InDesign crashing when exporting HTML file

[JonathanGSP]

Hello,

I work in publishing and need to export a HTML file of our publications post-print for our editorial team. I've tried this on three different computers (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro 2019 and MacBook Pro 2016) and InDesign crashes every time I try to export a HTML file of the document. I've tested just exporting one page of text, no paragraph styles applied, no images and the HTML export works. So it must be something to do with the size of the file and being a publication layout, the fact that there are many images and advertisements placed within the file. I've even tried turning off the layer where advertisements are placed and changing to Fast Display prior to exporting the HTML, but InDesign still crashes.

Has anyone else experiened this issue and if so, are there any fixes? I'm running the most up-to-date version of InDesign on my machine, so are the other Macs we have in our office. I would like to note this has been a persistent issue for some time, starting about 12 months ago, and I've changed computers twice since then. It doesn't seem to matter which machine, or which version of InDesign I'm using, I cannot export to HTML and I need to. I've worked in publishing for a long time, I've been able to export HTML files or large 100+ page documents in the past, but as I say, not for at least the last year.

Sadly, workarounds aren't really a solution for us, I need the HTML file for our editorial team.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Derek Cross]

What do the editorial team hope to do with the HTML document?

[JonathanGSP]

Hi Derek,

The purpose of the HTML file is to give the editorial team a file with all the text from the magazine. They use the text (which has been proof-read and edited, post laying out in the magazine) to publish online articles on our websites. In the past, when exporting HTML files was still working, it saved myself and the design team from having to copy text from multiple text boxes into Word, which is what we currently have to do to get the editorial team the text.

The point though is that regardless of the intended use of these HTML files, why is InDesign crashing?

Thanks,

Katrina

[Derek Cross]

Re crashing, have you tried resetting the InDesign preferences?

Close InDesign. Then hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift (Windows) or Cmd + Ctrl + Opt + Shift (Mac), and relaunch InDesign. Respond in the affirmative to the dialog asking if you really want to replace the preferences.

Re HTML, is this a new thing you're trying or have you done this successfully previously?

[JonathanGSP]

Hi Derek,

I've tried resetting preferences many times and it does not fix this issue.

In answer to your question and as stated above, exporting HTML files of multi-page magazine layouts is something I was able to do up until about 12 months and even though I've changed computers, it is a persistent problem, that I think Adobe need to look into. It works if I'm just trying to export one page of plain text, but anything larger, with ads and images, InDesign crashes.

It seems likely there's no real solution to this.

Thanks,

[Derek Cross]

It’s still not clear how you use the HTML document.

[Jongware]

How would that change things?

[Derek Cross]

I'm trying to establish how the OP is using the output.

[BobLevine]

What full version of InDesign and operating systems are you using? Any third party plugins? Font managers?

Are you exporting to a local drive or a network drive.

Do you get a crash report? If so, please post it on pastebin.com and post a link to it here.

DO NOT POST THE CRASH REPORT HERE.

[Chad Chelius]

When exporting the HTML, try turning off the “Generate CSS”option. This may reduce the amount of work InDesign needs to do when generating the HTML and I doubt your web team is using the InDesign generated CSS anyway. Also, any chance you have endnotes in this document? I discovered an ugly but with endnotes where they break if they contain a hyperlink. I’ve never had that crash the export though.

[SanyamTalwar]

We have released InDesign CC2019.0.2 with lot of stability fixes. If you are not on 14.0.2.324 then I would recommend you to upgrade to latest version as it is more robust.

If you still face this issue even after updating, please submit the crash report to us. (Guidelines to submit crash are available at https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/submit-crash-reports.html)

Also, please send the following information to santalwa@adobe.com :

• Reproducible Steps – What were you doing when InDesign crashed?
• Error snapshot or video recording of the issue?
• Is(Are) the issue related to a specific document(s)/asset(s)? If Yes, Can you please provide the document(s)/asset(s)? Please package the entire document(To package the document, Go to File -> Package)

Sanyam Talwar

[Chad Chelius]

I was hoping that the nasty html endnote but would be fixed in this release but no luck. For several versions now, if you include a hyperlink in an endnote and export to HTML, all of the endnotes break. Very frustrating.

[Jamil Jonna]

Are they ever going to fix this? 

[Cibele Kojima]

Just commenting here that this problem still seems to persist. InDesign (2024) was crashing when I exported some of my files in HTML. As soon as I deleted the hyperlinks in my endnotes, it could export my files without any problems.
It seems like there is a bug there.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I am hazarding a guess that it doesn't like a hyperlink within a hyperlink. Many of the faults with EPUB/HTML export boil down to multiple link wrappers around content. I am not sure why ID does this, or what combination of text and links adds up to a faulty export.

I'd start by removing the notes with links in them and add them back in, using meticulous methods, to see if that cleanup cures the problem. A shortcut might be to use the export to IDML and reopen as a new INDD document 'purge' to see if it cleans up the link problems.