Skip to content

Adobe InDesign: Bugs

When filing a new bug, please provide:

  1. Version of Adobe InDesign, InCopy or InDesign Server
  2. Steps to reproduce the issues
  3. Expected result
  4. Actual result
  5. Test file, screenshot, video or GIF capturing the issue (optional)
If you are facing a crash in InDesign, please submit the crash report as well. How to Submit Crash Report
Join the InDesign Prerelease Program to try out the new features and the bug fixes that are available in beta builds.

  • Hot ideas
  • Top ideas
  • New ideas
  • My feedback

483 results found

  1. Export PDF files on ID CC 2020 15.2 w10

    When I export file to PDF does not show the file name inside PDF file. I add the information on PDF like crop marks and information. The information does not appear...

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  2. Tagged and other accessibility features not working properly in v15

    It's not consistent, but a variety of issues often occur when exporting tagged files for 508 compliant PDFs. I often have to backsave to v.14 and all works fine in that. Sometimes I will get a pdf that has artifacts or other elements that have different tags than those assigned in the InDesign file. Sometimes I get urls that won't read on the read aloud function. Sometimes things work fine. It's happened often enough that it seems to warrant attention.

    3 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  3. Can't Export PDF due to Indesign background tasks error

    Re-installed latest version of Indesign and still have the problem.

    2 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  4. Won't allow to print or export file

    Good afternoon - I have now been working on this issue for over 1 week! I have reproduced the entire publication, saved under diff name, and it will export less than half of the pages! Please advise.

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  5. Form Fields from InD Tagged Improperly as block rather than inline elements on PDF export

    1. Ver 15.0.2
    2. Create fillable form in InDesign and export as interactive PDF.
    3. Form tags should be nested inside (for example) paragraph tags. Alternatively, Form tags should display "BLOCK" placement attributes in PDF (Tag Properties>Edit Object Properties>Attribute Object Dictionary).
    4. What actually happens is neither of these. Form tags are exported inline with other tags but without the BLOCK placement attribute. According to Matterhorn Protocol, these are not appropriate semantically for the structure element "Form." This is a PDF Accessibility issue.

    What I end up doing is taking each Form tag and nesting it under the descriptive P tag which precedes it.…

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  6. InDesign Export Issue

    Creative Cloud InDesign shifts the colors of spot colors when generating pdf files. Only solution is to backsave as an idml file and then generate a pdf through pre-Creative Cloud InDesign application.

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  7. Exporting a PDF from Indesign is creating Form Xobject containers for everything.

    This is happening to me now and is messing everything up for 508 accessibility remediation. Copied this from another user. "The latest version of InDesign exports PDF's in which most all the tagged content is in an Xobject container, making accessibility remediation MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. This is a huge step backwards. Attached are two examples, from the same client, annual reports- last year's was fine, this year's has all the xobject issues. Please advise, help, fix, something!!!"

    5 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    1 comment  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  8. composer breaks urls when line breaks

    Using InDesign 15.0.2 on Mac Catalina, URLs break if divided by composer over two lines when exported to PDF. My workaround is to add a linefeed before the URL (and hope it is shorter than one line). Some I can replace with bit.ly links, but these also fail if the display text breaks over two lines.

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  9. PDF EXPORT AND ASSEMBLY FILE NEAR EMPTY

    When exporting a PDF file, In design recreates a sort of assembly folder but which only contains a "fonts" sub-folder !!!

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  10. Version 15.0.2 - Images are pixelated after exporting file to PDF.

    The work around I've found is to go to Compression and turn off Bicubic downsampling. And select Do not downsample.

    2 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  11. Can't Export PDF due to Indesign background tasks error

    I am using Indesign 2020 v15.0.02 and i am unable to export a large width document to PDF as I keep getting the Background Tasks Error. I have never seen this before.

    I need to export a large mm doc design for our new outdoor sign and can't send to the printers as it wont export properly.

    I've looked online but cant fix it myself despite trying tips.

    Please help this is driving me insane!

    4 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  12. moire

    Our cover has a smooth gray area that looks fine in InDesign, but has a moire pattern in PDF exports — even the Press Quality pdf.

    This is NOT ACCEPTABLE!

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  13. Indesgin sucks at exporting interactive PDF.

    Developers, answer me, please.
    I used InDesign to make e-books (interactive PDF).
    But every e-book was very heavy with 10 MB or more, even though I left the quality of the images at 72 or 96 DPI, and still using few images. It gets very heavy especially if you use dynamic links from Photoshop and Illustrator.
    I tried everything, but I couldn't solve this problem. Is there any way to resolve this?
    At Microsoft Publisher, Affinity Publisher and even Canva or Power Point it is much easier to have a light PDF with good quality images. I believe this is…

    2 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  14. cross-reference

    If a paragraph selected as a cross-reference spans two pages (e.g. a header that spans two pages), the generated cross-reference links to the second page in the pdf. This behavior seems incorrect. The cross-reference should link to the beginning of the paragraph.

    2 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    1 comment  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  15. 2 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    2 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  16. Exporting PDF from InDesign to an encrypted folder fails

    We have an enxrypted folder on our NAS. We use BoxCryptor to encrypt and access these documents.

    When we open a document in InDesign and try to export it to the same (encrypted) folder we get an error and the PDF is not created. The error mentions the background task not being able to export.

    Exporting the PDF to a different location (not encrypted folder) works OK. So I guess the encrypted folder is the cause. The worksaround is to just save the folder somewhere else, and then move it to the encrypted folder. So we can manage ;-)

    But…

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  17. Falha ao exportar arquivo PDF

    Quando estou finalizando meu projeto de revista, exporto para pdf em baixa resolução para revisão. Tanto a versão de baixa resolução quando de alta resolução não estão sendo exportados para PDF. Gostaria de saber o que devo fazer para conseguir exportar.
    Google translator:
    When I am finalizing my magazine project, I export to low resolution pdf for review. Both the low resolution and high resolution versions are not being exported to PDF. I would like to know what I must do to be able to export.

    1 vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    2 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  18. Color font printing in muted colors in pdf/print

    There are some issues with the rendering/printing of color-fonts (created with Fontself) in InDesign 2020. This looks like a bug because switching from pdf 1.6 to pdf 1.3 and back to 1.6 in the pdf export dialog-box solves the issue. This isn't an option in our InDesign server setup though. Are there any ideas for a workaround?

    3 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    2 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  19. Indesign link

    ndesign links all look fine in links folder. None missing. Next day when I open the file I get this message when exporting to PDF. Have to relink when already linked. Or if that doesnt work. Resave photoshop file and then appears perfect in indesign

    4 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    0 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  20. InDesign and Acrobat accessibility conflict

    Adobe InDesign version: 2019 CC

    We are currently trying to establish the best workflow in creating fully accessible PDF's for screen readers and I believe we have come across a bug in the communication between InDesign and Acrobat.

    Quick summary:

    H1 elements on multiple lines read as separate elements unless assigned manually in Acrobat
    The Structure and Article order does not transfer to the PDF

    To explain the issue clearly I have numbered the images in the process order.

    1. Image: 1 InDesign Accessibility setup.png
    2. I have setup ‘paragraph styles’ and used the correct ‘Export Tagging’ tags for each style.
    3. I…
    10 votes

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)

    We’ll send you updates on this idea

    3 comments  ·  PDF Export  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback

    Signed in as (Sign out)
  • Don't see your idea?

Feedback and Knowledge Base