Open an InDesign document and select File > Publish Online.
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Learn how to publish, share, and manage InDesign documents online.
The Publish Online feature of InDesign helps you repurpose your print documents by creating their digital version. You can publish and share any InDesign document, from a simple PDF to an interactive document with buttons, slideshows, animation, audio, and video.
Try the app
Follow along with any project to learn how to publish InDesign documents online.
Check out these sample interactive documents:
Sharing options
You can choose to share your published documents on Twitter and over email. You can also provide your viewers with the option to download your document as PDF.
Publish an InDesign document online
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Select the General tab to add the following information:
- Title: Enter the name of the online document. This is also the browser title of the published output.
- Description: Enter the description of the online document. You'll view the description in the Publish Online dashboard and on any social media forums.
- Pages: Select to export All or a Range of pages from the current document.
- Export As: Select Single or Spread to specify the display settings.
- Enable Password Protection: By default, password protection is disabled. Toggle it on to set a password for your Publish Online document. Only viewers with the password can access the document.
If you are republishing an existing document, select Update Existing Document and select the appropriate document title from the Choose an existing document to update drop-down list. Change the publish online settings as required. You can even apply password protection to your existing online documents. You can not retrieve passwords for already published documents with password protection enabled. If you have forgotten your document's password, select Reset Password to create a new one.
- Title: Enter the name of the online document. This is also the browser title of the published output.
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Select the Advanced tab to add the following information:
- Cover thumbnail: Select the cover for your published document. When you upload it, this thumbnail is displayed in the Publish Online dialog with the title and description.
- First Page: Select this if you want to use the first page of the InDesign document as the cover thumbnail.
- Select Page: Select this if you want to use a specific page of the InDesign document to be used as the cover thumbnail.
- Upload image: Select an external image as the cover thumbnail.
- Image Settings: Specify how the images of the documents are to be exported.
- Format: InDesign decides how the document images should be exported by keeping the best balance between quality and file size. The available options are JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
- Resolution: Select the resolution of the image.
- JPEG Image Quality: Select the image quality of the published document. This field is enabled only when the image Format is set to Automatic or JPEG.
- GIF Options Palette: Select a color palette for optimal rendering. This field is enabled only when the image Format is set to Automatic or GIF.
- Format: InDesign decides how the document images should be exported by keeping the best balance between quality and file size. The available options are JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
- Download PDF Settings: Select the appropriate PDF Preset to download the document as a PDF.
- More Settings:
- Allow viewers to download the document as a PDF (Print): Select this option to allow users to download your document in PDF print format.
- Hide the Share and Embed options in the published document: Select this option to hide the Share and Embed options on your published document.
- Allow viewers to Search and Copy text in the published document: Viewers can search and copy text from the published document. This option is enabled by default with InDesign 18.4 and later. You can search for text within your published documents on any device. However, you can only copy text from published documents on desktops and laptops.
- Allow viewers to download the document as a PDF (Print): Select this option to allow users to download your document in PDF print format.
- Cover thumbnail: Select the cover for your published document. When you upload it, this thumbnail is displayed in the Publish Online dialog with the title and description.
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Select the Analytics tab to link your Google Analytics to your published document. You can also check the Enable cookie banner on my document to add a cookie notice.
Note:Documents published from InDesign 19.0 onwards will no longer support integrated analytics from the dashboard. You can integrate Google Analytics to track insights into your documents.
Analytics for documents published from the previous versions of InDesign will continue to be collected until November 30, 2024, after which no new analytics will be collected.
You can download historical analytics data collected in InDesign 19.0 or earlier from the Publish Online dashboard.
All historical analytics data will be removed from the dashboard on January 1, 2025.
The earlier plan to stop analytics for documents published from previous versions of InDesign (before 19.0) was October 15, 2024. This plan was deferred to ensure a stable transition for users dependent on the feature. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out to us at sharewithID@adobe.com.
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Select Export HTML5 Package if you want to export your InDesign document as an HTML5 package. Learn more about the HTML5 package.
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Select Publish to publish your document online.
You can select Cancel Upload to stop the upload process or Close to minimize the dialog and continue working on other InDesign documents.
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After the document is published, you can View Document, Copy the link, Share it on social networks, or visit the Publish Online Dashboard.
Use a verified user ID to publish InDesign document. Unverified users will no longer have the ability to publish InDesign documents.
Limitation:
When you embed a password-protected document with multiple pages, you'll need to re-enter the password each time you switch pages using the dropdown menu.
Published document
The published online document provides a number of viewing and sharing options.
Toggle Thumbnails icon |
Show/Hide the thumbnail dock that displays the thumbnails for all the pages in the published output. |
Zoom in icon or Zoom out icon |
Zoom in or out of the current page. |
Full Screen icon |
View the current page in full screen mode. |
Share icon |
Opens the Share Publication dialog that provides options to copy the current document URL or share the document on Facebook, Twitter, or by email. |
Download PDF icon |
Download the output in the PDF-Print format. Appears only if you've selected Allow viewers to download the document as a PDF (Print) before publishing the document. |
Report Abuse icon |
Opens the Report Abuse dialog. This dialog provides the options for the type of abuse and your details. |
More options icon |
Select the Embed icon to copy the code and embed the published document on your website. Select the Volume icon to turn it on or off. |
Find in page icon |
Select More options icon > Find in page icon to search text in a published document. This option is available on touch devices only. |
Recently published documents
The Recently Published menu displays the list of the last five documents published.
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Go to File > Recently Published to view the recently published documents list.
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Select a document to open in your default browser.
Publish online is now more secure!
On using embedded HTML content in InDesign documents, InDesign now supports selected websites for publishing these documents online.
Any unsupported HTML content will appear blocked in the published document.
Documents published online via the Publish Online feature can only be opened in TLS 1.2-supported browsers.
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