Community Expert

Question

Troubleshooting 101: Export to .idml or .inx to clear file corruption

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
November 19, 2009
28 replies
223025 views

Sometimes a particular InDesign file may behave badly (if all your files are doing strange things, see Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences ). In such cases the first thing to try is export to .inx if you have CS, CS2 or CS3(InDesign Interchange format) by selecting File > Export… and choosing .inx from the file type dropdown, or if you have CS5 or later export to .idml. The resulting file should then be opened in ID and saved as a NEW .indd file.

Interchange format was set up to allow users to open files in a version of ID one release earlier (minus, of course, new features) than the one in which they were created. It reduces the file to the bare minimum of information needed to recreate the layout, and as a side effect it often strips out minor corruption that will cause strange behavior but is not bad enough to prevent the file from opening. Other things Interchange Format can help with are removal of stubborn unused swatches and references to missing plugins.

The .idml (InDesign Markup) format was introduced in CS4 and in that version you have your choice (.inx is listed as CS3 interchange) and is the replacement for .inx going forward. My non-scientific intuition says that .idml is slighlty less effective than .inx at solving problems, so I would opt for .inx in CS4 as my first choice, but I also would not dismiss .idml out of hand if I suspect document corruption.

Updated 12/14/2011

Message was edited by: Peter Spier

Performance

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allisonblake

Known Participant

I've just discovered that exporting to IDML is causing master pages to re-apply, leaving chaos in its wake for a colleague who has master elements that he must override on every page to customize (department/sections of the magazine have different color scheme but the same design elements).

I have tried exporting/saving the file to IDML from CS5, CS5.5, CC 2014 and the masters are re-applied in each case.

I'm on Mac OS10.7, my colleague is using 10.6 in case that is relevant.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Peter Spier

Author

Community Expert

I don't see that here. Is it happening as soon as the file is opened, or is something being done after opening that would alter the page count or order?

allisonblake

Known Participant

interesting...it's happening immediately on open but I tested a few documents and it's not happening with all files. The monthly pub is built from a template file and I wonder if the template itself has some kind of corruption in it causing this.

C

Chinx_Team_Triumph

Participant

I have this same problem but on my Photoshop please help!

Peter Spier

Author

Community Expert

You need to post in the Photoshop forum and describe your problem completely. As far as I know, though, there is nothing similar to exporting .indd to .idml for Photoshop.

Jimmy Papas

Inspiring

worked for me. file>export>IDML. the elements were back but misplaced though . i had to rework the layout. anyone got better solution to this?

S

stefsrieder

Participant

What if I can't even open the file in InDesign because it's incompatible? How do I open the file in order to save it as .idml?

The file was made using CS6 and I have CS5.5

L

Laubender

Community Expert

@stefsrieder – Find someone who can open it for you.
Or install a 30-days trial version of inDesign CS6 (or CC), open the file in CS6 or above and export from that to IDML.

Uwe

A

ambitious_Forest157F

Participant

What do you do if your crashes are caused when you're exporting to idml?

This is what's happening to me everytime I try to save back from CS6 [on my home Mac] in order to open in CS5.5 on my office's Mac. My copy of CS6 crashes on export to idml. I'm left with a 125 byte-sized idml 'file'. I've sent reports to Adobe several times now, and scoured the web for an answer with no success.

By the way, CS5.5 worked fine when saving to idml.

Peter Spier

Author

Community Expert

If the file crashes during export, it's most likely a problem in the file (it happens). You can try to isolate a problem page using Divide and Conquer: export first the font half, then the back half of the document to PDF (you can't specify a page range for .idml). If either half fails, divide that in half again and repeat, continuing until you isolate a page. If both halves fail, it's more likely a font or corrupt style than something on an inidvidual page.

A

Anonymous

Awesome, simple solution! I was having trouble while exporting an interactive PDF (none of the buttons would work) but after making this, everything is working nicely!

R

Refkins

Participant

Super helpful! I used the .idml extension since I'm running CS5.5 I've spent the past two days fighting a series of magazine layouts at my internship. I've been trying to get hyperlinks attached to the ads so we can upload our back issues to the iPad, but every layout from Nov 2011 onward would crash when I tried to add a new hyperlink. I tried your preferences-clearing method first (as well as some other methods I find on the web) in an effort to get the thing functioning long enough to use, but ultimately I just couldn't get the Oct 2011 layout to let me do anything, even with the preferences wipe. This little trick, though, fixed it. I've been attaching the links to the ads with ease. Thanks so much!

P

Pijnacker01

Participating Frequently

Great tips Peter. We recommend exporting to .inx (now .idml) as well to folks contacting us with corrupted InDesign files. If all fails, or if that is not even possible though, we as Markzware offer the Markzware InDesign File Recovery Service, whereby we attempt to salvage and recover your file for you. Just thought it important to mention this.

Friendly Regards,

David Dilling of

Markzware

P

pfn4141

Participant

How about if you are working on a book? Export is not

an option once you are in InDesign screen with the book file open but none of the component files open.. I have to export all 11 documents it is composed of?

Using CS5. That would be File>Export and in that window, Save As Type> in popdown choose IDML (index design markup language), right? Then I link the new files to the book and delete the others????

Thanks for your help.

Peter Spier

Author

Community Expert

Right. Books can't be exported to .idml because basically they have no content of their own. They're just a way to organize a collection of Documents.

You can either replace the the exisiting files inthe exisiting book, or just make a new book with the new files, which is probably faster.

But what sort of trouble are you having that you need to export all the files? Perhaps you should start a thread giving full details of the problem and we can find a better solution.

P

pfn4141

Participant

wow 2 min to get an answer, very impressive! It's a TOC problem

, won't recognize the headings in the section its in. Sometimes erases all the other text except the TOC-- like maybe I did something when adjusting the frames and it thinks the whole document is part of the toc. (it used to work just fine) Someone suggested maybe minor corruption, so I was looking into your proposed solution.. I just had the frames idea in the past few min.

. Where should I post this and what would u suggest as a heading

btw is there a seach function on this site? can't find one

J

JonJaxon

Participant

Yep. Worked for me. Cheers

C

chris180

Participant

I am using CS5 and I do have graphics throughout the document. I will try eliminating the graphics and see what happens. I just find it wierd that I have been using this same document for the past 6 months, as well as the other documents, and yet today it decides to give me problems. @@

Thank you for the quick response.

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