all figures within a document changed by the value of 2

[Marta358659809kx9]

We areceived a file from our third party designer and suddenly all the figures in the document changed by the value of 2: 31 Dec 2023 became 33 Dec 2025, 98% became 100%, numbers, like for instance, 1000 became 1002, footnote (1) became (3). Every single number in the document went up by 2, No number was left unchanged. Any idea what happened there? A bug or a global change of some sort? 

[John Waller]

Which Adobe app are you using?

[Marta358659809kx9]

sorry, should have mentioned. This occured in InDesign. 200 page document - all the numbers changed  

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Marta358659809kx9 

Have you SENT this file to him for corrections / editing and now the file is back - or it's a new document - and something went wrong during the transfer of the file?

Is it an IDML file that you've received - or INDD?

[Bill Silbert]

It sounds to me like the third party designer used some sort of script or plugin that has somehow gotten out of control. I would reach out to that designer and find out exactly what their process was in creating the document and if they have some way to stabilize it. At the very least have them export the document as an IDML file and then you open that version with your version of InDesign. If the problem is a corrupted file then that process can remove that corruption. 

[Marta358659809kx9]

The file went to the agnecy many times to be combined with their part of the larger file to produce the final book. There were no issues through the process until the last round. The issue appeared suddenly and worryingly we nearly published that document. This is a very bizzare and yet somewhow automated change, to affect all the numbers in the document. We had all range of numbers updated, footnotes, percentages, dates, tables, charts, any number mentioned in text- everything. If the agency were coming up with answers than I would not be here asking for advice 🙂 I have just spoken to Adobe and the opeartor I spoke to is not aware of a command that can do that in case some global change was actioned in error. We need to establish what caused this in order for this not to happen in future... Maybe somethingw as not compatible? Error with styles? Mac versus PC? Plug in or script sounds intriguing, have you seen such issue before?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Marta358659809kx9

The thing is - changing numbers isn't hard through scripting - as long as those are "text" numbers.

But the clue to the culprit would be in the Footnotes - numbers you see are generated automatically by InDesign - same way as in the numbered lists.

Starting value is controlled by the preferences. So if footnotes has been "renumbered" - something must gone wrong with the IDML. Otherwise, in case of INDD file, script would have to be much more sophisticated than just changing numbers in text. 

[Marta358659809kx9]

I am not sure if I understood your post correctly, but the agency do export the file IDML, even though there was no need as we were able to open our respective indd files. So I thought, maybe this conversion caused this when they exported the pdf from the idml. I have tested this with the file I have (and which had this numbering change after the agnecy output it) and the process was fine, no issues.....

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Marta358659809kx9

IDML export - o its own SHOULDN'T renumber anything. 

But if they used IDML file to make translation - standard practice - that's when renumbering could've happened. 

[Marta358659809kx9]

what do you mean by translation- standard practice? Is this a technical jargon? The indd file we supplied, was going to be combined with their indd file, standardised footer applied to our section and page numbers renumbered to run on consequitively. This was fine for a couple of rounds till it was not... I am not sure what you  are refering to with the 'standard practice of translating idml files'?  For some reason when they sent us some WIP sections from their part of the book, they would send us  both indd and idml, but we never used idml and we never supplied them with idml so clearly they were able to open our indd files

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Marta358659809kx9

When companies do translation - they don't do it in the InDesign - they either request IDML file or generate it themselves. 

IDML file is a "decoded" version of the INDD file - it's ZIPed bunch of "plain text" XML files - and software used for translation - can ignore XML tagging and is only modifying text part. 

Maybe at this point something gone wrong - all numbers in the text has been increased by 2 - but rather on purpose - which wouldn't be so hard. 

I don't have access to my laptop right now to check and confirm - but I bet, that initial value of the Footnotes - configuration part in the IDML - could be affected as well. 

But, if they haven't used IDML file and were working only in the INDD file - they've run some kind of script / plugin that changed all numbers in the text AND changed Footnote's start number. 

[Marta358659809kx9]

ah ok. This is a design agency not translation company. The text was not translated. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Marta358659809kx9 

As I've suspected:

It's possible to change start value in the Preferences.xml file.

But ... if someone has made a boo-boo and increased ALL numerical values - you should have a lot of strange things in your document - increased TextWrap, Margins, no of Columns in TextFrames, etc.