Hi all,

Lots of familiar names here from MacUser - so hi to everyone.

I have an InDesign CS5 file which I need to be able to put onto another Mac which only has CS2 on it (PowerPC). Reason being is that the job will be redesigned in Quark and access to the file names used in the InDesign layout is needed - nothing more, so if any fancy stuff that CS5 has gets lost in CS2 - then no worries.

I have read that I need CS5, CS4, CS3 and CS2 in order to back save the document, but I only have CS2 and CS5. It is quite a chunky 270+ Mb file, but I am hoping somebody here will be able to help me in getting the file back to CS2. It is a fairly sensitive document because it is a priced brochure, so I obviously need a bit of trust here, too.

Thanks in advance and please send me a PM if you are willing and able to help.

Jonathan

I've got four, three, two and one, so if you backsave to four, I can go from there.

Hi tombolt. Good to see you again.

If it is OK by you, I will get it back-saved and uploaded to our ftp space and let you have the details tomorrow. Very much appreciated.

Jonathan

Hi tombolt,

PM sent with ftp details.

Jonathan

All done.

Wow. What a retarded problem caused by Adobe being totally obstructive, but an excellent example of x404 "community spirit". Kudos to tombolt!

Unfortunately it didn't work as the images need to be present for it to include the paths in each backsave. It is, as you say, retarded.

Super-obvious question, but is there really no other save format available that might help? For example, in AutoCAD you can save to DXF which everyone and their goat can read. I used to have CS2 installed and I'm sure it had loads of export options, but I guess it's the specific file data that's important here.

Is it encoded in a readable way? Is there any other format that Quark would understand? XML for example? If so, I could probably just rip the required data out with a macro.

I've had success with PDFs, opened in Illustrator. It's a clumsy way to solve a simple problem caused by what is, essentially, Adobe's greed.

The issue is the links to the images. The only format that keeps them is adobe interchange format. Unfortunately, if the images aren't linked when you backsave, it forgets where they're located and what they're called!

Strangely, this bizarre down-saving restriction is only enforced on InDesign - other apps in the CS stable, such as Illustrator, can happily back-save to any earlier version. Photoshop can usually read later versions of the file format, just dropping off any special effects that aren't native to that earlier version.

Go figure, as the Yanks say.

Jonathan, I would try the InDesign Interchange Format on CS5 with all the images linked and present, then let Tom have another crack at it. Or, do a "Package" (under the File menu) which is the equivalent to Quark's "Collect for Output" - this will also collate all the separate elements into one folder, ZIP that folder and upload it for Tom. Of course, it might be too large to do this?

Other option is, like Heather says, export a high-res PDF from InDesign CS5, then assuming you have Illustrator open this to extract the relevant bits. You can copy the images, open Photoshop and create a new document (which will use the clipboard dimensions and resolution) and paste the image into the new Photoshop document. Re-save this into whatever format you need to import into Quark. Bit long-winded, especially if you have lots of images in the layout, but should work if you've got the time to do it. You could also open the PDF in Acrobat Professional (if you have it) to extract the bits you need, right-click on images with the "Object Touch-up" tool and select "Edit Image" which will open that image in Photoshop - go to File > Save as, making sure you save it somewhere else other than the default "Temporary Items" folder (so you can assess it in Quark!). The Temporary Items folder location is because that feature is designed to edit the image in Photoshop and re-save it back into the PDF, hence the reason why you do a "Save as" rather than a simple "Save".

Wish I could help, but we're mainly on InDesign CS2, with just the one copy of InDesign CS5 - nothing inbetween!!

He did have the images linked, it loses them when I save from 4 to 3, unfortunately it's over a gig of images!

The problem with back-saving various versions of InDesign is that Adobe have significantly changed the data structure in the most recent version. Also if you have to go back too many versions you increase the risk of changing the layout because there are too many features missing from the older versions.

I still do the majority of my work in InDesign CS3, but one of my regular clients is now on CS5. I have to very carefully check my back saved versions to ensure that I spot all the items that have changed in the transition. Rounded corner boxes and rules seem to fare the worst.

Finally be thankful you're not having to save all the way back to CS1 as there's a nasty bug that causes InDesign to crash trying to open INX files containing images with Colour Management switched on...