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Anna_Lander
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 2, 2026
Answered

problem with page appearane

  • February 2, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 27 views

The problem is that some pages in the layout suddenly lost their appearance, and a part of the content (screen 1).

Originally, the pages had Parent elements and some text content, visible on the layout and in the Pages panel (like the pages at the bottom). But then some pages (not all!) lost their white paper color, and text frames became empty. Their appearance in the Pages panel also becomes empty. When exported to PDF, these pages have no Parent elements nor text, and are totally white. BUT! If you copy the text frames and paste them into a new doc with the same Parents, the content restores.
It is certainly not something in Preferences or in a View menu because it affects just part of the file.

The question: What might it be? Is there a way to fix it without creating a new doc and copying/pasting the content?

Windows 11, InDesign 21.2

screen 1: normal pages and damaged ones
screen 2. Text frames are copied from the left (original) doc and pasted into the right (new) one. Content restored.

 

    Correct answer BobLevine

    This is typically caused by a bit of corruption. Try saving the document as IDML and opening that.

    1 reply

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    BobLevineCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    February 2, 2026

    This is typically caused by a bit of corruption. Try saving the document as IDML and opening that.

    Anna_Lander
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 2, 2026

    thanks!
    I also thought to do this, and very glad to get a confirmation to the idea!