PDF to INDD

[aghanjar16430960]

I spent 8 months creating projects on Indesign unfortunately my hard drive was damaged and I lost all these projects but before the damage I transformed it to PDF Files

can I transform these PDF to INDD ?

[Derek Cross · Accepted solution]

There's a converter PDF to InDesign available (at extra cost):  https://markzware.com/pdfmarkz/convert-pdf-to-indesign/

You should always backup your work so that you can recover your documents if something goes wrong!

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

There are two plug-ins which you can purchase to convert PDF files to InDesign:

https://markzware.com/products/pdfmarkz/

Or:

https://www.recosoft.com/products/pdf2id/

[Steve Werner]

I agree with Derek. You're learning an expensive lesson: You must use backup software to make copies of  your critical files

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

As long as the backup is stored externally... 

[Barb Binder]

Looking ahead, consider a cloud storage solution (like Dropbox, for example) that offers automatic incremental saves. If something happens to the current version (or you change your mind), you can retrieve an earlier version from the cloud folder. It's seemless—and feels the same as saving to your local drive—it's just a whole lot safer.

https://help.dropbox.com/delete-restore/recover-older-versions

~Barb

[BobLevine]

I can only echo what the others have said. Even in a non-collaborative project, I always work in Dropbox or OneDrive folders. As for the conversion, depending on the complexity and your budget, you could try saving the PDF as a Word document from Acrobat and then placing that back into InDesign.

Perfect? Absolutely not, but it will give you a starting point. Good luck.

[Jay-Random-Guy]

Ouch losing the InDesign files. But like everyone says, you should run backups. If you have a Mac then Time Machine will do it for you. On Windows, you would have to purchase a backup software.  That said,, converting PDF to InDesign can be smooth or it can be challenging. I have used the solution mentioned PDF2ID for about 1500 pages now and have had about a 95% success rate and the company paid for it. Its a life-saver. With the documents I have run it on, its about 95% success. The other 5%, i used it to extract the assets and rebuild the text/table contents. But it saves time. I wouldnt use the PDF to Word option either. Its a nightmare. PDF to Word, then Word to InDesign is a double whammy and you cant figure out where the assets end up finally.  They have a trial so you should be able to figure out whether it works for you.

[BobLevine]

PDF to Word to InDesign is not a nightmare in my experience. While less than ideal, it's free, and there is no reason not to try it.

[Jay-Random-Guy]

You are right PDF to Word is free. But your definition of nightmare and mine are completely off. Have a great day.