Participant

Answered

Drop Shadows Export Incorrectly in PNG from InDesign 21.2

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
January 30, 2026
23 replies
1106 views

Ever since the last updated, drop shadows aren't displaying properly when exporting PNGs from Indesign. There are a couple of threads, but no solutions, It's becoming annoying, as the workaround is to close the app completely and reopen the file. Totally messes the workflow.

Correct answer Mike Witherell

According to release notes for InDesign 21.6, (September 2026) this problem has been fixed.

Long live the drop shadow!

nik.m

Community Manager

Hi all, as Mike mentioned, this issue has been fixed in the 21.6 release of InDesign. Please check: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/desktop/whats-new/release-notes.html

To update InDesign to the latest version, please check: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/apps/manage-apps/creative-cloud-apps/update-creative-cloud-apps-manually.html

Please let us know if you continue to experience the same behavior after updating to version 21.6.

Thanks,

Nikunj

Mike Witherell

Correct answer

Community Expert

According to release notes for InDesign 21.6, (September 2026) this problem has been fixed.

Long live the drop shadow!

Mike Witherell

H

HHainstockBB

Participant

Still not fixed… (on mac)

tonks_the_auror

Community Expert

Windows 11, updated to InDesign 21.4 this morning. The drop shadow issue has not been fixed in this version.

Pjot

Participant

Issue still inside 21.3 on windows :-/

Rodney5E36

Participant

Same issue. I was able to resolve it by saving my InDesign doc out as an IDML file. Then I opened that IDML file and followed the same export… and the PNG export @ 72dpi worked for me. Hope this works for others.

Rodney5E36

Participant

FYI - Once I resaved the IDML as a file and made any additional edits in my doc (like moving a box around that had the drop shadow), the issue started all over again on those elements only for future PNG exports @ 72dpi. I had to resave again as an IDML to solve.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing this issue. Could you please check this thread and confirm if the behavior, you’re seeing matches what is described there?

If it appears to be the same issue, a bug has already been logged and the product team is working on a fix.

I’ll keep you posted here as soon as I have any updates from the team.

Thanks for your patience.

Abhishek

Jagubim

Participant

I believe the issue is still on, I need to export as a PDF file and then open on Photoshop to export the correct PNG file. I will follow up everyday here, thanks

Jagubim

Participant

On time, maybe it's been said already, but, with JPEG export it's fine. It's a matter of PNG Exporting.

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prdh67

Inspiring

I can confirm this bug in InDesign 21.2 on a mac M4 Max. It can be easily reproduced by creating an object or a text frame with a drop shadow, rotating the object, then moving the object around the page. The drop shadow offset will start moving erratically (it takes between 1-10 moves to trigger it). Once triggered, you can see the correct drop shadow by toggling on Overprint Preview, but with it off, the incorrect drop shadow is shown. If you export to PDF, the correct drop shadow will be in the PDF. If you export to PNG, the incorrect drop shadow is in the export. I have a screen recording that I’m not able to attach here, if needed.

This is a significant bug.