Some text pages turned gray within InDesign and then blank when exported to PDF

Question

I have never seen this happen before, and I'm at a loss. Perhaps it's a bug in the new 2026 version? A handful of pages within my 240-page document turned gray about a month into working on this project, and their page numbers now say PB instead of the page number. They don't look gray when looking at the Pages panel, only when scrolling through the document. When I export to a PDF, those gray pages are white and completely blank -- the text does not show at all, though it is still showing on the document in Normal and Preview modes. I have turned off InDesign and re-opened the app and the file, but those pages are still gray. I have included three screen shots (two of InDesign and one of the view in Acrobat) in the hope that someone can help solve this mystery!

Laubender · Accepted Answer

Hi @Flawless_mentors5EA2 ,PB means pasteboard. So there is no actual page; only the pasteboard.How can this happen? I don't know.What can you do? Try to export the document to IDML, open the IDML file as InDesign document and save it with a different name. Hope that will recreate the missing pages. Kind regards,Uwe Laubender( Adobe Community Expert )

marco_0791 · Answer

This happened to me today, minutes away from a hard deadline on a extremely important InDesign file. Was hoping to find a solution why this happened.

Here's what happened:

I am working on a 43 page InDesign file with copywriter using InCopy, so as he fills the pages I can still design things as needed. About 30 min before we submitted the document (RFP) I exported what I thought was going to be the final .PDF and it showed as "Zero bytes", shortly after that, page sections started disappearing....(Shhh*#*T!, haha)...Staying calm, I luckily have gotten in the habit of saving a backup file after a few hours of designing. But even after copying over things that were missing. Page numbers started to say "PB". With now 10 min before the deadline and no luck with IDML or exporting a smaller file, or varioius .PDF's with different names (Final, _Final, Final-Final). I was forced to Screenshot 2 pages as save as .png files, but then backgrounds started disappearing (F my life) from the InDesign file.

I ended up having to do a Export > JPG. Then opening all JPG's within Acrobat to create a .PDF from that. Submitted the document with the copy, "PB" on 2 of the pages since I screenshoted them (F it at this point, send it with the "PB" printed on it). Submitted the entire document within a couple seconds.

Now trying to find a solution and give my bosses a reason this happened...

Also, no matter if you plan your own deadlines, things always come last minute (haha) which is what happened with this file.

#lifeofadesigner

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