Can't open .pdf in InDesign New

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 5, 2023
2 replies
1626 views

I am trying to open a .pdf in InDesign. I've had no problem with other .pdfs from the same source; it will open in Photoshop Elements, and Acrobat.

It doesn't snow up in the dialog box until is select All files (*.*), which is a clue. It also shows the error:

Cannot open the file ".pdf." Adobe INDesign may not suppor the file format, a plug-in that supports the file format may be missing, or the file may be open in another application. Anything I can do?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Michael Bullo

Community Expert

Were you perhaps previously opening your PDFs in Illustrator?

darkloom52Author

Known Participant

Thanks for addressing this; I forgot that I was trying out Acrobat Pro to see if I could build a page with multiple pdf files, and learned that InDesign was better for that. I opened a file in AP that had 117 individual .pdf cards, and use Organize to split them into separate files. I then imported them in InDesign to place them. I then ended my subscription to AP because I subscribed to InDesign. Do you have any idea if InDesign can split pdfs?

Grateful for your help.

Olive_Oil_Tags_combined_(1).pdf

darkloom52Author

Known Participant

Indesign is not a PDF editing program!

There are online tools, i.e. websites where you can split PDFs - just google it.

If you have a Mac, you can also do it with Automator.

| Indesign is not a PDF editing program!

I am not using InDesign to edit PDFs, I'm using it to place PDFs on a page. I used Acrobat to split the files - it was helpful because I needed to rotate some of them before importing them into ID. I thank you for trying to get something through my thick head