InDesign templates (INDT) — technical aspects

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I can't seem to find a good answer to this — are templates, INDT files, in any way different from INDD except that InDesign forces the user to save the file as a new copy?

A freshly saved INDD file (Save As and IDML->INDD) is somewhat smaller than its INDT equivalent. However, renaming an INDD to INDT makes the file behave exactly as a template (loads to an unititled doc).

So, at a file/technical level, what is different about INDT files?

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Hi James, I don’t think there is much difference other than the INDT file has no file path or name when it is opened forcing the Save As.

You could use INDD files as templates, but the obvious problem would be if you made a few hours worth of changes and hit Command-S without thinking, the original "template" would be lost.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Thx — makes sense that there would be a little extra "genericizing" to the export. I tend to save/share thing in IDML instead, but with a new template project I thought I'd look at the actual, well, template format, which led to the above questions.

[Peter Spier]

.indt files open as "untitled" copy. By default .indd open as original.

You can change the extension from one to the other at will and only affect the opening and saving behavior.

[Barb Binder]

James:

This is also my understanding—they are identical files but the .indt file when set to Open Normal opens an untitled copy and the .indd file set to Normal opens the original.  That's it.  There's nothing different about the file itself.

~Barb

—https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/files-templates.html