Can't open CS4 file in CS6

[carl_hart]

I have InDesign CS6 now but I'm revising a book I wrote years ago in CS4. All of the CS4 files open just fine in CS6 except for one very important one. As soon as I open it, it crashes InDesign, and I get a message saying that Windows will notify me if a solution is available (as if).

The weird thing is this crash only happens if I try opening the file while InDesign is closed. If I have already opened InDesign, either with another file open or no other file open at all, the problem file opens just fine. That makes no sense to me.

I tried creating a new CS6 file and pasting the content of the problem file into the new CS6 file, but it's exactly the same. I've also already tried recreating the preference files. but no change.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks

[BobLevine]

Open it and immediately export it to IDML. Work with that file going forward.

[carl_hart]

Thanks for answering Bob. I forgot to mention that I already tried that too, and that didn't work either.

[graphicsource]

Have you tried opening ALL document fonts before opening your file?

Have you tried closing ALL fonts before opening your file?

[carl_hart]

Thanks for the reply. No, I definitely have not tried that because I have no idea what that means. How do you open or close fonts? How can I do that when the file is closed? Sorry to be so clueless. Can you please explain a little more?

[Geоrge]

Do the package, than open indd from this package save as idml. If your CS6 will not open this idml again, than you can download only this idml to some dropbox/yadisk and show link here. Somebody will help you.

[Geоrge]

Another variant. May be your idml have problems with some links/fonts when open. Copy only this idml to another folder and than try to open, if will opened - than you can add your missed links and fonts.

[Willi Adelberger]

Do you have access to CS4? You or with someone you know? Then, package it first, export from there INX and IDML and later try to open one of them with your CS6.

[Willi Adelberger]

Another problem could be the file naming. Use only basic characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, - and _

No /,:\&äöüßÄÖÜ

[carl_hart]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I do have CS4 and can install it. I bought a new computer and installed CS6, but saw no need to install CS4, but I can and will. I wonder if it might be a font issue, because the first time I opened the file, after several years and a switch to a new computer, I was told of several missing fonts. However, they were on my computer, just not installed, and I installed them without a any problem, and all the other files, including other CS4 files which need those fonts, open just fine..

I tried George's advice: "May be your idml have problems with some links/fonts when open. Copy only this idml to another folder and than try to open, if will opened - than you can add your missed links and fonts." It just crashed as it always does, without any dialog box pointing to a specific problem.

So I'll install CS4 and see what happens, and if that doesn't work, I'll do the dropbox thing that George suggests.

Thanks again.

[graphicsource]

When I said Close all fonts or Open all fonts, I assumed you were using some kind of font management like Suitcase or even Font Book. Since I see in another post, you referred to "installing" fonts, it's basically the same thing. If you haven't already, I would try to avoid installing CS4 after CS6. CS4 install may interfere with some CS6 installed files. I would try the following...

1. Make sure there are no .idlk files in the same folder as your InDesign file, then try opening. Have you tried duplicating the file?

2. Turn OFF or Uninstall ALL fonts, then try again. If this works, you probably have a corrupt font.

3. Try moving all the links to a different folder so InDesign can't find them, then try again. If this works, you probably have a corrupt link.

4. Willi posted a script in this thread: Adobe Community: InDesign 6 is crashing when attempting to open a particular document. All others ar...

5. Found this in another thread...

Adobe Staffer Sanyam Talwar has been accepting corrupt files from CC (not sure about CS6) and returning repaired files when possible. His instructions to other users:

Please email your InDesign file to corrupt_indesign_docs@adobe.com and I will take a look at the document.

If the file is larger than 10 Mb, you can zip (and password protect) the file and upload to Creative Cloud account (or Dropbox) and send us the document link.

6. Here's another option from Adobe InDesign crashes while trying to recover a damaged document