ID 2025 crashing when exporting as HTML Legacy

[OsakaWebbie]

I need to export a quarterly magazine to HTML in order to create online articles in Wordpress. I have never had any trouble until I upgraded to InDesign 2025 (currently 20.4). Now there is a new choice of HTML5, which is way too fancy for my purpose (too many HTML tags I don't want, text columns separated, etc.). But the "HTML (Legacy)" type keeps crashing. I was able to export a portion of the articles one time (I think that was a fortunate fluke), and I can export a plain document with a dummy text box, but all other attempts (including even a single two-page article with no images) crash InDesign. I tried saving as IDML and reopening to cleanse the document, but no change. I even tried creating a brand new document and copying a few of the text blocks from the magazine to that document, but it still crashed when I tried to export as HTML legacy.

Finally I re-installed ID 2024 (19.5.4), opened the IDML in that older version, and exported with no trouble. (ID 2024 is also refreshingly fast - 2025 is intolerably slow to do anything!)

I'm not seeing any complaints on the web about 2025's exporting - is it just me? I'm attaching the file I used for my last attempt in ID 2025 (three articles' text blocks copied to a fresh document) in case someone wants to try replicating the issue. I'm on Windows 11, if that matters.

[Manan Joshi]

Crashes for me too on a MAC and 2025 InDesign. The crash log shows the crash happening at some sort of string copy.

Thread 0 Crashed::  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   PublicLib.dylib               	       0x1055619e0 UnicodeSavvyString::CopyFrom(UnicodeSavvyString const&) + 68
1   PublicLib.dylib               	       0x10555dcdc WideString::WideString(WideString const&) + 32
2   EBookExport                   	       0x111264f0c 0x1111f4000 + 462604
3   EBookExport                   	       0x1112e799c 0x1111f4000 + 997788
4   EBookExport                   	       0x1112e53c4 0x1111f4000 + 988100
5   EBookExport                   	       0x1112df17c 0x1111f4000 + 962940
6   EBookExport                   	       0x1112db09c 0x1111f4000 + 946332
7   EBookExport                   	       0x1112d9aac 0x1111f4000 + 940716
8   EBookExport                   	       0x11127c26c 0x1111f4000 + 557676
9   EBookExport                   	       0x11127bbd0 0x1111f4000 + 555984
10  EBookExport                   	       0x11128abd8 0x1111f4000 + 617432
11  PublicLib.dylib               	       0x10562839c CExportProvider::ExportToFile(IDFile const&, IDocument*, IPMUnknown*, PMString const&, K2::UIFlags) + 300

Could this be a font problem? Can you try changing fonts if it help?

-Manan

[OsakaWebbie]

Fonts shouldn't have anything to do with this HTML export - I ask for no CSS classes, and there are no style definitions.

[Manan Joshi]

Ain't fonts or their subsets exported into the HTML? I thought base64 version of the font is embedded into the HTML.

-Manan

[OsakaWebbie]

If many users are reporting such problems, why did I not find anything in UserVoice or even just googling keywords? I'd like to know that the developers know about it and have it on their to-do list to fix.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @OsakaWebbie,

Thanks so much for all the detailed info you've shared. I'm currently checking this with the product team to get more clarity.

In the meantime, could you please try saving your file as an IDML and then re-saving that IDML as a new INDD file with a different name? After that, try exporting it again using the HTML (Legacy) option. I was able to export other files on my end without any issues using this method, so it might help us narrow down the cause.

Let me know how it goes. Looking forward to your update!

Abhishek 

[OsakaWebbie]

A round-trip through IDML was one of the first things I tried, thinking that my document had been corrupted somehow (I mentioned this in the first post, but apparently you missed it).

Did you try the file I attached? I'm interested to hear if it works for you or not. That file is after not only saving as IDML and reopening to save as a new INDD file, but also creating a fresh document and copying a few pages of text frames from my document into it. It crashes my copy of ID 2025 - how about yours?

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @OsakaWebbie,

Thanks again for sharing the file and the detailed steps you've tried.

I was able to reproduce the crash on my end using your file, and I've now logged a bug with the product team for further investigation. I'll make sure to keep you posted on any updates or progress on this issue.

Appreciate your patience and help in narrowing this down!

Abhishek

[naiina]

Hi @OsakaWebbie ,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

To assist with the investigation, could you please provide the following information:

• In the paragraph style "Feature 1st para w/ drop cap", could you let us know if you've applied any special styling, so that CSS is not generated for this paragraph style.

• Additionally, could you try creating a new paragraph style with the same style ("Feature 1st para w/ drop cap") without duplicating the existing one, and let us know if the issue persists?
  
  

Looking forward to your response.

Best regards,
Naina
(Adobe Team)

[OsakaWebbie]

• In the paragraph style "Feature 1st para w/ drop cap", could you let us know if you've applied any special styling, so that CSS is not generated for this paragraph style.

The only "special styling" is merely what the style name indicates: a drop cap (for use as the first paragraph in "feature" articles). Here are two screenshots of the relevant parts of the style definition (General and Export Tagging):

I don't want any dropcaps or similar fancy stuff in the online version of articles, so I'm glad that (in ID 2024) the only thing added to the HTML for the dropcap is a <span> tag with no styling. I don't use the HTML file directly as a static webpage - I copy/paste each article's title, content, byline, bio, etc. into the appropriate places in Wordpress. And I always tell the export dialog to not include CSS classes.

 

• Additionally, could you try creating a new paragraph style with the same style ("Feature 1st para w/ drop cap") without duplicating the existing one, and let us know if the issue persists?

Yes, the issue persists - here is a screenshot of what I did and the crash notification:

So apparently there is something about dropcaps that ID 2025 doesn't like. I know that the new HTML5 export type is very fancy, trying to recreate the layout, but I assumed the HTML(Legacy) type was the old code untouched. Apparently that's not the case. Thanks for researching this - I look forward to hearing about any progress.

For now I'll go back to using ID 2024 - I only need to export HTML for one quarterly magazine, but the bigger reason is that ID 2025 is weirdly and painfully slow - every action (even as simple as changing the current tool or clicking on a different pane) takes several seconds. The same problem exists in Photoshop 2025 (and perhaps other apps - I haven't tried them yet). But I assume that problem has already been reported to the developers - many users are screaming about it on this forum and elsewhere.

For opening ID 2025 files given to me, I tried the "Convert File" option offered in ID 2024, but on some of the files I tried, it doesn't work; after clicking the Convert File button, it grays out as if it's doing something, but nothing ever happens - it just stays like the screenshot below until I click Cancel, and the file is never opened. So I will still need to use ID 2025 to save some files as IDML. This is not a concern long term, as I normally use the newest versions of Adobe apps, but for now it's a small annoyance.

[naiina]

Thank you, @OsakaWebbie, for your response.
We are currently working on the issue, and a fix will be included in the upcoming release.

Thanks,
Naina
(Adobe Team)

[Abhishek Rao · Accepted solution]

Hi @OsakaWebbie,

Thank you so much for your patience and for all the detailed info you've shared so far.

I reached out to the product team, and they did a deep dive into this issue. They tested different scenarios, including using the drop cap style with and without character styles, and also tried changing the lines and characters of the drop cap. In their tests, including with your shared file, the export actually worked correctly.

Based on this, they believe the issue may be specific to your file setup. They suggest creating a brand-new paragraph style from scratch (instead of duplicating or modifying the existing one) and applying it again. The investigation showed that when your paragraph style was applied to other files, the export worked fine.

Could you please give this a try on your end and see if it resolves the crash for you?

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks again for all your cooperation and detailed feedback.

Abhishek

[OsakaWebbie]

Thanks so much for the research. You are correct - when I created a new paragraph style for the drop cap (still basing it on my Article Text style, which I knew didn't have a problem), it exported successfully from ID 2025. I do hope that soon the sluggishness issue in ID 2025 (and PS 2025) will be solved, as of course I noticed it again doing this test. But it's good to know that this particular problem was just a glitch and easily solvable.

I know there are a lot of people on these forums whining that Adobe no longer cares about their users, but I hope they see this thread, because you guys definitely earned your pay. You didn't use the sledgehammer approach, telling me to reconstruct everything or reinstall the software without my settings or some other drastic thing - you used a scalpel to hone in on the particular style that needed replacing. Kudos!