Inspiring

Answered

Turn off Convert PDF to InDesign Document (Beta)

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 29, 2025
11 replies
806 views

This feature was installed without my knowing it. It slows down my workflow because it takes forever to do a conversion and the cancel button doesn't work. I've accidentally activated it about four times today. I want to turn it off/uninstall it, but the Adobe page describing the feature doesn't tell me how. It's a beta, so I should be able to opt out. Anyone know how?

Correct answer Dave Creamer of IDEAS

You couldn't have made the error prior to the latest version since the Open menu would not have shown PDFs as an option.

You didn't mention if you have file extensions showing or not. That will help identifiy the PDFs. Also, on my Mac and Windows computers, the icons show up as Acrobat icons and not InDesign icons.

You can go to UserVoice and register your request. Be sure to search first to see if someone already has, so you can upvote it.

https://indesign.uservoice.com/

H

h�l�ne_3912

Participant

I agree with Are__Kay this feature is mostly useless. The converted files are long to make and pretty bad, and even more, indesign turn automatically as default app for opening pdf multiples times in a week, that’s really annoying

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @h�l�ne_3912,

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry for the frustrating experience with this feature.

Could you please confirm your exact InDesign version and OS version? Also, regarding InDesign repeatedly becoming the default application for PDFs, could you let us know whether this happens specifically after an InDesign update, or whether the PDF default application changes randomly while you're working?

In the meantime, please reset your system's default PDF application back to Adobe Acrobat/your preferred PDF viewer and monitor whether InDesign takes over the association again. If it does, please let us know when the change occurs so we can investigate that behavior separately.

Thanks,
Abhishek

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I don't think there is anyway to disable it. However, you must be opening PDFs, so it not an accident. Do you have your file extensions showing (.pdf, .indd, etc.)? If not, turn them on, it will lessen the accidental selection of PDFs during open.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

A

Are__KayAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks. Let's just agree to disagree about what the nature of accidental means. In my case I consider it an accident that I clicked on the proof PDF file instead of the INDD and initated this unwanted conversion. I certainly didn't do it with intention. Having made this error prior to the beta would have had no effect (which is why I wanted to turn off the beta).

I guess I need to be more careful from now on, since there's no way to turn it off. But how exactly is something Beta if doesn't include a way to opt out of it?

IMHO, it's a bit niche and should not be so easy to activate. I have a fairly powerful machine and it's still a very long, frustrating wait to reverse the error. I feel sympathy for anyone who makes this mistake on a more modest machine.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Are__Kay

When / where / how exactly have you clicked on this PDF?

Outside of InDesign - and you've InDesign set as default application to open PDFs?

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