Indesign CS4

Indesign CS4

Many of us have been there.

Try to work on an Indesign file only to find out that the last person who saved it was using a newer version of Indesign than we have.

Adobe was somewhat prepared for this and offers us the ability to save it as an .INX file to use in the previous version of Indesign. That’s fine and dandy if you’re trying to go from CS3-CS2 or CS4-CS3.

Now, if you’re fortunate enough to own all three versions (or have an imaging department that needs them, like us!) Then you can save from CS4 to CS3, open it in CS3 and save down to CS2, and from there do whatever editing you need to do. Unfortunately most of us don’t own several versions of Indesign.In fact, a lot of us don’t even have the latest version or the version before that! (hence the need for this post)

adobe indesign cs2

Indesign CS2

But what about skipping two versions of Indesign?  I don’t think Adobe wants us to do that, otherwise they would have included it, right?

Well,  sorry Adobe, but sometimes we just have work that needs to get done and get done now. Printing is a deadline oriented business don’t forget.

Well, one of my awesome co-workers taught me a little trick (hack) that may help you out in a pinch. (*Editors note:  This really should only be used in a pinch as there are new features every version that may not convert down properly)

1. Save the project in Indesign CS4 as an .INX file as you would normally to convert it to CS3.

2. Right Click & Open the .INX file in your favorite plain text editor. ( BBEdit for Mac users or Notepad / Notepad++ for PC users)

3. The first line of text reads:

<?aid style=”33″ type=”document” DOMVersion=”6.0″ readerVersion=”5.0″ featureSet=”257″ product=”6.0(352)” ?>

and change some of the numbers to read (the ones in boldface)

<?aid style=”33″ type=”document” DOMVersion=”5.0″ readerVersion=”4.0″ featureSet=”257″ product=”5.0(662)” ?>

Presto Change-O, you should now be able to open that .INX file in Indesign CS2.

Again,  I’d like to mention that this should should only be done if necessary.

Down saving even one version the proper way has caused me text wrap and effects issues in the past. So be sure to carefully inspect the file after you have converted and keep a backup of the original CS4 file. This trick obviously works better for people with simple Indesign files. The more complex the greater the likelihood of compatibility issues when down saving.