Can I Import Review Comments from an Online "Share for Review" Asset?

[Lynna Stewart]

I'm working on a lengthy booklet-style university publication that gets updated to a new edition every few years. I sent the author an online proof of the previous edition, and then did a "save as" so I could start editing the new edition. Now all the author's comments are on the older InDesign file and not the new edition. (I do realize that I should have "saved as" before sending the proof." Is there a way I can import the author's comments to the new InDesign document? I haven't made any layout changes, so the pages and spreads are in the same place. I know this a long shot, but it would be SO helpful.

Thanks!

[Laubender]

"Can I Import Review Comments from an Online "Share for Review" Asset?"

Not that I know.

"Save As" will always disconnect the document from the online review.

A major conceptual flaw of the feature, I think…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Lynna Stewart]

Sigh. Yeah, that's what I thought. I understand why it works that way, I was just naively hoping there were a way to import the comments from one file to another.

Thanks for your reply!

[Chad Chelius]

What you are describing isn't clear. There's no method to add comments in an InDesign file. You just edit the document. Are you saying you sent the author a PDF of the InDesign document and all of her commments are in the PDF? If so, you can open up the PDF Comments panel in InDesign and import the comments from the PDF into Adobe InDesign.

[Lynna Stewart]

Hi, Chad! Thanks for your reply. The comments I'm referring to were made on an online proof that I exported with the "Share for Review" feature. When a reviewer comments on one of these proofs, the comments do show up inside InDesign in the "Review" panel, and the designer can reply to the comments or mark them as resolved from inside InDesign. It's a really cool feature (when it's working correctly) and I just made the mistake of creating a duplicate InDesign file to edit, so the comments are showing up on the older file.

You can learn more about the Share for Review feature here, if you're interested: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-share-for-review-faq/m-p/11210839#M1903...

[Laubender]

Hi Chad,

well, this all is about Share for Review. It's not on PDF Comments. See:.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/share-for-review.html

You can share a HTML review file in the web on an Adobe web server. From an inDesign document.

Customer has access and is doing some comments in the web interface seeing the layout of your pages.

The comments are written to the InDesign document.

So there is a "link" from the document to the review on the web and back.

The issue: this link will break if you do a "Save As" to your document.

Even if you do a "Save As" and save to the same name to overwrite the old version of the InDesign document.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

"Sigh. Yeah, that's what I thought. I understand why it works that way, I was just naively hoping there were a way to import the comments from one file to another."

I wonder if you have a backup of the document in the state where you still can see the review.

Even if you changed something later and did "Save As", you should be able to write back the new contents to the old InDesign document by moving pages from the new to the old document.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

If this will work just do a "Save", not a "Save As", close the document and rename it in the file system.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Lynna Stewart]

Yep. This is the way. 🙂 I haven't made too many edits to the new file, mostly updating graphics. And we have a robust archival process, so I have a backup of the old file. 

Thank you for your guidance! You've been very helpful. 🙂 

Lynna

[Laubender]

Hi Lynna,

my main point here is, that no warnings are issued when you have a Share for Review process is going on and one does a "Save As" with the document. A warning would be the least I would expect for implementing this relative new feature. Please go to InDesign UserVoice and search for the appropriate bug report there. Vote for fixing the issue and leave a comment there. There are several bug reports or feature requests there. One example:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/40863295-share-for-revi...

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )