For the past few months, I’ve been able to work around this issue, but it has now reached a point where I can’t. When exporting PNG files in Adobe InDesign, the drop shadows shift position during export. The shadows appear correctly within InDesign, but once the PNG is exported, the shadows are visibly displaced from their original placement. I am currently using Adobe InDesign version 21.3.Here’s a longer forum:This forum has been marked as “answered” but it is only suggested workarounds from the community.Here’s an example:Inside Indesign, the shadows are where they’re supposed to be.Flattened .png files placed as assets in Animate. The shadows moved.I’ve gone back into InDesign multiple times to correct the shadow placement and re-export the files, but the shadows continue to export incorrectly, which has become a major issue in my workflow.I’ve been dealing with this bug daily for months, often having to resize assets in InDesign just to temporarily work around the problem. I’m hoping to bring more attention to this issue so it can hopefully be investigated and resolved. Thank you.

Known Participant

Question

InDesign drop shadows have been broken for 6 months.

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
May 13, 2026
15 replies
272 views

For the past few months, I’ve been able to work around this issue, but it has now reached a point where I can’t. When exporting PNG files in Adobe InDesign, the drop shadows shift position during export. The shadows appear correctly within InDesign, but once the PNG is exported, the shadows are visibly displaced from their original placement. I am currently using Adobe InDesign version 21.3.

Here’s a longer forum:

This forum has been marked as “answered” but it is only suggested workarounds from the community.

Here’s an example:

Inside Indesign, the shadows are where they’re supposed to be.

Flattened .png files placed as assets in Animate. The shadows moved.

I’ve gone back into InDesign multiple times to correct the shadow placement and re-export the files, but the shadows continue to export incorrectly, which has become a major issue in my workflow.

I’ve been dealing with this bug daily for months, often having to resize assets in InDesign just to temporarily work around the problem. I’m hoping to bring more attention to this issue so it can hopefully be investigated and resolved.

Thank you.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello everyone,

The product team is aware of this and is actively working on another fix. We will keep this thread updated as soon as we have any new information to share.

In the meantime, you can follow and upvote the related UserVoice report to stay informed about any updates:
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/51041536-drop-shadow-changing-position-and-shape-on-rotated

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions or need assistance. We'd be happy to help.
Anubhav

T

Tiggery

Participant

A workaround is exporting to a high quality PDF, then opening that in Photoshop and exporting to PNG from there. Clunky, but it works. Hope Adobe just fixes it soon.

Y

yippee 2009

Participant

yes thats what we do now when it doesn’t work the easy way - but when we’re exporting files more than a dozen times a day its a time & money issue

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

According to release notes for 21.4.1, this issue has not been addressed?

Mike Witherell

D

dalef48115216

Participant

It’s not fixed for me. Just as glitchy as it ever was.

Y

yippee 2009

Participant

def not fixed for us either

Y

yippee 2009

Participant

Yes a huge issue for us too as almost all artwork is exported as pngs - have fund that sometimes taking the effect off then re-applying works, but its so time consuming & not a reliable option either!

JaxVenostaTVI

Participant

This issue persists and the company I work for (I work in marketing as a designer) uses PNGs for email campaigns. The entire graphics department has to pull files into Photoshop using copy+paste because exporting directly from InDesign causes the shadows/effects to appear incorrect. It is a huge delay effecting the entire design department… Hoping for a quicker fix.

dzgnr89

Inspiring

Updated to InDesign 21.4, this bug is still there.

This has been dragging on for months with no fix in sight.

@Abhishek Rao , please escalate this, a lot of users are affected and waiting.🙏🏻

Y

yippee 2009

Participant

So frustrating - when will this issue be resolved?

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @A Nova & @micky1984,

Sorry to hear you're still experiencing this issue. The behavior is a known bug and is still being actively worked on by the product team.

Ref: https://community.adobe.com/questions%2D671/indesign%2D2026%2Ddrop%2Dshadows%2Dgraphical%2Dglitch%2D898121/index2.html?postid=3560547#post3560547

You can also add your vote to the related UserVoice report, as it helps the team track the impact:
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/51041536-drop-shadow-changing-position-and-shape-on-rotated

I'll keep this thread updated as soon as I have any news to share.

Thanks for your patience.

Abhishek

A

A NovaAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you - I’m aware it’s already been documented.

I’m updating changes I’ve noticed with the bug and I’m also trying to make it a higher priority since it’s been an issue for so long.