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J
Jonoh-FW
Participating Frequently
January 11, 2022
Question

Reconvert recovered indd files that became PDFs. Possible?

  • January 11, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 592 views

My hard drive crashed with Adobe In Design files on it. I have recovered many files with recovery software. All recovered In Design files were coverted to PDFs by the recovery software. Is there anyway to restore them to In Design files?

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4 replies

J
Jonoh-FWAuthor
Participating Frequently
January 12, 2022

Dear Mr. Jennings, 

Thank you very much for your input and your suggestions were helpful indeed. I did try changing the extensions but to no avail. However, there is software that converts PDFs to INDD files and it seems to work. 

Sincerely,

Jono Hattenbach

Diane Burns
Diane Burns
Inspiring
January 11, 2022

Yes, hopefully it's just a file extension mix-up and changing back will help. If you do have to convert PDFs to .indd for this or other purpose, the best-known product is by Recosoft: https://www.recosoft.com/products/pdf2id/

J
Jonoh-FWAuthor
Participating Frequently
January 12, 2022

Dear Ms. Burns, 

I thought it might be a file extension mix up too and so I tried simply changing the file extension from .pdf to .indd but to no avail. Thankfully, your recommendation of the recosoft software was very helpful. I downloaded the trial and it worked. So thank you.

Sincerely, Jono Hattenbach.

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 11, 2022

There is no way INDD files were converted to PDF this way. There have been numerous reports of file association issues where INDD files somehow became associated with Acrobat instead of InDesign.

 

I'll never understand why operating systems default to hiding file extension because it would be immediately obvious that there was issue with the association.

    J
    Jonoh-FWAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    January 12, 2022

    Dear Mr. Levine, 

    You may well be right. I have no way of knowing for sure. All I do know is that the recovery software recovered all types of files from my hard drive and not a single one was an INDD file which is strange since the majority of the files stored on the drive were INDD files and their respective links. Anyway, as it turns out, I was directed to look into some software called pdf2id that converts PDFs to INDD files. I tried it and it workes so that's a consollation. I may never understand the why on no INDD files being recovered but I do very much understand the vital necessity of always backing up my work. Thank you for your time and effort. 

    Sincerely, 
    Jono Hattenbach

    Scott Falkner
    Community Expert
    Scott FalknerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 14, 2022

    I am very sceptical that a file recovery program was able to recover an InDesign file then open it, relink to the placed graphics, activate any fonts if necessary, export as a PDF, then delete the InDesign file. This is what you are proposing the file recovery program (which has no reason to open InDesign files) did. More likley is that there was already a PDF of the lost InDesign file and that was recovered.

    Luke Jennings3
    Community Expert
    Luke Jennings3Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2022

    Try changing the extension to .indd or .idml, just in case the files are actually InDesign files with the wrong extension. If that doesn't work, google "pdf to InDesign" for options to purchase conversion software, which won't be perfect, but better than nothing. A $60 investment in an external hardrive and auto-backup (like Time Machine on a Mac) is good insurance.

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