Indesign 2021 Unable to open old documents

[typhoenix]

I tried contacting support and they were unable to help. I hoping someone here is experiencing the problem or has a solution.

I recently upgraded to a new Macbook air and installed InDesign 2021. I'm able to open files that were saved in 2020, but am unable to open older files possibly saved in 2018 or older. I'm not sure on the versions of these older files because I inherited them. 

When I try to open through the file menu and I click open, nothing happens. When I try and double click the icon, nothing happens. Older PDF icons are also generic? 

Adobe Support thinks an old plugin was used on these files and is now incompatible with 2021. This is terrible since I have hundreds of files that I now can't open on the new computer, they open fine on the old computer with ID 2020. I tried installing 2019 and 2020 versions on the new computer and I have the same result. 

Any help would be great. 

T.

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[Migintosh · Accepted solution]

If your Macbook Air is one of the Silicon variety with the new Apple M1 chips, it has been reported that most Adobe software does not run natively, and when run through Apple's emulator, it doesn't run well at all. This is probably how it will be until Adobe can rewrite the code to run on the M1 chips.

That said, have you tried opening an older file on the older computer, saving it as .idml and opening that in 2021? Not ideal, but if it works, at least you have a solution.

[typhoenix]

Thanks for the reply. Yes the Macbook Air is the new M1 chip. Yes, if I save out as .idml I can open in 2021 thanks for the tip. Opening several hundred and saving to idml doesn't sound like a great way to spend a day. Thanks again.

[Migintosh]

If you don't need to work on all of them right now, maybe just convert the ones you need and hope that when they rewrite the code you won't have to go through .idml. If you do end up having to do that, you can probably get some help with a script that would do it for you, which would free up your day.

[Laubender]

Hi typhoenix,

you could use a script by Peter Kahrel on your old machine to export all InDesign documents, also in nested folders, to IDML. Quoting Peter Kahrel:

Batch-process (convert/export/import) documents

Peter Kahrel

The script (batch) processes files. It can be used to export InDesign documents to PDF and other formats, to convert QuarkExpress and PageMaker documents to InDesign, to update large numbers of InDesign documents to the latest InDesign version, to downsave documents to previous versions of InDesign (see Downsaving to earlier InDesign versions), and to place Word (and rtf) files either in a single InDesign document or in separate documents.

…

Source with link for downloading the script:

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/batch_convert.html

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[typhoenix]

Thanks! I'll try this. 

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi all,

Sorry about the inconvenience caused. The first Beta release of InDesign for Apple silicon M1 is now available to download. Please try installing by following the instructions on this page and share your observations with us.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[typhoenix]

The Beta version did not fix this problem. I hope a solution is found at some point. 

[brianbbb]

I had a similar problem on a PC opening a 10 year old ID file. Wouldn't open, told me there may be a missing plug in. Found a fix on another site - open through the "File" menu, and at the bottom of that Open dialog box, select "Copy" instead of "Normal" or "Original" Hope that helps.