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Loois
Known Participant
March 6, 2023
Question

How to downsave InDesign from 2023 to 2019

  • March 6, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 4225 views

A colleague of mine opened an InDesign file I was working on and saved it in 2023. Now I can't open it because I use 2019 version. He can´t downsave it before 2022. There is an option called "save for CS4 or later" but it doesn't work. I tried looking for answers online but none work either. 

 

How does't indesign have a simple downsave feature???

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
March 6, 2023

Have you tried exporting as IDML? 

 

BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 6, 2023

IDML is CS4 or later and it's the person supplying the file that has to do it. But if the OP received an INDD file, InDesign 2019 would be intelligent enough to offer to convert it via the cloud.

 

So, we really need to wait for the OP to come back here and give us some details.

Community Expert
March 6, 2023

True, that said if I know there might be an older version I'm saving it to, I'm saving it as an IDML...I do that too if im going somewhere with just my iPad Pro and might have to do corrections because Publisher opens IDML files. As much as I don't want to use Affinity's confusing UI, sometimes I have to

BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 6, 2023

What about it doesn't work? CS4 or later means exactly that, so you're going to have to tell us what is happening.

Loois
LooisAuthor
Known Participant
March 6, 2023

Thanks for reinforcing the answer, i will try it again if this is really the solution, hope it will work! Because yesterday I tried opening it but nothing opened. the idml file is 700k while the .indd file was 6mb. So isn't it losing something on the conversion? Should my colleague do something else other than just save it as CS4 or Later?

Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
March 6, 2023

The difference between IDML and INDD is in the fact that IDML is just the "description" of the file - where INDD file have a lot of previews and Undo history (and some other stuff) - both of wich will make INDD file bigger and bigger every time you do just Ctrl+S - so from time to time you need to do Save As with a new name and then - less often - IDMLing - kind of housekeeping - to get rid of all of the garbage and gremlins.

 

It's like PostScript and PDF before - but other way around 😉