CS 2 InDesign won't open files -in a Windows 7 environment- that it created in a Windows XP environment.  Instead CS2 ID prompts for the snap-ons I've screen printed.  Do you know of any way to get around this?  A secondary question is: where do those .rpln files live and why would ID prompt for them?

Bob,

Larry Schneider understood my confusion when he emailed “what Bob means...”.  I had no idea what the relationship was between the “worldready composer”, those .rpln files, and CS4.  Also, I’ve received a flurry of emails responding to a sequence of forum posts, and it’s been very difficult to correlate the two; particularly chronologically.  It would help if every email copied a post, so that I can check the forum for the chronology of communications.  So where I am now is that I’ll download the suggested zip file.  Then assuming it informs what your colleagues have been suggesting, how am I going to cope since I don’t have CS4?  It’s a pity that Adobe doesn’t take the care that Microsoft has with Word and make at least ten years of upgrades forward compatible.  For corporations considering purchasing InDesign, I would think that would be a sine qua non.

me

Peter, here's where I'm at with this.  I've used Jong's javascript to determine that the files I now need to edit using ID CS5.5 -the current version that I own and use for all other purposes- were created using CS Standard (I'm guessing that if it had a version number that would be 1).  Fortunately or irrelevantly as the case may be I still possess CS 1 and CS 2.  From CS 1 I've exported at least one of those files in inx format, hoping to open it in ID CS 2, but in the latter the xml import option is grayed-out.  So also it's grayed out in CS5.5.  So I'm stumped.  Now there's also the mystery of why xml import is grayed out in CS 5.5.  One would think that that utility would first want to encounter an xml file before choosing whether or not to encounter an xml file in the first place.  Since the utility is grayed-out, it's chosen to not have that opportunity. Also, and this is entirely tangent to the primary issue, it's implicit that Adobe's business strategy with respect to InDesign is to maximize short term revenue using enticing, frequent upgraded versions, which weren't intended to be easily forward and backward compatible.  I would guess that somewhere around eighty to ninety percent of business labor in using ID involves basic textual and basic format changes that are somewhat comparable to the manner in which businesses use Microsoft Word.  This creates an opportunity for Adobe to design ID around a core set of features that are forward and backward compatible, analogous to MS Word, that could be explicitly marketed to businesses for that labor and cost minimizing compatibility.  This would shift Adobe's business strategy from maximizing revenue from those businesses which chose to absorb the increased labor and purchase costs of the product as it now exists to those businesses which would prefer a product that has a longer production life-span.  Would there be a greater number of the latter type businesses than the former such that sales to the latter would create greater revenue in some meaningful accounting interval than sales to the former type businesses?  This would make a good case study for business school marketing students or a productive contract with a microeconomist.

Here's where this issue is at.  I've attempted twice to open the .inx file in ID CS 5.5 and have gotten the error message I copied to Larry Schneider.  Also, if I open the .indd file created in ID CS 1 (version 3, formally you tell me) into ID CS 5.5, the file appears as it did opened in ID CS 1 (but explodes with the change of a single word: the original issue initiating this discussion track) and then export it .idml then import that .idml file (or "save as" followed by "open"; I forget at the moment which) the resulting file appearing in ID CS 5.5 is exploded in the same way that occurs when any adjustment of the initial ID CS 1 .indd file is attempted.  Finally, I did not know that an xml file (was not a document) and had to be imported into a document (analogous to "place"ing a graphic file into an open Photoshop document).  So summing up, I've learned a number of new things for which I'm grateful and great credit must be given to the Jong javascript because it would never have occurred to me that the files I'm attempting to adjust were created in ID CS 1; and since the changes I need to make are primarily textual and not formating and since I still possess the initial ID CS 1, I can use it to make the changes and export those files to the  PDF X-1a:2001 format required by my printer.  And there's the solution. What delayed realization of this solution was my reflexive attempt to open the old files into ID CS 5.5, for which I payed a pretty penny, as they say.  However, my motivation for that upgrade was 5.5's ability to export to .epub format, which type of file I had previously been assembling manually; an exhaustive endeavor.  So great thanks to Bob, Larry, and Peter for staying with me throughout this learning experience.

Oops!  I spoke too soon.  Given, a file created in 2002 or thereabouts using ID CS 1 and archived; then reopened today in ID CS 1 reinstalled in a Windows 7 environment.  Then I change one letter in that text.  The file shatters into exactly the same pattern of white-space ellipsie text that that file opened in ID CS 5.5 shatters into.  This editing problem could not have possibly existed in 2002 or the software would have been quickly abandoned as useless, generating time wasting recursions of white-space problem with every edit, the problem's source must be differences between the memory register resources available to Adobe programmers when creating ID for the pre-Windows XP OS (whatever that was) and those resources available in the Windows 7 environment.  All told, there's no solution to this problem except to export the files to text, copy and paste them back into ID, and reformat. Here's a carriage-return.  We'll see if it survives the posting. Another CR.  Yes, I did try first opening the file in CS5.5 and exporting to .idml.  It didn't lead to a solution.

Peter,

I have an old IBM with XP crowding out every last byte of memory, so I don’t know if I can install CS 1 or 2.  We’re coming into a busy weekend, though, and I may not have time to experiment until Monday.