As I say - I don't have all the answers, but I would expect Adobe to provide the solution, other than buying every version of their software. We're going into the "What If's" here which is always shaky ground. A brief not well thought out example off the top of my head: So whatif I switch from Quark to InDesign today. I buy CS5. I get a client who's been using CS3 for years. Hasn't any reason to upgrade. This client starts asking me ot provide layouts for him so they can update. I have spent €900 on INDesign or worse, I've spent €2000 on the Master Suite. I start making the design, I'm not regular user of InDesign, I've just switched from Quark. I send the client the files, they can't open them. The only options are Client spends money and upgrades for €240 or I go to amazon or somewhere to spend another €900 on InDesign CS3. Look, to me that's very unreasonable. I've already bought InDesign. Why do I or the client need to spend even more money. What I propose is that if I want a file from CS5 to open in CS3, then I should be able to only enable features that work in CS3, then save for CS3. I don't think that that is that unreasonable? And it's a fairer solution, I think. Whatever about the PDF not matching from CS5 to CS3 and the client getting in a hump over it, and rightly so. These are things that need to be worked out in the contract with the client, stipulating that there will be differences from the CS5 to CS3 version. I've had it before when I sent CS3 files to CS3 clients, and they get overset text and other things due to different versions of the font. All that I'm asking is that a clear warning is given - that "Converting" as it opens the file tells me nothing, or anyone esle. Fair enough I know what it means, but others wouldn't. And that is unreasonable of Adobe, in my opinion. And if I do use CS5 features and I want to save it to CS3, then a warning will come up saying that CS5 features will be stripped from this document. At which point you'll have to go and insert anchored text frames to span headings, balance your own columns, fix anything that doesn't work in CS3 and then save it for CS3. I'm not asking for a blind save, i think it's reasonable that you can save back to another version, of course there are always risks, but that's up to me to make sure the file is stripped of the CS5 features and looks acceptable before sending to a Cs3 client. At which point I can stipulate that the file may be different due to CS5 to CS3 backsave and stipulate to the client that they have a responsibility to ensure it's correct. Which is fairly standard in a proofsheet sign-off.
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