Community Expert

Question

Troubleshooting 101: Export to .idml or .inx to clear file corruption

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
November 19, 2009
28 commentaire
223070 vue

Sometimes a particular InDesign file may behave badly (if all your files are doing strange things, see Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences ). In such cases the first thing to try is export to .inx if you have CS, CS2 or CS3(InDesign Interchange format) by selecting File > Export… and choosing .inx from the file type dropdown, or if you have CS5 or later export to .idml. The resulting file should then be opened in ID and saved as a NEW .indd file.

Interchange format was set up to allow users to open files in a version of ID one release earlier (minus, of course, new features) than the one in which they were created. It reduces the file to the bare minimum of information needed to recreate the layout, and as a side effect it often strips out minor corruption that will cause strange behavior but is not bad enough to prevent the file from opening. Other things Interchange Format can help with are removal of stubborn unused swatches and references to missing plugins.

The .idml (InDesign Markup) format was introduced in CS4 and in that version you have your choice (.inx is listed as CS3 interchange) and is the replacement for .inx going forward. My non-scientific intuition says that .idml is slighlty less effective than .inx at solving problems, so I would opt for .inx in CS4 as my first choice, but I also would not dismiss .idml out of hand if I suspect document corruption.

Updated 12/14/2011

Message was edited by: Peter Spier

Performance

Ce sujet a été fermé aux réponses.

Fabiana GO

Participant

One of the "smartest" ways that I reset my preferences is as soon as I load the software, press Mac Cmd Option Shift or Win Ctrl Alt Shift (quickly, already leave your fingers on the keys).

A dialog box will appear:

Startup Alert

“Delete inDesign (or any App) Preferences files?

Say: yes

And be happy!

PS.: it's really important to click very fast before the app loads.

Peter Spier

Auteur

Community Expert

Replacing preferences (and there is another thread with lots of discussion about the pros and cons of using the keyboard method or a manual replacement at Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences [2009 Outdated & Locked] ) can solve a myriad of application problems, but it will not do anything for resolving a problem with an individual file that might be helped by the export process described here.

J

joshj48270700

Participant

I had this problem after updating to Mac High Sierra OS. I'm still on InDesign 5.5 and my file had been fine.

After the OS update, InDesign crashed every time I did anything in the Pages panel (add / delete / move pages).

***** I WOULD RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING SET OF ACTIONS TO HELP YOU DIAGNOSE WHERE THE ISSUE IS *****

I tried:

exporting to IDML format - crashed while saving.
resetting the application preferences - same problem.
moving pages in other documents: DIDN'T crash (therefore must be an issue with this particular document).
copying all pages across from the damaged document (dragging pages from the Pages panel) to a new document - same problem in new document.
deleted all the content from all the pages in the damaged document - DIDN'T crash (must be something in the content).
re-opened the damaged document and deleted one page at a time (followed by trying to add a page in the Pages panel to see if it crashed). Finally on deleting a particular page, InDesign stopped crashing.
re-opened the doc, deleted parts of that page (followed by trying to add a page in the Pages panel to see if it crashed) until it stopped crashing. Turned out it was a table that must have been damaged. I deleted that and now everything's working nicely!!! Huzzah

L

louisg81483312

Participant

I owe you coffee. You just saved the day. Woop woop!

P

Pijnacker01

Participating Frequently

Seems many here have corrupt or damaged files. (Not necessarily always InDesign, but can be linked images, fonts or other elements used in the INDD doc causing the problems) As a last ditch option, we, Markzware (a third-party Adobe developer) have a method of recovering bad InDesign files. When troubleshooting 101 does not help, we often can. See:

DTP File Recovery Service | Markzware

Have a great day,

David Dilling of

Markzware

Steve Werner

Community Expert

David,

I've heard your service can, at times, be useful. But readers of this posting should be aware that it's not a free service.

R

remaxpros001

Participant

I have tried to save the ID CC file as a IDML file, it will not open for me in CS6. I get the "Please upgrade your plug-ins to their latest versions, or update to the latest version of Adobe ID. I downloaded ID CC free trial. I can open the original ID file in CC, since this file was created in CC ID 9.2 I believe. File > export > IDML saving does not work nor does the File > Save As option.

The file that I am trying to open is a zipped file that was packaged and sent over by a collegue. Below is a screen-shot of the error message in ID CS6 that I'am getting. Help anyone?

I am using OS X El Capitan.. and running CS6

Thank You.

Peter Spier

Auteur

Community Expert

The error dialog says you are trying to open a .indd file, not .idml....

B

bacreamer

Participant

Do you happen to have any experience with CC 2015? Back in March, I updated from CS6 to CC 2015. I am using Adobe InDesign (CC 2015) and I am creating a 200+ page catalog. This is my 4^th year creating catalogs at this particular job. I have all the pages assembled as facing pages and I am using the “book” option. I have all the images and text boxes in the right place and all my pages are corrected and saved. I had to restart my computer due to a system glitch. Once I restarted and opened up InDesign, I re-opened the book I was working on. Now, every page is messed up. On the left hand pages, several (not all) text boxes and graphics shifted toward the right, aligning themselves to the page border. On the right hand pages, several (not all) text boxes and graphics shifted toward the left, aligning themselves to the page border. So as an overview, some of the text boxes and graphics from both facing pages now suddenly moved to the spline area between the facing pages. Now, I have to go back and fix 200+ page and manually move each element. Have any of you see this before? Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Brett

C

carols73644021

Participating Frequently

I've tried all methods described in this thread to no avail. I've even tried uninstalling and reinstalling ID.

I noticed, just prior to all objects being selectable but not moveable, when I pressed Ctl Z to undo something, I had to keep pressing CTL Z to undo one move. CTL Z would only undo in small increments, instead of undoing the complete move I had done. Odd.....

So, it almost seems like there is a flag set somewhere saying all objects are locked. I'm frustrated and so close to the end of this project - was going to was the poodles tomorrow;-)

Anyway, any other ideas on how to deal with this?

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Carol Stanley

Peter Spier

Auteur

Community Expert

Please post a new topic in the InDesign General Discussion forum and include your OS and version of InDesign, and describe the problem in detail that caused you to try replacing the prefs.

S

s?????

Participant

Totally worked... Thanks

T

tjallingt61711744

Participant

thank you! works!!!