Issues with Online Display of Published Document in Adobe InDesign

[Ian Fennimore]

Hello,

When I publish my document online, the pages do not display correctly but the thumbnails do. When exporting the document as a PDF, all is well. Not sure how the publish online thumbnails are correct but the pages themselves are not.

This is the document https://indd.adobe.com/view/de0b81b4-d662-4fe9-aa71-5662addfc277

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @ianmelts,

Thanks for posting your issue, and I’m sorry to hear you're experiencing trouble with the Publish Online feature in InDesign. It can certainly be frustrating when things don’t display as expected online, even though they look fine as PDFs.

To better assist you, could you please confirm which version of InDesign you are using, along with the operating system details? 

Additionally, if it's possible for you to share the InDesign file with us, we could test it on our end to see what might be going wrong. You can upload it securely through the Adobe Community files section if privacy is a concern.

In the meantime, Please check the following: 

1. Interactive elements or overlays can behave differently online. Make sure these elements are set up correctly within your document.

2. Before publishing online, use the 'Preview in Browser' feature in InDesign to see if the issue replicates. This might give some clues as to what's going wrong.

3. Sometimes simply republishing the document can resolve unexpected issues, especially if there was a glitch during the initial upload process.

Let's start there, and please let me know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you resolve this so your document displays perfectly online.

Best, 

Abhishek Rao

[Ian Fennimore]

Hi,

My Version is 19.5. My operating system is macOS Sonoma 14.5 on a 2017 Intel MacBook Pro 15"

1. I have no interactive elements, just static frames, images and text with no links or anything

2. Had trouble finding this feature

3. I have republished and overwritten the publications many times over with the same mistake

To send the file, do you need the whole document packaged?

[Ian Fennimore]

I tried share for review https://assets.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:f28b58eb-5d69-4a76-96c0-76287676282c?view=published and it works fine here

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Ian Fennimore,

Thank you for the update, and I understand how this situation could be frustrating, especially after trying multiple solutions. Given that you’ve already republished the document several times without success, we’d be happy to take a closer look.

Could you please share both the Publish Online link as well as the packaged file of your document? Packaging the file will help ensure we have all assets included for testing. Here's a guide on how to package your InDesign document: [Assignment packages in InDesign](https://adobe.ly/3MYL7fq).

Once we have those, we can dive deeper into what might be causing the issue and help you resolve it as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience!  
Abhishek Rao

[Ian Fennimore]

Sorry, but I don't know how to upload my packaged .zip folder. It will not allow me to reply with attachment and I cannot find a secure 'files' section.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Ian Fennimore, 

I completely understand the confusion-thanks for letting me know. When you reply to this post, you should see an option to drag and drop or browse for files to upload directly to the community page. If that’s not appearing, it could be a browser issue, so please try refreshing the page or using a different browser if possible. 

Once you’re able to upload the packaged file, we’ll dive in.

Thanks for your patience!  
Abhishek Rao

[Ian Fennimore]

I know the upload is there but it does not allow zip folders and is only 47mb size. My indesign package is 1.4GB as it is 92 pages and has quite a bit of content including high resolution renders.

[Anshul_Saini]

Thank you for the update, @Ian Fennimore and I completely understand the challenge of uploading such a large file. Given the size of your InDesign package, it makes sense that it’s difficult to upload directly to the community page.

To proceed, could you please upload the packaged file to a service like WeTransfer, Google Drive, or Dropbox and share the download link with me via direct message? That way, we can access the file and work on resolving the issue for you as quickly as possible.

Thanks again for your patience—I know this has been frustrating, and we appreciate your cooperation.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[Ian Fennimore]

https://we.tl/t-NcYJwz5Tsf

[Anshul_Saini]

Thank you for sharing the WeTransfer link, @Ian Fennimore! I’ve received it, and we’ll begin reviewing the file to investigate the issue. We’ll get back to you once we have more information and a solution.

Thanks again for your patience.

Best,

Anshul

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Based on the complexity of images, and your mention of large file size, I think this is exceeding the limits of publish online. The workaround suggestion would be to create a second ID doc where images are optimized either by down sampling existing raster image to 144ppi, and rasterizing the complex vector images as well.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Ian Fennimore,

Thanks for your patience, and I appreciate you sharing the file. After testing on our end, I can confirm that we're seeing the same issue with the difference between the PDF and the published online file.

As recommended by Jeffrey_Smith, optimizing the images by downsampling them to 144ppi or rasterizing complex vector images might help resolve the issue in Publish Online.

In the meantime, we’re checking this further with the product team and will provide an update as soon as we have more information.

Thanks again for your cooperation, and I understand how frustrating this must be. We’ll get to the bottom of this!

Best,  
Abhishek Rao