouisville" <slimick@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
news:1148493903.800671.141350@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
> If you're stuck with using Illustrator for page layout try either of
> these:
>
> 1) Under the "View" menu choose "Outline"   This will turn everything
> to wireframe-looking black images. The text will remain black. It can
> considerably speed things up with documents with highly complex
> graphics

Finally found that one. It helps a bit when scrolling through the document
but does nothing perceptible with respect to response during edits.


>
> 2)  Use the Layers palette to separate your graphics from the text.
> Then, on the Layers menu, click the eyeballs at left to hide images
> that you don't need to work with. This might considerably speed things
> up.

This sounds rather promising. Can you still flow text around objects that
reside on a separate layer? (assuming, of course, that the "other" objects'
layer is ordered atop the text layer) This tends to be important in the
final clean-up for widow/orphan tweaking.

(You'll have to excuse my asking rather than simply trying. The machine is a
bit tied up at the moment, if you know what I mean.)

Just to give you an idea of what I'm facing now...

It's a 10-page, 4-column layout with continuous text flow throughout.

With just straight text, making simple text changes such as changing an
individual straight quote to a "smart" quote has a significant delay but not
so bad I can't live with it. (maybe in the order of 1/2-1 second)

Making a paragraph style change takes excessively longer - occasional waits
up to 5-10 minutes even if the change affects only the last paragraph..

Add in graphics and you have time to work on your FreeCell "personal best."
Adjusting the graphic (dimensions, positions or even just the stroke) or
anything in the text block leaves you with a good 30-45 minutes of
background activity regardless of how minor or massive the change may have
been.

(And as you get down to the very fine details, a 30-minute wait for each
adjustment tends to make for a very non-productive day.)

"JohnLouisville" <slimick@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
news:1148493903.800671.141350@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
>

Different tact - is there a setting or a Registry hack that disables the
Undo feature?

Since Illustrator allows the user to Undo multiple edits, it stands to
reason there's a cache containing the "before" image. I'm thinking that this
may contribute significantly to the burden. The hypotheses: even a minor
change could result is a reflow of the text, therefore the whole text block
and any objects the text must flow around has to be cached before
implementing the change. Once cached the next steps are to implement the
change and reformat/reflow the entire text block.

In article <INVcg.182$bt4.134@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
"MyndPhlyp" <nobody@homeright.now> wrote:

> it doesn't acceptably do some of the things I require.
> PageMaker (v6.5) is in the arsenal but it doesn't appear to have the
> capability to flow text from page to page.

It doesn't? Then it's sure been faking it all these years.


- Doug

"Doug Winger" <justdoug@socal.rr.com> wrote in message
news:justdoug-F8DD7C.14322824052006@news-server.socal.rr.com...
> In article <INVcg.182$bt4.134@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>  "MyndPhlyp" <nobody@homeright.now> wrote:
> 
>
> It doesn't? Then it's sure been faking it all these years.

I'll have to look once again. It's been "a while" and my recollection could
very well be absent.