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Participant
June 26, 2019
Question

Is there an easy way to convert an FM 2019 file to an FM 2017 file

  • June 26, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 776 views

A contractor sent in some FM files that I cannot open. He worked on them in a trial version of FM 2019. I only have FM 2017. Is there an easy way to convert the FM 2019 files to FM 2017?

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    4 replies

    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 23, 2020

    Make sure you are fully patched up in FM2017 when trying to open the "Saved As 2017" file version. If it still doesn't work, go the MIF route.

    pulkitn
    Adobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    June 27, 2019

    You can do that in 2 ways :

    • Save FM2019 version files to Previous version i.e FM2017 version ".fm" format
    • Or you can save to MIF format which can be opened in any of these version.

    Known Participant
    January 23, 2020

    I did a save as to FrameMake 2017 on a machine with FrameMaker 2019.  When I try to open it on in Frame 2017 it fails (saying it was created from a different version of Frame).

    Community Expert
    January 24, 2020

    Hi Zerkfitting,

     

    Are you really sure that you saved the files as FM 2017?

    I know that you can miss this easily.

    You can check the version, when you open the FM file with a text editor. In the first line it says <MakerFile 15.0> for FM 2019 and <MakerFile 14.0> for FM 2017. Of course do not save in the text editor!

     

    And of course MIF works as well.

     

    Best regards

     

    Winfried

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 26, 2019

    FWIW, I always run the last two versions. I've had 2017 and 2019 running together since 2019 was released with no issues.

    ~Barb

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 26, 2019

    Cleanest way: put a trial version of FM2019 on another machine. Open the file. Save as 2017 (it's an option), or as MIF.

     

    Adventurous way: try a heroic open, if it still exists in FM2017.

    LinSims
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 26, 2019

    Why on another machine? You can have more than one version of Frame on a machine at a time.

    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    June 26, 2019

    You can, but probably shouldn't, if you want to keep your production environment clean.