Upgrading from InDesign CS6: Exploring Modern HTML Export Options in the Cloud Version

[BlueJeanBaby]

This from a friend - can anyone help?.....

"I did a layout for someone with the intent of it becoming a web page in the end. I used Indesign, version 6, still saving money with using that.  When I export to HTML, the person doing the actual web page work on this tells me it does not work with the modern tools they use today. My CS6 is 12 years old.  What kind of export option does the cloud version of indesign have?  And can you just export a layout to some sort of HTML or what ever the new standard is and have that come pretty close to what was intended?"

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Mike Witherell]

Hello L. A. Lady,

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/export-to-html5.html

and

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/adobe-indesign-max-release-generate-html5-output...

Pretty close to what was intended? Yes. especially with the SVG option turned on.

[Derek Cross]

You might be better off producing an InDesign Publish Online document.

[JR Boulay]

Using InDesing 2025 you just have to export to "HTML5".

Otherwise you must use the Gilbert Consulting script "Export FXL HTML": https://gilbertconsulting.com/scripts

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The current version of InDesign has two HTML export options. I've used the existing, now called "Legacy" version to export documents in basic HTML for some time  — note, that's "documents" and not "web sites" or "interactive fun fests." As a basic tool to get from the convenience of design and layout in ID to a pretty good (or better) HTML document, it's not a bad feature. And although the function is glitched, you can add CSS style code to the export to convert and/or fine-tune the result, getting you closer to a final version of an HTML doc with simple export and not laborious format-fixing afterwards.

The caveats here are —

• It's a fairly simple feature and does not do an exhaustive job of matching and mapping InDesign layouts; if you're looking for a page-image of your ID work, you'll need to look elsewhere.
• It has an apparently permanent glitch of writing the user CSS file into the result ahead of the default CSS, meaning your styles are wholly or partially ignored or masked. You have to edit-swap the two lines in every single export.
• It became "Legacy" with the release of v20, so it's all but unsupported and not likely to ever get development attention again.

But as I said, I've found it quite useful to get from a good composition system to pretty clean HTML.

The new kid on the block is bizarrely named "HTML5 Export" and appears to be a subset of the newish Publish Online feature, exporting a fairly well-mapped page by page layout using HTML/CSS, but without hooking it to the PO host platform. You may find it useful if —

• You want a page-like mapping of your ID work to HTML;
• Don't mind that the export code is extremely convoluted and essentially beyond further editing;
• And don't want to have your 'publication' locked to the PO infrastructure.

The third option is the In5 plugin, which by all accounts does an excellent job of converting InDesign to HTML, with many options, excellent customer support and continual/updated development. It is a bit on the costly side unless it's something you're going to use day in and day out. That is, it can easily be worth it if you produce a lot of HTML output and want to use ID as your design tool; it gets pretty costly on a project-by-project basis if you only export a project a few times a month or less.