How to handle "converted" InDesign files?

[Graphic Squirrel]

My company creates forms that are approved by customers and, once approved, they cannot be changed at all.   In the past, every 4 years we would buy new InDesign software, open all of our forms, save them in the new InDesign, and hire proofreaders to review every single file.  This is an extremely tedious and time-consuming job, but we did find errors (such as kerning changing and moving a word to the next line of a paragraph) or images moving on the page, so we felt we had to do this.

Now comes the Cloud software, and it my understanding that I have to update every year, which means when I open a file in my updated InDesign, it says "converted" and requires me to resave it.  This means that I must reproof it.  Obviously I don't want to have to reproof every form we create every year. 

Any thoughts on how to prevent a form from converting?  Why does it even have to convert if it is still in InDesign?  I wouldn't mind updating if it didn't cause changes in my files.  The only solution I can think of is to convert all of my forms to pdfs, but that requires proofing both the InDesign and the pdf files, so it is doubling our work. 

Thanks for any help you might be able to offer!

GS

[BobLevine]

Have to? You don’t have to do anything!

But if you do update there is no way to get around the converted file.

[Laubender]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Graphic+Squirrel  wrote

… Any thoughts on how to prevent a form from converting?

Other than to work with the version of InDesign you created the document?
No. Just leave all components of your workflow in place. Especially fonts.

Uwe

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

There is no requirement to upgrade with the Creative Cloud. You can stay at your preferred version as long as Adobe continues to offers it. Even if you DID upgrade, you can install older versions of ID, in case clients provide files in different versions.

If you have multiple versions installed, you have two options...

• DON'T double-click on a file to open it. Find out the ID version used, open that version, and open file via the Open menu.
• Install the Soxy utility. It will automatically open up the correct version of ID when double-clicking. It changes the desktop icon per version too. https://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/downloads/lightning-brain-soxy/

[Laubender]

IDEAS-Training  wrote

There is no requirement to upgrade with the Creative Cloud. You can stay at your preferred version as long as Adobe continues to offers it. Even if you DID upgrade, you can install older versions of ID, in case clients provide files in different versions.

Yes, as long as your system is able to run the version without problems.
You could get into trouble if you have to run the latest version plus e.g. CS6 for legacy works on the same system. Especially if new workstations will be added and older computers with older systems aren't available anymore. Not so much on Windows, but definitely on Mac OS X.

One way out could be to run older systems in virtual machines on newer hardware.

Or—if the machine allows—different startup systems on one machine.

Regards,
Uwe