"Cannot place this file. invalid png file indesign" WHY??

[Agnes Sellgren]

I have been working on a document many times and lately everyday and today when opening it, I get this message "cannot place this file. invalid png file indesign" and I cannot export a PDF from it due to that message. Why is this happening suddenly? 

What can I do? Please help

[Peter Spier]

It will help to know your OS and version of InDesign.

That message is not, of course, terribly helpful, so we have to guess. It sounds like th file acually opens, so let's presume the message means waht it says and you have an invalid (for some reason) .png file that you have tried to link.

Have you checked the links panel to see if there's an indicator for which file is the problem? Is it on your hard drive or some other location? Have you tried relinking it? Can you open the problem file in Photoshop?

[Agnes Sellgren · Accepted solution]

It actually just working. I have my files from a Sharepoint folder synced to my computer and when i re-synced it worked again, so I guess that was the issue. Thanks so much for your reply anyway 🙂

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Linking files and working directly out of an active synced system (like Sharepoint, Dropbox, Google Drive) is a recipe for eventual disaster. Adobe does not support nor recommends this workflow.

[Willi Adelberger]

Where does the PNG come from? I ask, because there are several flairs of PNGs, not all are compatible to Adobe InDesign. E.g., there exists a PNG from Macromedia/Adobe Fireworks. 

As I see, that those forms you show in your screenshoot are also available as vector files. Best if they are AI, PDF/X-4. Could you use them instead? The quality would be better with veector files anyway.

[renasty]

hey, i have the same problem.

but even when I link the pictures again etc, its not working.

i switched from my imac adobe 2017 to a new computer adobe 2025, and i cant open any of my indesign documents. everytime the same error comes up.

Even when i tried to open the pictures in photoshop and saved them again as PNG. its saying theres a error with the volume..

I also packed the documents and tried again but nothing seems to work.

[Willi Adelberger]

If you open it in Photoshop anyway, why do you save it as PNG. Save it as PSD or TIFF in Photoshop and use that file. My recommendation is alway: Avoid PNG files in InDesign.

[renasty]

hey, because the pictures are cut out and have no background (trasparent) so i can layer the pictures diffrently.

[Peter Spier]

Boith .psd and .tif support transparent backgrounds...

[Willi Adelberger]

TIFF, PSD, PDF and PDP have more and better transparency models than PNG does. Additionally they support all color modes, color profiles and layer compositions. Therefore I don't understand why you prefer PNG over the good file types. 

PDF/PDP support also text and vectors,  PNG doesn't. 

[Willi Adelberger]

For layering an image use layer compositions.