Participant

Question

Large file size when exporting as a PDF - InDesign 2026

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
November 6, 2025
11 replies
2065 views

InDesign 2026, exporting to a small PDF file doesn't work!!!! The PDF is way too large.

Participating Frequently

Unchecking the box for editable file makes no difference. I have a brochure currently sitting at 724mb with no embedded images. Unchecked the box and it's still over 700mb. What is going on adobe !

leo.r

Community Expert

And what’s the PDF size of this brochure when exported from InDesign 2025?

C

Carefree_Glimpse6749

Participant

Hello everyone,

I believe the problem is the last page of the PDF. If you edit the PDF and delete the last page, the file size will be greatly reduced.

I have an InDesign file with several images. The last artboard is identical to the first (design, text, etc.) and the size difference between them is enormous.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello everyone,

Please try the suggestions shared by our experts:

Uncheck the option “Preserve InDesign editing capabilities.”
Avoid embedding any images in your InDesign document.

Let us know if this resolves the issue.

Anubhav

R

reagan_0580

Participant

Also having this issue with both my preset and the default "smallest file size". PDFs of the exact same file exported on 2025 were 5-7MB and are now 48-50MB ex[orting with 2026 Indesign.... not ideal going to have to remove 2026 and redownload 2025 if possible to meet deadlines.....

S

sunetn23296824

Participant

Hi,

Quick fix that I discovered but not a solution is you have to unceck : "Perserve Indesign editing capabilities" then the files are the normal size.

BobLevine

Community Expert

That is actually the solution. By maintaining InDesign edition capabilities, you are adding a tremendous amount of data to the file.

J

jamesb25822464

Participating Frequently

You also can't copy and paste from 2025 to 2026 without it making it in to some sort of eps? WHY?

J

jamesb25822464

Participating Frequently

Sorry, that's either way (2025-2026 & 2026-2025)

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi James,

Your comment appears to be a different matter relative to this post. May I suggest you start a new post and describe your challenge with more detail?

Mike Witherell

J

jamesb25822464

Participating Frequently

I’m experiencing the same issue and have reverted back to the 2025 version until it’s resolved. It’s impossible to run a professional business on software that isn’t consistent. This problem seems to be happening more frequently, likely because the Adobe suite is being updated almost daily. I miss the days when we had properly tested disc or download releases that were updated annually, rather than rushed updates pushed out for the smallest changes.

J

jamesb25822464

Participating Frequently

Looks like the problem could be embeded images in the document.

Any chance this will be fixed?

leo.r

Community Expert

Other users have also reported this issue, here's one of the threads:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/pdf-export-create-very-large-file-since-2026-upgrade/m-p/15584174#M641214

My own tests mentioned in that thread indicate that this indeed might be a valid concern.

B

balpaugh32458

Participant

I create newsletters for a local car club and on October 31st, i exported it to a Adobe PDF (Interactive) file and the result was a 1.5 MB file. today, I attempted the same export but the output is now 131.9 MB and the only change i noticed was Indesign was updated to 2026 version.

The newsletter is 7 pages, but it doesn't matter if i attempt to export all 7 or just 1, the output is always 131.9 MB. If I select to create seperate PDF files, each of the files is about 200KB (which is probably normal) but i need them as a single file in order to upload them to the website.

How can i get this resolved?

TIA

leo.r

Community Expert

Several other users reported the same issue on the forum recently.

I've just run a brief test exporting a small text-only document to PDF from both InDesign 2025 and 2026 using the same settings ([Press Quality] as is), macOS 13.7.

The results:

PDF from InDesign 2025: 14 KB

PDF from InDesign 2026: 192 KB

Additional tests are still required to reach any definite conclusions, but it's quite possible that the concerns regarding PDF sizes produced from InDesign 2026 are valid.

leo.r

Community Expert

I have now exported a heavier multi-page file with multiple hi-res links. The PDF file size from InDesign 2026 remains consistently higher than from 2025 (although not as much as in the previous test):

PDF from InDesign 2025: 6.8 MB

PDF from InDesign 2026: 8.7 MB

N

nathanm10081180

Participant

I am also having this same issue. I am creating files with a bleed FOR PRINT. I am not converting to RGB, as these are CMYK, at a high res for large format printing. This exact file in 2025 was around 18MB. I've updated with small changes to the text, with the same EXACT settings and no changes to the images; the file is now 543MB. This is insanity; what can we do to fix this?