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I am working with a contractor who made a book file for me using InDesign CC. She packaged it and sent it to me but I can't open the .indb because I'm running InDesign 2020. I am unable to update to ID 16.2 as my OS does not support it, and I'm unable to update my OS as my hardware is not supported any longer (my MacBook is a 2012 with RAM and SSD upgrades.) I can however open the .idml files in the packaged folder, but I don't want to have to rebuild the whole book file if I can help it. Is there any way around this?
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CC is older than InDesign 2020 so you should be able to open this file. What happens when you try?
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I don't know why you get this message but its is not relative to a version problem. Can you share the file (only the indb)?
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Sorry, how do I do that? I tried to share via this forum but it said file type .indb is not supported.
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You can share it using dropbox or similar, but now we are sure that you won't be able to open the indd files, so it's useless (apart from the fact to understand why you get this error message)
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I don't know that it's possible to downgrade an indb file but would suggest first placing the .indd files in a subfolder (or zipping then deleting the files) so that you have no indd files. Next open the .idml files and save them. (this should give the same name as original .indd files) then when you have compatible .indd files open the .indb (it may want to confirm the link). Hope that works for you.
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I tried this method and it still gives me the same error as before. Here is a dropbox link to the .indb:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhpc446i1fxdqxl/21OliveTrees.indb?dl=0
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Your indb file opens correctly with 2021 but I get the same error as you when I try to open it with 2020. You will need to recreate a new book with 2020 and add the indd files.
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So the indd files have been created with 2020, not CC. I just tried to open an indb file created with 2021 using 2020 and curiously it is possible, but of course it is impossible to open the indd files.
Anyway, I am afraid that the only solution is to open the idml files.
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Hi together,
for InDesign book *.indb files there is no exchange format like IDML.
That means that a *.indb file saved from InDesign 2021 cannot be opened with InDesign 2020 or below.
All documents that are used with the *.indb file from a higher version must be converted down using the exchange format IDML and a new book file must be created with the lower version of InDesign.
Blake, if you will have an ongoing business relationship with your contractor it would be essential to exchange documents and book files with the exact same version only. Maybe you could buy a refurbished Intel Mac where InDesign 2021 is running, if a new M1 machine is either too costly or you dare to run a beta or a prerelease version of InDesign 2021?
Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( ACP )