InDesign crashes when mounting/updating another InDesign document with overset text
InDesign Version: Adobe InDesign CC 13.0.1
Operating System: macOS High Sierra version 10.13.2
Computer: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Steps to reproduce the issue:
1. Create a new document in InDesign with at least 3 pages.
2. Make a textbox on one of the pages (e.g. page 1) and fill it with some text.
3. Resize the textbox so that some text overset and preflight shows 1 error - overflowing text.
4. Save and close the document
5. Create a new InDesign document
6. Place the InDesign file with the overflowing textbox in the new InDesign document (NOTE: You need to place the page which actually has the overflowing text). You should get an error message that the document you want to place is containing overflowing text. Click OK.
7. Alt+Double Click / Opt+Double Click on the placed document in order to edit it.
8. Do some edits in the document, e.g. duplicate the textbox with the overflowing text by holding ALT while moving it. Make sure that you still have overset text in the document.
9. Save the document, and close it by clicking CMD+W or File->Close. This should automatically lead you back to the document where you placed the document, and InDesign should try to automatically update the placed document with the new content.
Expected result:
InDesign should update the contents of the placed InDesign document, and not crash, regardless of whether the placed InDesign document contains overset text or not.
Actual result:
In my case, InDesign crashes at the end of step 9 when trying to update the placed document containing overset text. I have attached a screenshot, in addition to the crash reports generated by Apple/Adobe at this time. InDesign shows the following error message (translated from Norwegian to English): "Error: Adobe InDesign is exiting. A serious error occured. Restart InDesign to restore work in any InDesign-documents that isn't archived." It also shows a dialog box which warns you about overset text on pages in the placed document.
Extra notes and comments:
If InDesign didn't crash in step 9, you can try to go to the "Links" panel and update the link to the placed document, if it didn't update automatically. In general you should also try placing and updating InDesign documents containing overset text into another InDesign document, and this error should occur eventually.
In my experience InDesign crashes very often due to this error when using a workflow which requires mounting other InDesign documents, which might contain overset text accidentally. In the workflow that we use, this error is very devastating leading to InDesign crashing up to several times per day (or per hour) in certain periods.
The error most consistently occurs when doing some changes in a document containing overset text, and then updating it in InDesign, as described in the steps to reproduce the error. However, the error has also occured when placing the document, not just while updating it.
I have also experienced that this error occurs even when there just are some extra lines at the end of the textbox, so that text technically overflows, but no preflight error appears because the overflowing text is just empty lines/paragraphs. This makes the bug extra difficult to avoid, because the overflowing text could be in any textbox in the document, even though no error is showed.
This error has occured consistently over several InDesign and OS versions, at least for several years, probably since the feature to place another InDesign document was introduced.
Hello All,
Thank you for your support. The issue is now fixed in the latest update of InDesign.
Please upgrade to the new InDesign 14.0 from your Creative Cloud Application.
If you are unable to see the update yet, click on the menu (three dots) on the top right corner of Creative cloud app and click on “Check for App Updates”.
Let us know if the issue is resolved for you in InDesign 14.0.
Thanks,
Abhinav Kaushik
InDesign Team
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Maik commented
Placing an Indesign document inside another is actually a no-go. Weird enough, that it's even possible.