InDesign Help

Here’s the scenario: you’re an early adapter and got your little hands on a brand new copy of CS3 two months ago. You play with the new features, make a great document and send it to your printer. Then you get the call, you’re document can’t be opened due to a missing plug-ins error. This seems odd to you as you just got CS3, not many plug-ins are available and you’re certainly not using any of them. Here’s the situation.

InDesign CS2 doesn’t open up InDesign CS3 files; it won’t, it can’t, it doesn’t want to and there’s no use trying. While CS2 can’t open your CS3 *.indd files it can open your CS3 *.inx file. To make sure there are no snags in getting your CS3 file printed by your non-early-adapting print shop you should:

Package your file. File>package. This creates a folder with your *.indd, a links folder and a fonts folder ready to go.

1. Export (File > Export) your file in InDesign Interchange format (*.inx)
2. Put the .inx file in the links folder, that way when it gets opened it will automatically relink.
3. Send it to your printer, who must have the most updated version of InDesign CS2, which is version 4.05 (as of 7-3-07).
4. Your printer opens up the .inx file from the links folder. The inx file opens as an CS2 indd file and automatically relinks.

Simple, easy, no problem. About two extra steps to save a a lot headaches.