Publish Online FAQ

Last updated on Jun 2, 2026

Get answers to frequently asked questions about publishing online using Adobe InDesign.

Publish Online lets you repurpose your print documents by publishing them online. You can publish a digital version of an InDesign document that works on any device, in any modern web browser, without the need to install a plug-in.

For a richer document-viewing experience, you can publish an interactive InDesign document that includes buttons, slideshows, animations, audio, and video using InDesign's interactive authoring features.

After you publish your documents, you can share the online document URL so anyone can view them in a beautiful, simple online reading experience, available on any device or platform. With a single click, you can quickly share the online document on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, or over email. The document can also be embedded on any website or blog using the embed code provided by clicking the embed option on the viewing layout.

All you need to get started with Publish Online is the latest version of Adobe InDesign. Create a document you want to publish online and select File > Publish Online.

No login is needed. Anyone with a link to the published document can view the document in any web browser. But you need to be online to view a Publish Online document.

You can view Publish Online documents in any modern web browser on any desktop or mobile device. The document's reading layout adapts to the device to provide the best viewing experience. After publishing/re-publishing your file with InDesign, you can search for text within your published documents on any device. While you can only search text from touch devices, you can search and copy text from desktops and laptops.

You can share Publish Online documents in multiple ways: share the URL with anyone via a hyperlink in email, post it to Facebook or Twitter, or embed the document in a website or blog using the embed code. Yes. Follow these steps to edit and re-publish published documents:

  1. Update the InDesign file to create the published document.
  2. Select File > Publish Online.
  3. Select Update Existing Document in the Publish Online dialog box.
  4. Select a document to update from the dropdown menu, then select OK.

Your updated document has been republished to the same URL.

The Publish Online Dashboard lets you view, manage, and delete all published documents. Select File > Publish Online Dashboard to view the InDesign online dashboard. To delete the document, select Documents, select the more options icon, then select Delete.

Publish Online documents are hosted on Adobe servers. Each published document is assigned its own unique URL. You can embed or link to hosted content on your site, but Publish Online currently does not support hosting content on your server.

Usually, the files hosted for Publish Online are not very large unless you embed large videos in the published document. We don't limit the size of documents you can publish using Publish Online, so keep them coming. But if you want an optimal reading experience with Publish Online Documents, we recommend encoding your videos as MP4s and keeping them small.

Currently, there is no limit on the number of documents Adobe will host for you, as long as you're using the system fairly. Keep creating and publishing.

The only time Adobe may stop hosting your documents is if we notice you're spamming the system with too many Publish Online documents.

For paid Creative Cloud memberships, including InDesign Single App plans, Adobe will host Publish Online documents until you delete them.

Your documents will remain hosted on Adobe servers for at least 90 days after your membership expires. Adobe may choose to stop hosting after the 90-day period.

Yes, you can use all the features of Publish Online with a free Creative Cloud membership and an InDesign free trial. After your free trial ends, Adobe may stop hosting your documents after 90 days unless you convert your trial to a paid membership.

No, these contain different types of documents:

Yes, Publish Online is available as part of the Creative Cloud for Enterprise plan, but Publish Online documents can only be published to Adobe servers.
Publish Online is not available for Creative Cloud for Enterprise with Managed Services. See the Creative Cloud for Enterprise with Managed Services FAQ for more information.

Yes, access to Publish Online can be managed in your Admin Console, just as with other Creative Cloud applications and services.

Whether you're creating a new InDesign document or updating an existing one, select Allow viewers to Search and Copy text in the published document in the Publish Online dialog box before publishing the document.

Talk to us

We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts with the Adobe InDesign Community.

Go to the Feature Request and Bug Report Submission Form, select InDesign from the Select Product dropdown menu, and complete the form to submit your feature request or bug report.