Exit
  • Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
  • 한국 커뮤니티
6

Corrupt Table of Contents Fix

Explorer ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but I thought I'd post it anyway to help others avoid frustration.

I've been working in an ID document created in v13.1 for the last few months. It's a simple 32-page product catalog. For the first draft, made several months ago, in v13.0, I produced a TOC from the page headers. The "create TOC" worked perfectly, using my character/paragraph styles as desired.

After the latest client revisions this week, more information was added (copy, pics, vector art). When I went to update the TOC, InDesign crashed. It crashed even when I tried to delete the text box containing the TOC. Performing any TOC function caused the program to instantly crash.

I tried resetting the program prefs, but it didn't help.

What did repair my corrupt file was this:

The first approach to debugging an InDesign file that crashes is to save it (export, in versions earlier than CS6) as an IDML. Opening the IDML in InDesign will create a new INDD based on the saved XML information.

This has another benefit: InDesign files grow the more you edit them. Internally, an INDD is a database, and it doesn't shrink as much as it grows while you are working on it. The INDD > IDML > new INDD cleans out all the cruft.

This info is from this web site.

5.6K
Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

New Here , Dec 04, 2019 Dec 04, 2019

I was having the same issue with a TOC with[ i.e. updating the TOC and/or attempting to delete the textbox was causing immediate crash ] but INDD>IDML>INDD sequence fixed it completely.  I'm on V15.0.1.  Thanks for the help! 

Translate
Community Expert ,
Sep 12, 2018 Sep 12, 2018

You could try uninstall/reinstall with the Adobe CC Cleaner tool. Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Dec 04, 2019 Dec 04, 2019

I was having the same issue with a TOC with[ i.e. updating the TOC and/or attempting to delete the textbox was causing immediate crash ] but INDD>IDML>INDD sequence fixed it completely.  I'm on V15.0.1.  Thanks for the help! 

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Oct 26, 2023 Oct 26, 2023

I know this thread is now ~5 years old and the response i'm upvoting is ~4, but the IDML resave trick worked for me, here in the future 🙂  â€”  October, 2023.

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Adobe Employee ,
Nov 01, 2023 Nov 01, 2023

Hi @tyagens,

 

Thank you for reaching out and confirming the solution that worked for you. I have marked it as the correct answer. I am sure it will help other community members. 

 

Thanks

Rishabh

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

The INDD>IDML>INDD solution just fixed this exact issue for me too, on version 16.0.1 (updating my InDesign version, however, did not).

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Feb 08, 2021 Feb 08, 2021

I am updating the TOC on an InDesign book that has 10+ documents. I updated to the latest version of InDesign, tried the INDD>IDML>INDD sequence only on the file that contains the TOC, and tried the same sequence in all the documents in the book, none worked. The app still crashed each time. Any other suggestion?

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 10, 2023 Jan 10, 2023

Try this: open the file with the older version of Indesign (right click, open with previous version), then click OK when asked if you want to convert the file.

I finally managed to delete the table in that older, converted version. Good luck everyone!

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Apr 09, 2021 Apr 09, 2021

I have exactly the same problem with the TOC, saving as IDML did not solve the problem and deleting the text box also crashes InDesign.

Using v16.1

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Nov 10, 2021 Nov 10, 2021

Yes.. The INDD > IDML > new INDD also worked for me

 

thank you

s

 

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Dec 10, 2021 Dec 10, 2021

I had the same issue - Table of contents was crashing everytime, I did something with the text box. The best/only soulution is INDD>IDML>new INDD. You may have to save the file entirely new (delete all old files!). Thanks for the helpe!

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Feb 07, 2022 Feb 07, 2022

also works for me, thank you

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Sep 01, 2023 Sep 01, 2023

Worked for me. Thanks

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Sep 01, 2023 Sep 01, 2023

IDMLing is the last hope - how often are you doing SAVE AS with a new name?

 

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Feb 22, 2025 Feb 22, 2025
LATEST

Thank you! Upon reopening InDesign it also gave me an error message along the lines "this file is corrupt, do you still want to open it?". Saving to .idml allowed me to delete the TOC and then I saved back to .indd.

Translate
Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines