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_jgibbster
Participant
July 7, 2020
Answered

InDesign Review Unmapped comments from 2019 document

  • July 7, 2020
  • 9 replies
  • 1323 views

I've been trying to solve this very annoying issue all afternoon. I'm working on a document that we update annually, so the file I'm working from is a 2019 file. I wanted to use the new review feature to let other memebers of my team know which information I needed them to update for me. Unfortunately, all my comments show up on the web portal as "unmapped", even though show up as linked to the annotations in my InDesign document.

 

A previous thread suggested saving to an IDML format and opening the IDML so the document can be a 2020 file. That workaround did not work for me. I decided to create a new document, upload it for review and test to see if I could get comments to link. The blank document successfully took annotations and pins, so I copy and pasted the first two pages of my document in and tested the comments again. Again, the annotation linked to the comment, so I added the other 20 pages of my document, updated the link, and tested again. The third test annotation linked to the first spread, which I had been using to test, but when testing on subsequent pages, I ran into the previous issue of comments "unmapping" on the web portal while linking to annotations in the InDesign document.

 

Since I wanted to use this feature as a timesaver, it's already lost its effectiveness with whatever bug is affecting this. Short of adding comments to pages as I copy them in, does anyone have any other suggested workarounds for this?

Correct answer Sheena Kaul

Hi All,

 

The issue for 'Unmapped comments on Web' has been fixed. You can now check on the web to see if the comments are appearing as you want them. 

 

Please note, this issue is different from the one where the comments are going unmapped in the review panel of InDesign which is still being worked upon.

 

Let me know if still there are issues.

 

Regards,

Sheena

9 replies

M
Malb from premier tech
Participating Frequently
July 17, 2025

The review feature is deteriorating.

Now, when you correct something on a page, the comment citing the correction is moved to the unmapped comments section (at the bottom of the review panel). So, you have to scroll back up the review panel or click on a pinned comment on the page you are on (if the pins/marks decide to work properly that day). Not long ago, I could correct and then resolve the comment to indicate that it has been corrected without it moving anywhere after the correction was made. Quite tedious when working on a 30-some-page document. Bravo Adobe!

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
Community Manager
July 18, 2025

Hi @Malb from premier tech,

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback, and I can totally see how frustrating that must be, especially when you're trying to move efficiently through a multi-page review. The experience you described does sound off, particularly the part where comments get pushed to the unmapped section right after making a correction. That's definitely not how this feature is intended to work.

To better understand and investigate this, could you please create a new post on the community and include your current InDesign version along with your operating system? If possible, please also share a short screen recording that walks through the issue, showing the entire workflow from opening the file, making a correction, to what happens with the comment. That would really help us and the experts take a closer look and assist you more effectively.

 

Looking forward to seeing your post and helping get this sorted.

Abhishek 

Sheena Kaul
Sheena KaulCorrect answer
Legend
July 27, 2020

Hi All,

 

The issue for 'Unmapped comments on Web' has been fixed. You can now check on the web to see if the comments are appearing as you want them. 

 

Please note, this issue is different from the one where the comments are going unmapped in the review panel of InDesign which is still being worked upon.

 

Let me know if still there are issues.

 

Regards,

Sheena

Ashutosh_Mishra
Ashutosh_Mishra
Inspiring
July 20, 2020

Hi All,

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. This issue is being reviewed by Product team. You may check the status on Adobe InDesign UserVoice Link(https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/40863646-share-review-not-showing-online-pins).
You may also upvote here and add your comment on it. Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh

    DPullman853
    DPullman853
    Participant
    July 16, 2020

    I have the exact same issue ... except with mine it was a brand new document. Yes, was supposed to be a time saver, but since there appears to be no way of actually associating one's comments with a location on the page - feature is completely and utterly useless. #BUG #ANNOYING

    The_Badger
    The_Badger
    Known Participant
    July 15, 2020

    I too have the same issue which as has been pointed out makes the function unusable for me.
    I guess I'll have to go back to lots of separate PDF files!!!

      E
      EES_
      Participant
      July 15, 2020

      Just chiming in that I'm also having this issue and can't find any workarounds by re-saving, and it varies from file to file. I hope it's a temporary issue with the new feature as this is so useful when it does work, but unmapped comments make it useless. 

      J
      JCS734
      Participant
      July 14, 2020

      Same issue here. It was working for me last week on a doc but this week I can't get it to work. Even on last week's doc, all new comments are unmapped. Resaving the doc didn't help. Even did a test copying and pasting pages from Doc 1 onto a new doc. No luck. This is infuriating. This feature is SUCH a good idea but if I can't map comments it's absolutely useless for our organization.

      S
      sketchsy
      Participant
      July 14, 2020

      Hello! I was having this issue as well by working on an older file and not being able to map comments through the review feature. I was able to solve it by overwriting/re-saving the document using File > Save As to create an Indesign 2020 version. Hope this helps!

      _
      _jgibbsterAuthor
      Participant
      July 14, 2020

      Sadly this workaround hasn't worked for me. The document I'm working from has been saved over several times as a 2020 document, so whatever the issue is goes deeper than just the original format of the file. 

      S
      stephenboswell
      Participant
      July 14, 2020

      I have the same issue. I have not tried the IDML solution so I will give that a shot. But new documents seem to work correctly most of the time, although I have had some with the same problem. So far there is nothing that I can do to get a doc that only shows unmapped comments to work correctly. Ditto other comment, the pins etc do show up correctly when I view in InDesign - so the info is clearly there it is just not previewing correctly in the review doc.

       

      I love this feature, but if I am trying to get my whole company on board with reviewing documents this way, having it not work properly is going to cause that to fail. Please fix ASAP!

      K
      kevin_owl
      Participant
      July 13, 2020

      I have no other workarounds to suggest but want to not that I've run into the exact same issue. Hopefully, an additional comment will hasten a solution.

       

      Also, I noticed that "unmapped" comments in the browser are actually mapped properly in InDesign. Weird.

      N
      Nick Brittan
      Participant
      July 14, 2020

      Hi,

      I have the exact same issue. Is this a BUG.... is there a fix?

      Really frustrating. HELP!

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