Open InDesign file created in MAC on Windows OS {Renamed}

[katiek30747283]

If someone in another department has the Mac version of InDesign, and I get the Windows version, will I be able to open something that they made and vice versa?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Assuming you use OpenType (either OpenType CFF or OpenType TrueType) fonts and use the common file suffixes for your files (.jpg, .tif, .psd, .pdf, .indd, .eps, etc.), you should be fine assuming you either “package” the InDesign document and its assets or access them from a common server. Also note that your MacOS and Windows copies of InDesign must be the same version to work without issues.

          - Dov

[katiek30747283]

Awesome. Thank you!

[Laubender]

Hi katiek30747283 ,

also important is file naming.

Especially for placed and linked contents.

There are characters like a slash that is allowed with file names on Mac OS X but will not work well on Windows.

Also note that transferring files from Mac to PC that are included in a zip file and unpacked on Windows can yield surprising results with altered file names if e.g. there are umlauts like ä ö ü in the name.

So best share files with a cloud service. Not zipped.

But also here we see some specialities. A character like the pipe | is not supported e.g. with Dropbox if you share from Mac to Windows.

Means, files with that pipe character are not synched to Windows. However they are synched on Macs.

Regards,
Uwe

[BobLevine]

Even with a service like Dropbox or OneDrive will give you problems with illegal characters. They will not sync. OneDrive will alert you to that, Dropbox won’t.

[JonathanArias]

To add to bob.

I am experiencing lost of interactivity made in indesign when moving files via dropbox. data must get lost.

[BobLevine]

I have never seen that, but I did have an interesting thing happen to a PDF when it was saved in Dropbox folder…the bookmarks kept disappearing.

[JonathanArias]

we are zipping things that have a lot of interactivity in them. it was show and hide buttons that all got lost. hours of work just lost.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

For punctuation, I stay with underscores and hyphens (plus spaces) for my file names. Everything else is just basic alphanumeric.

Avoid colons (:), slashes (/ or \), and periods (.) in file names.

[JonathanArias]

plus windows machines have a limit on file names. keep them short.

[BobLevine]

Not true, IME. Long paths can be a problem but that holds true on both Mac or Windows.

[JonathanArias]

i don't know. we get a lot of errors here with the editorial team in windows. they get lots of errors that they can't move files and folder from local drives to shared drives due to file name size. i make the name smaller and the errors go away.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

This does depend on the OS version and server version. IF they were up-to-date, you should have 256 characters, but more in reality, more than 20 or so characters gets impracticable. I'm not sure about the Mac OS, but I believe Windows servers count the entire path name, so long folder names and/or many subfolders counts towards the 256.

This is all from memory, so please feel free to correct any inaccuracies.

[BobLevine]

It’s 260 but you can enable longer names by changing one registry setting. Not really recommended, however.

[JonathanArias]

hmmm.. they are not all on the same version. i do find myself having to go back and adjusting file names for them when they let me know they can't move or copy a folder or file. several times is linked files .ai or .psd files linked to an indesign layout. this will not allow them to move the entire package files.

we can't work from the server since they are super super slow and most folks are working from home.

G-drive has worked well for team workflows. but same issue with file names.

[Krotovatov]

HI! If InDesign is installed on Windows of layout designer, and InCopy is installed on Mac of editor, will this work?

[BobLevine]

I answered you in the InCopy forum. In the future please do not hijack other discussions. Start a new one.

I'm going to lock this one.