Silke26942355lb04

Participant

Question

Convert PDf to editable Indesign file (Indesign 20.5)

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
October 22, 2025
2 replies
259 views

Dear community,

I have Indesign 20.5 and read, that you can open pdf documents in this version now and edit them. Unfortunately every pdf I try to open is greyed out and I can't select the files and I don't know, where the problem is. I tested my own pdf files and they don't work as well. Drag and Drop just inserts the pdf into Indesign as usual. Is there anything in the preferences I need to change?
Thank you for your help 🙂

Import and export

Community Expert

Community Expert

If you drag a PDF into an InDesign document, it will Place it.

If you drag a PDF into InDesign (while no documents are open) it will convert it.

At best, this gets you about halfway converted into a new InDesign document. There will still be a lot of cleanup and rebuild necessary.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Community Expert

Are you absolutely sure you didn't open an earlier version of InDesign? What operating system are you on?

Silke26942355lb04Author

Participant

Dear BobLevine, my system is Sequoia 15.5 and my Macbook is relatively old (2019). I just checked my Indesign Version and it says 20.5.