Inspiring

Question

Placed InDesign files into InDesign are exporting as blank shapes

Forum|Forum|3 months ago
March 12, 2026
6 replies
253 views

Hi All

Again, with a version update glitch that hasn’t been fixed in a few updates.

My team uses placed InDesign files in InDesign as a way to use the same content across multiple projects eg. a layout of logos, etc. It’s an ideal way with our workflow and we’ve been doing it for years, we’re not on here to look for a solution for that as everyone’s documents and workflows are different and there’s so many other uses we do this for.

Recently, we’re exporting .pdfs and the vector logos that are placed onto pages are exporting as blank shapes where the logos should be. They look fine on the InDesign document before we export, but the .pdf is wrong. A fix each time we encounter it is that we edit the original by putting a blank frame on the page, deleting it and saving the file. We’ve discovered the files are always saved in the most recent version of InDesign, but before that didn’t matter.

Any help (or a bug fix) would be greatly appreciated.

Windows 11 x64 bit, saving files on OneDrive, InDesign version 21.2.

R

randomtask72

Known Participant

I have just had this exact same problem using 21.3. Opening the old linked logos file ‘[Converted]’ and re-saving it solved it for me but really worried this could have happened before and I have not noticed the pixelated logos.

luke_5280Author

Inspiring

Hi @randomtask72, it is a worry isn’t it! Especially when it looks ok before the export in InDesign. When it happens for me the files aren’t necessarily [Converted] and they would happen just about every day so it’s not like it’s an app update/version issue. Still waiting on the reply from Adobe for the bug fix, but hopefully it’s fixed for all of us soon.

R

randomtask72

Known Participant

That is absolutely a critical concern. I will be double checking my PDF’s from now on.
Just out of interest, I opened the pdf with the issue in Illustrator and the vector logos were low quality images (like how it looks when a link is broken).

D

defaultm9k39xmxlarl

Participant

This issue is still occurring as of yesterday, which is how I found this thread. We also place InDesign files into InDesign, to save our team hours of exporting PDFs to place into InDesign.

I tried resaving the InDesign file to my desktop, tried to export with different PDF settings, nothing fixed it. I had to eventually export all of my links as PDFs and then reinsert them into the file, which took me hours of labor, but the project was urgently due.

Edit to add: I’m using Mac Tahoe 26.3.1, InDesign 21.3

luke_5280Author

Inspiring

Hi Adobe community, this question has been sitting here for over a month with no input from any community managers. Other similar problems with questions on the forum and “workarounds” date back to at least 5 months ago. Can we get an actual bug fix or some help please?

We are exporting files with errors and it will only be a matter of time that one of the errors are missed and will go to print, and I will look like I am incompetent at my job. Or we will have to spend money (and time) on a re-print, and no-one will be happy about that.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @luke_5280,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you, and I completely understand how concerning this is, especially with the risk it brings to production output.

I tested this on my end using InDesign 21.3 on Windows 11, and the PDF exported correctly with placed InDesign files rendering as expected. To investigate this further, could you please share an affected sample InDesign file? It would help if you could package the file using the steps here: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/preflighting-files-handoff.html#package_files so we can review it along with all linked assets. Make sure to share screenshots of the PDF export settings so that we can follow it in our replication attempts.

If the file is confidential, you can share it with me via DM using any public cloud platform like Google Drive or Dropbox. Once I have the file, I’ll check this with the team and get back to you with more insights.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

luke_5280Author

Inspiring

Hi Abhishek, as requested I have DM’d you the files. Looking forward to the response and bug fix.

R

rudo123

Inspiring

I have a similar problem. InDesign in InDesign exports as a blank page. But the problem is only with a more complex embedded document. With a simple document, the export to PDF is fine. I have InDesign 21.2 and Mac OS 15.7.4. I use this for bigger formats (like one original A4 placed to A3, A2, A1...).

Update: thanks to the link bellow, save as IDML a then resave as new INDD fixed this for me. But mydocument was originally created in new InDesign 21.2, not older.

leo.r

Community Expert

It looks like at this point it’s a known bug that hasn’t been fixed yet (as you know anyway). Users have been reporting this issue ever since InDesign 2026 was released.

luke_5280Author

Inspiring

Hello @leo.r, thank you for your reply. Are you able to share link(s) of these other people that are experiencing problems? I couldn’t find other forums that relate to this issue.

leo.r

Community Expert

These are two threads I could find. It’s possible there are more from the last two months that weren’t transferred to the new forum software yet.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Luke,

Just to be careful of small details, did you run the Windows Update from February of this year? If not, do that. That should take a file save/access problem off the table and out of the mix as you troubleshoot.

Mike Witherell

luke_5280Author

Inspiring

Hi Mike, thanks for checking in. Yes I was victim of the InDesign Windows Update problem earlier this year, and have all the necessary updates to fix that problem. As of this morning, all InDesign and Windows updates are already installed.

25H2 is my version number.

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