Flash Formats removed from InDesign
Flash Player EOL

Adobe decides to stop updating and distributing Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourages content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to new open formats, such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly.

Check out Adobe's detailed announcement: Flash and the Future of Interactive Content.


What's changed for InDesign

InDesign removed the support for placing, importing, exporting, and linking Flash files, such as .FLV, .F4V, and .SWF. If you try to import any of these files, an error message is displayed. 

Following dialogs are changed:

  • SWF Preview (Windows > Interactive > SWF Preview) is no longer available now.
  • Links panel (Window > Links) will show missing links for the linked or embedded Flash format graphics.

The options related to Flash formats are removed from the following dialogs:

  • Export Options dialog (File > Export)
  • Animation and Timing panels (Window > Interactive > Animation) and (Window > Interactive > Timing) 
  • Media panel (Window > Interactive > Media)
  • Page Transition (Window > Interactive > Page Transition) 
  • Object States Panel (Window > Interactive > Object States) 
  • Buttons and Forms Panel (Window > Interactive > Buttons and Forms) 
Tip

To use your flash format assets, convert the assets into a non-Flash format.


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