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Participant
July 11, 2018
Question

InDesign file turns into an Illustrator file, and won't open

  • July 11, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 1087 views

Hi There,

I have had this problem a few times, and I'm not sure how to fix it or why it happens.

I was working on an InDesign document yesterday and when I went to open it up today, I noticed its icon on my desktop had switched to an Illustrator icon... and is labeled as such as well. When I double click on the document and tries to open up the document in illustrator... to which I get the message "The file "XXXX" is in an unknown format and cannot be opened." Which, of course, it can't be opened b/c it is actually an InDesign document... And, I can't open from InDesign, b/c InDesign does not recognize it.

HELP!

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    4 replies

    Legend
    October 16, 2018

    Whatever weird thing has happened to your computer, I suggest you give up on both double click and right click open, and instead use File > Open in the right app.

    Participant
    October 16, 2018

    More fun for me with my adobe apps. I updated my apps yesterday (photoshop, illustrator, indesign, XD) and all of my illustrator documents are showing up as XD documents now. I am able to open them up by right clicking on the in the finder and using the "open with" command to open them correctly in illustrator. Once I do that, I must "save as" an illustrator file.

    Unfortunately, I am still having problems with these "converted" illustrator files. For instance, when I try to "export" as jpeg using artboards... I get more illustrator files!!! not jpegs... and the illustrator files are just a picture of the artboard, with no layers.

    So, now, not only will I need to open every XD document on my computer and revert it back to an illustrator document, I am still not guaranteed that these new illustrator files will even behave properly and as expected.

    Has anyone had these problems? And can ANYONE at adobe help me?

    I am on Windows!

    jane-e
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 12, 2018

    What is the name of the file, including the extension? Are you on Mac or Windows?

    Participant
    July 11, 2018

    I actually opened it up from InDesign by showing "All Files." I'm still not sure why this keeps happening!

    Steve Werner
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 11, 2018

    It may help to uninstall InDesign (from the CC desktop app) and then reinstall it again to restore the proper desktop icons.

    Legend
    July 11, 2018

    When you save the file, do you put a dot in the name? If so, don't.