InDesign Backwards Compatibility in CS5 an MAJOR issue

[Cynthia Ryan Graphic]

I am a print designer who works in InDesign. I bought CS3 Design Premium in late summer of 2008. Shortly thereafter CS4 came out, but after just having forked out a big chunk of change, I decided against upgrading to CS4 right away. Recently I considered upgrading but then heard CS5 was coming out so I decided to postpone the upgrade and wait for the new software. I've just checked out the trial version of CS5 InDesign and after speaking with Adobe Support have come to the conclusion that I can't upgrade to CS5. Why? BACKWARDS compatibility to CS3. The previously offered export features that supplied a path for backwards compatibility via an .inx file are gone.

I design freelance for a lot of different customers and once the design is complete, I have to deliver the InDesign file along with all associated fonts ad images to my clients. Most of my clients are still on CS3. If I upgrade to CS5 I will instantly not be able to work for 2/3 of my clients, as I will have no means by which to save a file backwards to CS3. I was informed by Adobe support that I would need to buy CS4 and CS5, as I could save my CS5 file in the IDML format and open it in CS4 and then I could save the file from CS4 as an INX file and open that is CS3. ARE THEY INSANE??? First off that requires keeping 3 version of InDesign up and running on my machine all of the time and secondly, why should I have to buy CS4 when I'm paying an additional fee to upgrade to CS5 because I didn't upgrade from CS4? This is so screwed up that it has to be an oversight---please tell me there is a patch in the works!!!

PS- I've never posted to a forum before, so if I have broken any rules of forum etiquette or offended in any way, I offer my apologies now and if I (and the Adobe Support staff I spoke to) have overlooked something, please enlighten me!

[peterpica]

Not so sure about that at least in my case. I've an early Intel Mac Pro & my wife's got a 24" intel imac and both have been fantastic. Both are over 2 years young and show no sign of needing replacement, although I'll probably replace mine next spring, the end of my traditional 3-year computer life-span.

[Guest]

OK, I amend my statement. I just asked the person in question, and he said he bought it used.  The Mac is almost 4 years old, so I stand corrected.  He's still sore about dumping a perfectly usable computer in order to upgrade, but I would say he's gotten his money's worth out of it, at least.

[BobLevine]

Whoa. While I'm primarily a Windows guy anyone who bought a Mac two years ago got an Intel machine. Not only Intel but with Leopard and a 64 bit Core2Duo processor. If they got anything less, it was used. I know this because I bought my MacBook just about two years ago and it's quite capable of running just about anything out there right now.

Bob

[peter_minneapolis]

E Diane King wrote:

peter at knowhowpro wrote:

It may not be helpful to everyone, but for some folks, running InDesign Windows versions under Parallels, Fusion, or Boot Camp, on IntelMacs is a useful approach. The unibody-generation MacBook Pros can install as much as 8GB of RAM, which is probably the minimum useful amount to run the virtual software on OS X, the preferred Windows version, and one or more CS5 applications at once. My pre-unibody MBP can take up to 6GB, though I've stopped at 4GB - a reasonable balance between money and computer power.

I don't see how that helps the people who have a Mac that is not Intel, and that's why they have to buy a new computer to upgrade to CS5. You have to admit that Macs are costly.  It's a lot cheaper to buy a comparable PC running Windows than to upgrade to an Intel Mac.  That's what this particular editor is faced with, she's crossing platform and going for the full version IC instead of buying a new Mac and upgrading.  It saves her money, even if she loses the cool factor.

No arguments from me on this. If it suits, that's what to buy. The cool factor isn't my reason for buying. I was both PC and Mac and still am somewhat. That is, my borderline 2GB RAM max HP 17" laptop from a long time ago - $1800 in then-dollars - suits the few things I need it for, though it does have the nasty habit of overheating and shutting down because of the 2GB and 7200RPM drive's demands, unless I point an external fan at it. My Targus coolpad competes for air flow with the HP's fans - they both suck (not slang) but the coolpad should blow into the sucking HP fans. My 17" MBP cost about the same $1800 in two-year-ago dollars, with 3GB RAM, because I shopped carefully for price drops around the time the unibody models were announced. This is important - most hardware is fine to buy just as it goes "obsolete." The cost of owning unnecessarily leading-edge technology is more the culprit, IMO, than any cool factor.

Interesting are the large-monitor 24" and 27" iMac models, especially at new-model cool and old-model price-cut time. For those who need the screen real estate, they're worth looking at.

Myself, I'm unlikely to ever invest in a Mac. I just don't see the draw. Sure they are cool and all, but I can do the same work on a PC and save a lot of money. I'm completely cross platform and will work on whatever I'm given to work on, but I love dissing Macs just because it's fun to stir the ants nest.  We use Macs at work because most of the design group are Mac devotees who have convinced our boss that they simply can't work without a Mac. The IT dept would dearly love to toss all the Macs in our lake, especially now that Snow Leopard isn't playing nice with our network.

But this is not the place for that debate. I was just stating that the forced upgrade to Intel Macs was a costly issue with the CS5 product that I see as causing a lot more expensive headaches than the backsaving issue. I doubt everyone will agree, but that's what I've seen with our upgrade experience.

Old stuff OSs and hardware can be justified as long as they serve the needs. This thinking may become unnecessarily costly if or when the cost of jumping from old software that's not eligible for upgrade pricing, to new full-price versions, is more than having upgraded in the interim. Hardware is a bit different - as long as the CPU is compatible with what's needed and the RAM maximum suits, as well, fine. Most failures are user-installable inexpensive disk replacements, also fine. It's yet again fine that business demands should lead spending choices, but without a good overview of current and upcoming requirements, spending pennies may be fine, but buying pounds could become surprisingly expensive.

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[BobLevine]

I use boot camp. If I need Windows, I need Windows...if I need OSX, I need OSX.

I can't conceive of any time that I would need to use both at the same time. Of course, I'm sure there are folks who do, and for them I guess Parallels or VMWare would be the solution.

As for Cabonite, I don't back up the laptop since there's nothing on there except demo files but I've yet to see any kind of performance hit with Carbonite running on my desktop. It took close to a month for the first back up to complete since I have 100's of gigabytes of files but even during that time I saw no problems.

Bob

[peterpica]

Interesting comments, Bob.

I tried the Carbonite demo and thought that there were net performance concerns as it was taking forever to back up my 80G of documents & stuff... I just quit the application after two days, complained to them and chucked the app... maybe I'll kick the tires again, thanks to you.

Regards.

[BobLevine]

219 gigs with no problems. YMMV.

Bob

[peter_minneapolis]

BobLevine wrote:

I use boot camp. If I need Windows, I need Windows...if I need OSX, I need OSX.

I can't conceive of any time that I would need to use both at the same time. Of course, I'm sure there are folks who do, and for them I guess Parallels or VMWare would be the solution.

As for Cabonite, I don't back up the laptop since there's nothing on there except demo files but I've yet to see any kind of performance hit with Carbonite running on my desktop. It took close to a month for the first back up to complete since I have 100's of gigabytes of files but even during that time I saw no problems.

Bob

Bob, interesting that your post compares Carbonite on laptops and desktops! IIRC, the posters who were affected by Carbonite's CPU-eating problem, like myself, are all PowerBook or PowerBook Pro users. This may be a clue! Thanks.

The unfinished backup problem seems similar. My Carbonite has been running nearly continuously on my MBP for months, yet never cuts the "amount remaining to be backed up" to zero or even to 1GB. I've never had to restore from Carbonite, but when I've check periodically for the restorability of recent files, sometimes even small files were restorable, sometimes not yet. It's not clear whether Carbonite decides whether to backup a few or a bunch of small recent files, then go for the larger older ones, or if it can do both in separate threads. Perhaps this is where the Lower Priority/use less bandwidth option applies?

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[Guest]

Adobe initially introduced INX file format with an idea of portability. So, CS3 users have INX as their portable InDesign format.

Since INX was not well structured. It required some repair. Later, CS4 brought the new well structured format called IDML for the same purpose of portability.

So, we have 2 different portable formats INX and IDML between CS3 and CS5. I think this is causing lot of issues around.

Hopefully, going forward CS5/CS6 should provide backward compatibility through IDML.

-Radha

[Guest]

I totally agree.... it's sad --- feels like they don't care because they've cornered the market. I am a small studio owner and what the small business owner has to pay out really limits people working on their own. It's all boiling down to a handful of large companies getting richer and the small to mid size business man being squashed out. What's their end game.... Adobe is large enough to make backsaving work.

[EthanCopperwaite]

Hi I'm currently in college in the UK and in college and the mac's that are used in the college I go to currently only have CS3 on them, the only problem is that my home computer has adobe CS5 on it I rarely have have access to CS4, which makes keeping up to date with the assignments that require the use of InDesign almost impossible. what I don't is why there isn't a plug-in that will allow saving in a CS3 compatible file format in CS5. as something as simple as that would save me a lot of hassle when it comes to getting my work in.

[Jongware]

..as something as simple as that ..

The InDesign Software Development Kit is free, and you are cordially invited to do this simple thing. Imagine how grateful the countless numbers of people like you are going to be!

... It's really not that simple. I've taken a stab at it by examining InDesign's document format in headache-inducing detail, but gave up when it seemed more changes are made than just the ones visible on the screen.

[Guest]

On Nov 4, 2010

Yes, back-saving has been around a long time until InDesign stopped it. REALLY makes my world difficult as well. I have clients who need CS3 and I can't back save anymore.... They say you can ... doesn't work well at all. It's junky.

Hi I'm currently in college in the UK and in college and the mac's that are used in the college I go to currently only have CS3 on them, the only problem is that my home computer has adobe CS5 on it I rarely have have access to CS4, which makes keeping up to date with the assignments that require the use of InDesign almost impossible. what I don't is why there isn't a plug-in that will allow saving in a CS3 compatible file format in CS5. as something as simple as that would save me a lot of hassle when it comes to getting my work in.

>

[BobLevine]

What are you talking about? InDesign never saved back more than one version and this thread has covered it all in detail.

Bob

[Jongware]

A case of tunnel vision.

InDesign CS3 saved back to CS2, but InDesign CS4 does not. Cum ergo quad core -- an Existing Feature Has Been Removed.

[MOverlow]

Cynthia,

I am having the same issues. I don't care what "the InDesign" guy or anyone else says in trying to justify running three versions of a single application. You're a freelancer not a service bureau (do these even exist anymore?). If all their logic were true, then why can you back save Illustrator files so successfully? The simple fact of the matter is this: Adobe bought their only real competition at the time (Macromedia), then shut them down. Now they can create whatever package/upgrade/pricing structures they want to keep stockholders happy and profits up, users be damned.

Adobe products have become fat, expensive and a pain to use. Their customer service is terrible. They are following in Quark's footsteps that allowed InDesign to knock them off the page layout throne. It's only a matter of time before a leaner, meaner graphics suite appears driven by hungry forward thinkers.

Good luck,

MO

[Guest]

As a freelancer... I totally agree.... why am I doing more workarounds now than I was doing years ago. Cumbersome and awkward.

impositioning and backsaving... is it REALLY that hard if it's been available in the past? I am sending in feature requests and reinstatements! I am hopeful someday.....

[peterpica]

The way things are going, maybe Obama ought to step in?

[MOverlow]

LOL . . . He uses CorelDraw.

[Guest]

...LOL...he-he...

[BobLevine]

You may not care, but it is what it is.

You've ignored every point made by everyone in this very lengthy thread.

Nobody is saying it's not a problem for some, but for the majority of users it's not. And it's just not that simple.

Some of the top scripters and plugin writers have looked into the possibility of writing something to accomplish this task and have decided not to bother. Why? Because it's simply too difficult to do and the same people complaining about the lack of backsaving would be the same ones complaining that the solution to the problem would be too expensive.

As for your question about Illustrator saving back I'd ask how come Illustrator doesn't have grep styles? After all, InDesign does. Why doesn't Illustrator have split and span colums for text? InDesign does.

Get the idea?

Of course you're free to beat this poor dead horse a bit further, but since it's obvious you didn't read the whole thread I'll help you out here and point you to Adobe's official feature request page: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Bob

[peterpica]

Spoken like the true InDesign Man.

Congrats Bob. Well said. Now if only I can remember your words because I'm besieged weekly with complaints about this from one (and only one) customer of mine. All the others have seen the light.

[BobLevine]

You just can't please everyone. I understand that some people are upset, but I still say having every version (within reason) is cost of doing business.

And it's not that expensive. My usual analogy: 18 month upgrade cycle (it's like clockwork...anyone acting surprised isn't paying atttention), $599 upgrade price for Design Premium, budget from day one of release is less than the cost of a cup of coffee every day. So contrary to the "it's too expensive" argument, I say it's dirt cheap considering what you get. In fact, depending upon where you buy your coffee, even the Master Collection can be cheaper than the coffee.

Bob

[Peter Spier]

I don't buy the expense argument, either, for anyone claiming to be in business.

NOBODY makes less at this than I do and still pretends they do it for money, and yet I've managed over the years to keep hardware current and bought every upgrade of the programs I use (I even supported 2 licenses each for Pagemaker, Photoshop and Quark Xpress for a few years).

If someone wants me to work on Quark 7 or 8, I turn down the job. I don't own a license past version 6, and I didn't consider it worth the money to continue the upgrade cycle after ID became a truly viable production tool and I stopped using Quark in my own work.

On the other hand, I have no problem supplying files to anyone in any version of ID because I continue to upgrade. I make up the cost of the upgrades generally in enhanced productivity, which means I can do more work in less time and, at least in theory, make more money. As a bonus I get the government to subsidize my cutting edge toys.