Unable to Open Indesign Documents in Indesign

[Paul R. Johnson]

Whwn I try to open an Indesign document in Indesign (2020, 2021, or 2022) I get a popup window saying:Cannot open the file [... .indd].  Adobe Indesgn may not support the file formt, a plug-in that supports the file formt may be missing, or the file may be open in another application,

The file defiitely is NOT open in another application.  What can I do?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

This is normally due to a plugin dependency. Were these documents created in house or by someone else?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

You can try to change the extension to .idml (InDesign Markup Language) and see if it opens. That format strips out all third-party plugin dependencies.

[BobLevine]

Changing the extension, unfortunately, won't magically turn it into an IDML file.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

We've done this several times in the past and it's worked. We have a plugin dependency for Agility that we sometimes need to circumvent.

[BobLevine]

Not sure what it is you're remembering but it wasn't renaming an INDD file to IDML. It's just not possible.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

I stand corrected - we have a Markzware plugin that converted the files.

[BobLevine]

That explains it. You had me starting to wonder. 🙂

[BobLevine]

Is the file stored in a Dropbox, Onedrive or other cloud service folder? If so, make sure it's not cloud-only.

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Idlck file present?