I had this exact same problem today with a file I just worked on four days ago that guido on the 4th was having. I went online to Adobe to get the latest update of the CS5.5 and I still had the same problem. It wasn't until I hovered over the icon in the dock that I realized I had a CS5 icon on the dock, not the CS5.5.  They both once were there but I decided to smoke one and leave the other. Problem was I apparently ditched the wrong one.  They are identical so hence my mistake. All this supports the bad idea of using CS5 to open a CS5.5 document.

This also supports the idea that computers are dumb and people can be dumber. All troubleshooting techies will tell you to check the nut behind the keyboard.

Really Adobe?!? Really?

As it is I have a client that uses CS2, so I have to keep a copy of indesign3, 4 and 5 just to be able to interact with them. Even then they get an export, that I can't open to make sure it works. Now I suppose I'll need 5.5 and all the previous versions. At least tell me 5.5 can be exported directly to 4, or am I going to need all four indesgn installs?

Very Quark like behaviour.

Oh, and thanks for the useful error message, who could have predicted that someone might try and open the file with older software? Why you'd have to be some kind of soothsayer…

The IDML file from InDesign 5.5 is crashing my installtion of InDesign.  It appears to start importing links but gets hung up around the same place.  Would a corrupt link be causing this error? I tried moving all of the links to see if that helps, but then it won't even start the import process.

This is INFURIATING, Adobe.  I have to keep every version of Creative Suite back to CS2 on my machine in order to work with my various print suppliers.  To hear now that CS5.5 documents will not open in CS5 makes me want to use an alternative product.

This must be addressed at some point.  I appreciate that there are inconsistencies and new features with each version.  But why can't this be handled like Illustrator?  ie. backsave to an earlier specified version.  Having to backsave to CS4 in InDesign CS5, then open the IDML file in CS4 and backsave to INX, then open up in InDesign CS3...  Totally pathetic for a product that costs thousands and is supposed to be for professionals.  Paaaahhh!!

sibyuk wrote:

 

...  supposed to be for professionals.

I am a professional user of InDesign and I've never had to backsave. Perhaps because I only deal with other professional users of InDesign.

Well no, we've upgraded to '5 and '5.5 because of ePubs. And, *of course*, for the very occasional client who insists on handing in self-made documents. A practice, by the way, we at the office strongly discourage. I f you can make a document in InDesign you can create a press-ready PDF (even if it means me hanging on the phone and guiding the client through the required motions).

Personally I like to stick with The Evil I Know, CS4.

We do engourage PDF use whenever possible, but a big part of our clients work on an extreme deadline and forceing them to always provide us an absolute final version PDF for all print items at all hours of the day is not the customer service game we want to play.  Often a voice approval for a small change that is needed can be made and proofed using mobile phones, but only if we have the native file and we make the change. 

I guess it all goes back to the difference between a "therortical" designer and "real life" designer.  Some designers think that it makes them a better person if they have the latest version just to print black ink on white paper and a real life designer can make a masterpiece in Publisher. Which by the way we print beautiful 4-color work directly out of Publisher all the time.

We do let the customers know what the problem is.  We will NOT make major design changes that the artist should be responsible for. But many times, just by pure chance, we see an incorrectly spelled word, or a puctation error or two spaces between word that the artist overlooked.  We are not in the business of proofreading, but sometimes it just falls in your lap and we don't want to go ahead and print it wrong. We will contact the responsible party no matter what time it is if they are on a super tight schedule, but if it is 2 am and they will approve us making the small change without having to get up, get dressed, go to work to make a new PDF, we will go ahead and do it. 

I don't know anything about you and the volume of design work you do, but I would bet almost any amount of money that we do a larger volume of printing than you do designing. And these small but necessary changes happen more than you would ever imagine. Yes a PDF can be edited if made correctly, but still sometimes a single space change can cause reflow or force text out of center and these changes can only be made with changes to native files. We request PDF's and native files for printing. We use the PDF for most work, but the native files are only used when needed.  Our printing practices are not the issue here so I will end this conversation.  The real problem is the constant charging for upgrading without maintaining compatability between versions.

When I made the statement about "forced to fire the many people that have invested their lives in this printing company" I was talking about the skilled technicians that run the press, cut the paper, fold and assemble the books.  If we went form 100% print to 5% print, there is no telling how many people would lose their jobs. 

You sit at your desk and know your world and I sit at my desk and know my world and neither of us can make decisions for the other. I pay for taining, I pay for resources, I pay for hours, days, weeks, months, and collectively years for employees to learn HTML/CSS and other design skills. So don't you snap back with your "holier-than-thou" responses because you are a "Community Professional." The continuing cost of business for items such as software upgrades is a major concern for companies like mine.  We are trying to move into the future of digital publishing AND maintain print work so we can keep our employees employed. We have to look at every aspect of the business and un-necessary upgrades is a big part of it. 

No matter what your background is, you will never know what I go through on a daily basis with my business and I will never know what you have to deal with. This has gotten far of the original thread so lets just end it here.

Wow, I can't belive the replies here.  I'm my company's webmaster/web designer, and I work with my company's graphic designer.  She's on a Mac, I'm on a PC.  She went to 5.5, and I recently upgraded to 5.  I can't simply open her InDesign files to help her out (missing plugins, etc).  It seems like we're constantly having to upgrade.  We do use PDF's when we share outside, but inside, if she's not in to export to a PDF, then I'm trying to access the native file (as in the case of today, where I'm on a deadline, she's out on holiday vacation, and I can't open a file).  Lovely.