Participant

Question

InDesign 2026 "Open PDF" Converts CMYK Images to RGB and Shows 72 PPI

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
February 27, 2026
5 replies
220 views

In InDesign 2026, when you go to use the new “Open PDF” option, all the images open as 72dpi and in RGB mode. Is there a way to change the preferences on the images so the PDF opens in InDesign with a higher dpi and in CMYK mode?

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Katie31619003ocer,

Thanks for sharing the details and for explaining your workflow. I’ve tried reproducing the behavior on my end and can see the same result when opening the PDF using the Open PDF option in InDesign.

I’m currently checking this with the product team to understand whether this is expected behavior with how InDesign handles PDFs when opening them this way. I’ll share an update here as soon as I hear back from them.

Appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Abhishek

JR Boulay

Community Expert

The “Open PDF” function in InDesign is useless, OpenOffice does a much better job (and we know it doesn't handle CMYK anyway).

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

BobLevine

Community Expert

Well, I’m not sure it’s useless, but it’s certainly not very robust, either.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Sorry, excuse my English.
Deepl Translate suggests “sucks” or “rubbish” instead of “useless”.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Image resolution (dpi) is just metadata that does not determine the number of pixels it contains, which is the only thing that really matters.
Copy and paste this URL into Google Translate if you want to understand why you are wasting your time with this outdated concept of dpi:

https://www.abracadabrapdf.net/?p=6451

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

rob day

Community Expert

all the images open as 72dpi and in RGB mode.

Hi @Katie31619003ocer , When you check the image’s Link Info in the Links panel are both the Effective and Actual PPI 72? The Effective PPI is the scaled output resolution.

K

Katie31619003ocerAuthor

Participant

Actual PPI is 72, Effective PPI is 300

rob day

Community Expert

In that case, if you print the page the output resolution of the image is 300 PPI (not 72PPI)

BobLevine

Community Expert

I could be wrong, but AFAIK, InDesign will open the PDF with whatever is in there. Are you sure the images are CMYK?

K

Katie31619003ocerAuthor

Participant

I thought so to.

Basically what I’m trying to do is I have this publisher file that I’m being requested to convert into an InDesign file.

The only way I know how to do that is by making it a PDF first and then opening it in InDesign. *Everytime I export the publisher file as a PDF, it publishes in RGB mode. Even when I use printing preferences, it’s still RGB- I can’t figure out that part but I found a work around.

I then took the PDF file, and converted it to CMYK using the Print Production→ convert color feature.

After that I double checked it, it was in CMYK mode.

I went to open it up in InDesign using the Open PDF feature, and all the links are back to RGB.

I’ve looked everywhere for a preferences option and tried researching it, and I’ve had zero luck solving this problem.

leo.r

Community Expert

Yes, I can reproduce the color problem.

I’ve just opened a PDF with a CMYK image in InDesign, and the image in InDesign is RGB. Plus, InDesign saves the image as PNG, so it can’t be CMYK anyway.

I don’t know if InDesign handles images this way in all PDF files, but that’s what I witnessed in this one test.

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