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AlcoFloo
AlcoFloo
Participant
October 25, 2018
Question

Import remarks PDF - Indesign

  • October 25, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 1102 views

By trying out the new option "import Pdf remarks" an error appears which forbid to import the remarks of the pdf file via a customer.

Message:

This pdf file is made with an older version of Indesign. Select an other PDF document to go on.

This means that I have to rewrite all the older pdf files which where made with an older version of Indesign?

Or did I missed some information why this is happing.

Maybe somebody else also had this problem and help me out

Thanks in advance

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    P
    Pijnacker01
    Participating Frequently
    October 25, 2018

    Hello @AlcoFloo, goedemorgen, As an alternative (not free), you could use a third-party PDF converter for InDesign. This will import your PDFs of any sort, with annotations from Acrobat or even Preview. Difference is. You get a new file, fully converted from the PDF. But you can use that to compare with your original to make the changes.

      AlcoFloo
      AlcoFlooAuthor
      Participant
      October 25, 2018

      Hi DavidMWE​. Thanks this could be something to try out. To make over 200 pdf files is not do able. Thanks for your help.

        Jongware
        Community Expert
        JongwareCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 25, 2018

        > This means that I have to rewrite all the older pdf files which where made with an older version of InDesign?

        That is indeed the case.

        > Or did I missed some information why this is happing.

        You did not miss anything. It is not mentioned at all in the Online Help at Import PDF comments.

        As for why, though, I find myself wondering what the technical reason is about needing the same version. DTPTools' Annotations (DTP Tools - Annotations for Adobe InDesign ) does not have such a random limitation.

        Yes, I DO consider this "random". There seems to be some new meta-information added to the PDF that states that it indeed was written using a certain version of InDesign, but it is entirely inconsequential. PDF Annotations are in no way linked to a particular text, and it should not have mattered how and where that PDF came from.

          L
          Community Expert
          LaubenderCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          October 25, 2018

          Hi Jongware,

          I can tell about the "why".

          InDesign CC 2019 is exporting special comments to a PDF when exported.

          So called PieceInfo. This is required to identify specific stories and other things:

          You can inspect the PieceInfo with Acrobat Pro DC.

          Go to Print Production > Preflight > Options > Browse Internal PDF structure…

          To rely on special PieceInfo that is written to a PDF is the backbone of the feature.

          A design decision that was made just from starting to build InDesign's PDF Comments feature, I guess.

          Regards,

          Uwe

          Jongware
          Community Expert
          JongwareCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          October 25, 2018

          Laubender  wrote

          To rely on special PieceInfo that is written to a PDF is the backbone of the feature.

          A design decision that was made just from starting to build InDesign's PDF Comments feature, I guess.

          Hi Uwe,

          Ah, the PieceInfo is new. But no, that cannot be the reason this only works with freshly exported documents.

          The information in there might be useful for something else but it cannot be for use with Annotations. If you add an annotation to a piece of text in Acrobat (or with any other software), there still is no connection between that annotation and this new PieceInfo. Other software cannot create such a link either -- it would not know what to do with that PieceInfo! So there is still no link of any kind between any random annotation and the physical text in InDesign, other than its x/y position.

          (Straying off-topic but perhaps Adobe is planning to allow opening such a PDF into InDesign again. Now that requires additional metadata of this kind.)

            Steve Werner
            Community Expert
            Steve WernerCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            October 25, 2018

            The new feature only works with PDF files made with InDesign CC 2019. Only InDesign CC 2019 saves PDF files with the necesssary metadata to postion comments.

            Workaround: Open the InDesign file in CC 2019 and export a new PDF file. Then in Acrobat in the old PDF file with the comments, choose Export Data in the Form tool and import the comments into the new PDF file.

            L
            Community Expert
            LaubenderCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            October 25, 2018

            Hi AlcoFloo ,

            to make the new feature PDF Comments work, InDesign CC 2019 needs a PDF that is exported, not done otherwise, with CC 2019. And only with that. As a workaround you could export the PDF and import the comments of the old PDF with Acrobat Pro DC's Comments feature.

            Regards,
            Uwe

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