- InDesign User Guide
- Get to know InDesign
- Introduction to InDesign
- Workspace
- Generative AI
- Introduction to InDesign
- Create and layout documents
- Documents and pages
- Create documents
- Work with parent pages
- Work with document pages
- Set page size, margins, and bleed
- Work with files and templates
- Convert PDFs to InDesign files in InDesign (Beta)
- Create book files
- Add basic page numbering
- Number pages, chapters, and sections
- Convert QuarkXPress and PageMaker documents
- Share content
- Understand a basic managed-file workflow
- Save documents
- Grids
- Layout aids
- Documents and pages
- Add content
- Text
- Add text to frames
- Threading text
- South-East Asian Scripts
- Arabic and Hebrew features in InDesign
- Create type on a path
- Bullets and numbering
- Glyphs and special characters
- Text composition
- Text variables
- Generate QR codes
- Edit text
- Align text
- Wrap text around objects
- Anchored objects
- Linked content
- Format paragraphs
- Format characters
- Typography
- Format text
- Review text
- Spell check and language dictionaries
- Add references
- Styles
- Tables
- Interactivity
- Graphics
- Color and transparency
- Text
- Find and replace
- Share
- Publish
- Place, export, and publish
- Printing
- Extend InDesign
- Automation
- Troubleshooting
Equitable Language: We are replacing non-inclusive language from InDesign 2022 (version 17.0) onwards, to reflect core Adobe values of inclusivity. Any reference to Master page is replaced by Parent page in our Help articles for the English, Danish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Japanese locales.
Export text
You can save all or part of an InDesign story in file formats that you can open later in other applications. Each story in a document exports to a separate document.
InDesign can export text in several file formats, which are listed in the Export dialog box. The formats listed are used by other applications, and they may retain many of the type specifications, indents, and tabs set in your document.
You can save sections of commonly used text and page layout items as snippets.
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Using the Type tool , click in the story you want to export.
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Choose File > Export.
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Specify a name and location for the exported story, and select a text file format under Save as Type (Windows) or Format (Mac OS).
If you don’t see a listing for your word-processing application, you can save the document in a format the application can import, such as RTF. If your word-processing application doesn’t support any other InDesign export formats, use a text-only format. Note, however, that exporting in text-only format removes all character attributes from the text.
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Click Save to export the story in the format you’ve selected.
To retain all formatting, use the Adobe InDesign Tagged Text export filter. For more information, view the Tagged Text PDF at www.adobe.com/go/learn_id_taggedtext_cs5_en (PDF).
Exporting content for the web
To repurpose InDesign content for the web, you have several options:
Dreamweaver (XHTML)
Export a selection or the entire document to a basic, unformatted HTML document. You can link to images on a server or create a separate folder for images. You can then use any HTML editor, such as Adobe Dreamweaver®, to format the content for the web. See Export content to Dreamweaver (CS5).
Copy and paste
Copy text or images from the InDesign document and paste it into your HTML editor.
Adobe PDF
Export a document to Adobe PDF and post the PDF on the web. The PDF can include interactive elements such as movies, sound clips, buttons, and page transitions. See Dynamic PDF documents.
Digital Editions (EPUB)
Export a document or book as a reflowable XHTML-based eBook that is compatible with the Adobe Digital Editions reader software. See Export content for EPUB (CS5).
XML
For advanced repurposing workflows, export the content from InDesign in XML format, which you can then import into an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver. See Working with XML.
Export content to Dreamweaver (CS5)
Exporting to XHTML is an easy way to get your InDesign contents into web-ready form. When you export contents to XHTML, you can control how text and images are exported. InDesign preserves the names of paragraph, character, object, table, and cell styles applied to the exported contents by marking the XHTML contents with CSS style classes of the same name. Using Adobe Dreamweaver or any CSS-capable HTML editor, you can quickly apply formatting and layout to the contents.
What gets exported
InDesign exports all stories, linked and embedded graphics, SWF movie files, footnotes, text variables (as text), bulleted and numbered lists, internal cross-references, and hyperlinks that jump to text or web pages. Tables are also exported, but certain formatting, such as table and cell strokes, is not exported. Tables are assigned unique IDs, so they can be referenced as Spry data sets in Dreamweaver.
What doesn’t get exported
InDesign does not export objects you draw (such as rectangles, ovals, and polygons), movie files (except for SWF), hyperlinks (except for links to web pages and links applied to text that jump to text anchors in the same document), pasted objects (including pasted Illustrator images), text converted to outlines, XML tags, books, bookmarks, SING glyphlets, page transitions, index markers, objects on the pasteboard that aren’t selected and don’t touch the page, or parent page items (unless they’re overridden or selected before export).
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If you’re not exporting the entire document, select the text frames, range of text, table cells, or graphics you want to export.
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Choose File > Export For > Dreamweaver.
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Specify the name and location of the HTML document, and then click Save.
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In the XHTML Export Options dialog box, specify the desired options in the General, Images, and Advanced areas, and then click Export.
A document with the specified name and an .html extension (such as “newsletter.html”) is created; if specified, a web images subfolder (such as “newsletter-web-images”) is saved in the same location.
XHTML export options
In the XHTML dialog box (File > Export For > Dreamweaver), specify the following options.
General options
The General area includes the following options.
Export
Determines whether only the selected items or the entire document is exported. If a text frame is selected, the entire story—including overset text—is exported.
If Document is selected, all page items from all spreads are exported, except for parent page items that have not been overridden and page items on invisible layers. XML tags and generated indexes and tables of contents are also ignored.
Bullets
Select Map To Unordered List to convert bullet paragraphs into List Items, which are formatted in HTML using the <ul> tag. Select Convert To Text to format using the <p> tag with bullet characters as text.
Ordering
Use either the page order or XML structure to determine the reading order of page objects.
If Base On Page Layout is selected, InDesign determines the reading order of page objects by scanning left to right and top to bottom. In some instances, especially in complex, multi-column documents, the design elements may not appear in the desired reading order. Use Dreamweaver to rearrange and format the contents.
If Base On Page Layout is selected, InDesign determines the reading order of page objects according to the document’s binding (left to right or right to left). In some instances, especially in complex, multi-column documents, the exported design elements may not appear in the desired reading order. Use Dreamweaver to rearrange and format the contents.
If Same As XML Structure is selected, the XML Structure panel controls the ordering of the exported content and which content gets exported. If your content is already tagged, you can simply drag the tags in the XML Structure panel to set the XHTML Export order. If your content is not tagged, you can choose Add Untagged Items from the Structure panel menu to generate tags that you can reorder. If you do not want an item to be included in the export, you can simply delete the tag in the XML Structure panel. (Deleting a tag does not delete the content from the INDD file.) See Tag page items.
Numbers
Determines how numbers are converted in the HTML file.
Map To Ordered List
Converts numbered lists into List Items, which are formatted in HTML using the <ol> tag.
Map To Static Ordered List
Converts numbered lists into List Items, but assigns a <value> attribute based on the paragraph’s current number in InDesign.
Convert To Text
Converts numbered lists into paragraphs that begin with the paragraph’s current number as text.
Images options
From the Copy Images menu, determine how images are exported to HTML.
Original
Exports the original image to the web images subfolder. When this option is selected, all other options are dimmed.
Optimized
Lets you change settings to determine how the image is exported.
Formatted
Preserves InDesign formatting, such as rotation or scale, as much as possible for web images.
Image Conversion
Lets you choose whether the optimized images in your document are converted to GIF or JPEG. Choose Automatic to let InDesign decide which format to use in each instance.
GIF Options (Palette)
Lets you control how InDesign handles colors when optimizing GIF files. The GIF format uses a limited color palette, which cannot exceed 256 colors.
Choose Adaptive (No Dither) to create a palette using a representative sample of colors in the graphic without any dithering (mixing of small spots of colors to simulate additional colors). Choose Web to create a palette of web-safe colors that are a subset of Windows and Mac OS system colors. Choose System (Win) or System (Mac) to create a palette using the built-in system color palette. This choice may cause unexpected results.
JPEG Options (Image Quality)
Determines the trade-off between compression (for smaller file sizes) and image quality for each JPEG image created. Low produces the smallest file and lowest image quality.
JPEG Options (Format Method)
Determines how quickly JPEG graphics display when the file containing the image is opened on the web. Choose Progressive to make the JPEG images display gradually and in increasing detail as they are downloaded. (Files created with this option are slightly larger and require more RAM for viewing.) Choose Baseline to make each JPEG file display only after it has been completely downloaded; a placeholder appears in its place until the file displays.
Link To Server Path
Rather than exporting images to a subfolder, this option lets you enter a local URL (such as “images/”) that appears in front of the image file. In the HTML code, the link attribute displays the path and extension you specify. This option is especially effective when you’re converting images to web-compatible images yourself.
InDesign does not check the path you specify for Java™ scripts, external CSS styles, or image folders, so use Dreamweaver to verify paths.
Advanced options
Use the Advanced area to set CSS and JavaScript options.
CSS Options
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a collection of formatting rules that control the appearance of content in a web page. When you use CSS to format a page, you separate content from presentation. The content of your page—the HTML code—resides in the HTML file itself, while the CSS rules defining the presentation of the code reside in another file (an external style sheet) or within the HTML document (usually in the Head section). For example, you can specify different font sizes for selected text, and you can use CSS to control the format and positioning of block-level elements in a web page.
Embedded CSS
When exporting to XHTML, you can create a list of CSS styles that appears in the Head section of the HTML file with declarations (attributes).
If Include Style Definitions is selected, InDesign attempts to match the attributes of the InDesign text formatting with CSS equivalents. If this option is deselected, the HTML file includes empty declarations. You can edit later these declarations in Dreamweaver.
If Preserve Local Overrides is selected, local formatting such as italic or bold is included.
No CSS
Selecting this option omits the CSS section from the HTML file.
External CSS
Specify the URL of the existing CSS style sheet, which is usually a relative URL, such as “/styles/style.css.” InDesign does not check whether the CSS exists or is valid, so you’ll want to use Dreamweaver to confirm your external CSS setup.
JavaScript Options
Select Link To External JavaScript to run a JavaScript when the HTML page is opened. Specify the URL of the JavaScript, which is usually a relative URL. InDesign does not check whether the JavaScript exists or is valid.
Export content for EPUB (CS5)
You can export a document or book as a reflowable eBook in EPUB format that is compatible with the Adobe Digital Editions reader software.
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To export a document, open the document and choose File > Export For > EPUB.
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Specify a filename and location, and then click Save.
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In the Digital Editions Export Options dialog box, specify the desired options in the General, Images, and Contents areas, and then click Export.
InDesign creates a single .epub file containing the XHTML-based content. The exported file includes a JPEG thumbnail image from the first page in the specified document (or the style source document if a book was selected). This thumbnail is used to depict the book in the Digital Editions Reader library view. To view the file, you need the Digital Editions software, which you can download free from the Adobe website.
The .epub file is essentially a .zip file. To view and edit the contents of the .epub file, change the extension from .epub to .zip, and then extract the contents. This is especially useful for editing the CSS file.
EPUB resources
For more information on the EPUB format, see www.idpf.org.
Download a free copy of the Digital Editions reader at www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions.html.
Digital Editions General export options
The General section of the Digital Editions Export Options dialog box includes the following options.
Include Document Metadata
The metadata from the document (or the style source document if a book was selected) is included with the exported file.
Add Publisher Entry
Specify the publisher information that appears in the eBook metadata. You may want you to specify a URL for the publisher so that someone who receives the eBook can visit the web page and purchase the eBook.
Unique Identifier
Every EPUB document requires a unique identifier. You can specify the unique identifier attribute. If you leave this field empty, a unique identifier is automatically created.
Reading Order
If you select Base On Page Layout, the reading order of the page items in the EPUB is determined by their location on the page. InDesign reads from left to right and top to bottom. If you want more control over the reading order, use the XML Tags panel to tag your page items. If you select Same As XML Structure, the order of the tags in Structure View determines the reading order. See Tag page items.
Bullets
Select Map To Unordered List to convert bullet paragraphs into List Items, which are formatted in HTML using the <ul> tag. Select Convert To Text to format using the <p> tag with bullet characters as text.
Numbers
Determines how numbers are converted in the HTML file.
Map To Ordered List
Converts numbered lists into List Items, which are formatted in HTML using the <ol> tag.
Map To Static Ordered List
Converts numbered lists into List Items, but assigns a <value> attribute based on the paragraph’s current number in InDesign.
Convert To Text
Converts numbered lists into paragraphs that begin with the paragraph’s current number as text.
View eBook After Exporting
Starts the Adobe Digital Editions Reader, if present. An alert message appears if your system doesn’t have a reader configured to view .epub documents.
Digital Editions Images options
The Images section of the Digital Editions Export Options dialog box includes the following options. From the Image Conversion menu, determine how images are exported to HTML.
Formatted
Preserves InDesign formatting, such as rotation or scale, as much as possible for web images.
Image Conversion
Lets you choose whether the optimized images in your document are converted to GIF or JPEG. Choose Automatic to let InDesign decide which format to use in each instance.
GIF Options (Palette)
Lets you control how InDesign handles colors when optimizing GIF files. The GIF format uses a limited color palette, which cannot exceed 256 colors.
Choose Adaptive to create a palette using a representative sample of colors in the graphic without any dithering (mixing of small spots of colors to simulate additional colors). Choose Web to create a palette of web-safe colors that are a subset of Windows and Mac OS system colors. Choose System (Win) or System (Mac) to create a palette using the built‑in system color palette. This choice may cause unexpected results.
Select Interlace to display a slowly loaded image gradually by filling in missing lines. If this option is not select, an image looks fuzzy and gradually becomes clear as the image reaches full resolution.
JPEG Options (Image Quality)
Determines the trade-off between compression (for smaller file sizes) and image quality for each JPEG image created. Low produces the smallest file and lowest image quality.
JPEG Options (Format Method)
Determines how quickly JPEG graphics display when the file containing the image is opened on the web. Choose Progressive to make the JPEG images display gradually and in increasing detail as they are downloaded. (Files created with this option are slightly larger and require more RAM for viewing.) Choose Baseline to make each JPEG file display only after it has been completely downloaded; a placeholder appears in its place until the file displays.
Digital Editions Contents options
The Contents section of the Digital Editions Export Options dialog box includes the following options.
Format For EPUB Content
Specify whether you want to use the XHTML or DTBook format.
Include InDesign TOC Entries
Select this option if you want to generate a table of contents on the left side of the eBook. From the TOC Style menu, specify the TOC style you want to use in the eBook. You can choose Layout > Table Of Contents Styles to create a special TOC style for your eBook.
Suppress Automatic Entries For Documents
Select this option if you don’t want the document names to appear in the eBook table of contents. This option is especially useful when you’re creating an eBook from a book.
Use First Level Entries As Chapter Breaks
Select this options to split the ebook into multiple files, with each file beginning with the first level TOC entry. If a content file exceeds 260kb, a new chapter begins at the start of a paragraph between first level entries to help avoid the 300kb limit.
Generate CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a collection of formatting rules that control the appearance of content in a web page. When you use CSS to format a page, you separate content from presentation.
Include Style Definitions
When exporting to EPUB, you can create a list of CSS styles that can be edited.
Preserve Local Overrides
If this option is selected, local formatting such as italic or bold is included.
Include Embeddable Fonts
Includes in the eBook all fonts that are allowed to be embedded. Fonts include embedding bits that determine whether the font is allowed to be embedded.
Style Names Only
Selecting this option includes only undefined style names in the EPUB stylesheet.
Use Existing CSS File
Specify the URL of the existing CSS style sheet, which is usually a relative URL, such as “/styles/style.css.” InDesign does not check whether the CSS exists or is valid, so you’ll want to confirm your CSS setup.
Export content to Buzzword
Buzzword is a web-based text editor that lets users create and store text files on a web server. When you export a story to Buzzword, you create a text file on the Buzzword server.
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Select text or place the insertion point in a text frame that is part of the story you want to export.
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Do one of the following:
In InDesign choose File > Export For > Buzzword.
In InCopy choose File > Export to Buzzword.
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If you haven’t already signed in to CS Live, click Sign In, specify your e-mail address and password, and then click Sign In.
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In the Export Story For Buzzword dialog box, specify the name of the Buzzword document to be created and then click OK.
The Buzzword document is opened on Acrobat.com. You can then move the document to a different workspace and share it with other people.
Use the web color swatch library
InDesign includes a color swatch library called Web, which consists of the colors most web browsers use to display text and graphics in web pages. The 216 colors in the library, often called web-safe colors, are consistent across platforms, because they are a subset of the colors that browsers use in both Windows and Mac OS. The web-safe colors in InDesign are the same as those in the Adobe Photoshop web-safe color palette and the Adobe Illustrator browser-safe color palette.
Each color in the library is named by its RGB values. Each color’s hexadecimal code, which HTML uses to define the color, is stored within the color swatch.
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ChooseNew Color Swatch in the Swatches panel menu.
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For Color Mode, choose Web.
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Select the web-safe color, and then click OK.
Do more with Adobe InDesign
Create and publish ebooks, brochures, flyers, postcards, posters, interactive page layouts, and more with Adobe InDesign.