[IDML Implemented] How can I open Indesign (indd and idml) Files in Publisher?

[garrettm30]

@wonderings I get that it was Dan who said that, but I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something. As I understand it, the argument below is based on a false premise (honest error, I am sure, or else a misunderstanding on our part as to the meaning):

On 10/2/2020 at 11:16 PM, Dan Pinkerton said:

If MS Word can execute a nearly flawless translation of an idd resumé into a docx, I'm not sure why Affinity can't or doesn't want to.

As it stands, I would answer: "MS Word cannot execute any kind of translation of an INDD document to DOCX, so maybe you can understand why Affinity can't or won't." Publisher has given us far better than Word in that Publisher can import an IDML, so that we do have a good mechanism to get from InDesign to Publisher.

[wonderings]

36 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

@wonderings I get that it was Dan who said that, but I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something. As I understand it, the argument below is based on a false premise (honest error, I am sure, or else a misunderstanding on our part as to the meaning):

As it stands, I would answer: "MS Word cannot execute any kind of translation of an INDD document to DOCX, so maybe you can understand why Affinity can't or won't." Publisher has given us far better than Word in that Publisher can import an IDML, so that we do have a good mechanism to get from InDesign to Publisher.

I just did a quick test. Made an 8.5 x 11 document in Indesign. Filled with some text, threw in a colour box and a picture. Tried opening in Word and it gave me a garbled mess. Tried just text on an 8.5 x 11 page in indesign and same garbled mess. So unless there is some plugin to make Word handle Indesign files I would say it dose not do this in any usable way. Now if you want a jumble of nonsense then it does it fantastically.

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

... So unless there is some plugin to make Word handle Indesign file ...

The only means I am aware of is the wonderful plugin, WordsFlow, by Em Software. It allows direct communication via linking between ID and Word in both directions. Same with their DocsFlow plugin between ID and Google Docs.

But it isn't using .idml.

[Dan Pinkerton]

On 10/3/2020 at 12:06 PM, walt.farrell said:

As Mike said, you will either need to use a 3rd-part conversion tool, or temporarily install a version of InDesign that will run on Catalina, and do the conversion to IDML.

In the end, a 7-day trial of InDesign and five or six hours of work is what it took to convert all essential .idd documents to .idml. Although there is a lot of justified skepticism here, I really did open an .idd resumé (that had no images in it) with perfect results in Word. 

[Dan Pinkerton]

On 10/8/2020 at 9:53 AM, wonderings said:

I just did a quick test. Made an 8.5 x 11 document in Indesign. Filled with some text, threw in a colour box and a picture. Tried opening in Word and it gave me a garbled mess. Tried just text on an 8.5 x 11 page in indesign and same garbled mess. So unless there is some plugin to make Word handle Indesign files I would say it dose not do this in any usable way. Now if you want a jumble of nonsense then it does it fantastically.

No color or images in my resumé; that's probably the key  to my success.

[garrettm30]

9 hours ago, Dan Pinkerton said:

Although there is a lot of justified skepticism here, I really did open an .idd resumé (that had no images in it) with perfect results in Word. 

I am really rather curious how you are doing this. When I try to open an .indd file with Word, it is just a jumbled mess of computer code. I have tried .indd files created both with CS 5.5. and the current CC2020, and opening them in the current MS Word for Mac.

[wonderings]

1 hour ago, garrettm30 said:

I am really rather curious how you are doing this. When I try to open an .indd file with Word, it is just a jumbled mess of computer code. I have tried .indd files created both with CS 5.5. and the current CC2020, and opening them in the current MS Word for Mac.

Yes I would want to know as well. All I can think of is he is copy and pasting text into Word and it somehow holding on to some formatting. 

[Dail]

Don't know if you are counting, but please add my name to your requests for capability of opening InDesign files in Publisher. I have 15 years of work in CS 2. A lot of it I still open and copy things to bring them forward into current files. Or I rework older files for a current project. No longer an option for me since my G5PPC finally died and those old Adobe apps won't run on my MacBook Pro. A lot of work to recreate everything in Publisher, even though I am enjoying working with this application.  Thanx

[AdrianB]

20 minutes ago, Dail said:

Don't know if you are counting, but please add my name to your requests for capability of opening InDesign files in Publisher. I have 15 years of work in CS 2. A lot of it I still open and copy things to bring them forward into current files. Or I rework older files for a current project. No longer an option for me since my G5PPC finally died and those old Adobe apps won't run on my MacBook Pro. 

I'm not speaking for Serif, but everything said so far is that opening InDesign .indd files won't happen for now, only .idml files. There are technical reasons for why (as Joachim_L said: ”INDD is a locked format, so Serif has to reverse-engineer it”).

If you have so many years of work in InDesign, maybe it's worth buying Adobe CC for a month and export those files to .idml, or buy IDMarkz to convert them?

[Dan Pinkerton]

This is what I did, only more quickly. A 14-day trial enabled me to export 15 years' worth of .idd to .idml, and now I can open them all with Affinity Publisher. Note: I also took a hard look at just what exactly I needed to export -- turned out to be about 85 files in the end.

[Eddie Aguirre]

On 11/13/2020 at 5:21 PM, AdrianB said:

I'm not speaking for Serif, but everything said so far is that opening InDesign .indd files won't happen for now, only .idml files. There are technical reasons for why (as Joachim_L said: ”INDD is a locked format, so Serif has to reverse-engineer it”).

If you have so many years of work in InDesign, maybe it's worth buying Adobe CC for a month and export those files to .idml, or buy IDMarkz to convert them?

Thanks for the plug @AdrianB. Any of you guys on a Mac looking for a way to convert your native InDesign files to Affinity Publisher (through IDML), IDMarkz, might be the tool you need. As many of you have mentioned, this can be done using InDesign, but if you're looking for a long-term solution that makes the process seamless, check out this video showing how simple the conversion process is. The video shows the process with an older version of Publisher, but the current version will convert using an IDML rather than PDF.

 

We'll be running a 10% off promotion from November 15, 2020 through January 31st, 2021.

 

The usual price for a IDMarkz perpetual license (buy once, and own forever) is $149. This link will take the price down to $135.

 

The usual price for a IDMarkz 1-year subscription (I know subscriptions aren't for everyone) is $99. The promo price will be around $89.

 

Disclaimer, I work for Markzware as a software engineer, I might be biassed. 😅

 

UPDATE use coupon code FRIDAY2020 for 20% off, early Black Friday deal!

Edited November 17, 2020 by Eddie Aguirre
Added Black Friday Coupon code for 20% off

[Fixx]

6 hours ago, Dan Pinkerton said:

This is what I did, only more quickly. A 14-day trial enabled me to export 15 years' worth of .idd to .idml, and now I can open them all with Affinity Publisher. Note: I also took a hard look at just what exactly I needed to export -- turned out to be about 85 files in the end.

I think it is possible to search for .indd and run batch script to search folder to convert them all to idml at one go. Should be pretty quick. The link to the script is somewhere in this thread I guess...

[SamSteele]

On 11/14/2020 at 1:33 AM, Eddie Aguirre said:

 Any of you guys on a Mac looking for a way to convert your native InDesign files to Affinity Publisher (through IDML), IDMarkz, might be the tool you need.

If you had a Windows version of IDMarkz you would sell quite a lot to AFF Publisher users. Any movement in that direction?

[Eddie Aguirre]

On 11/15/2020 at 12:43 AM, SamSteele said:

If you had a Windows version of IDMarkz you would sell quite a lot to AFF Publisher users. Any movement in that direction?

A Windows version is in the works. I'll be sure to post here as soon as we have a beta available. You can also signup for IDMarkz product updates.

Also, just found out we're starting our Black Friday sale early, 20% off with coupon code FRIDAY2020. Link to IDMarkz purchase options.

[marcoborghesi]

Is anyone thinking of doing the opposite? From Affinity Publisher to indesign maybe again through and IDML file?

M

[GeGr]

It really would be great if Publisher would be able to import INDD files, to save them as  so people (like me), that like to switch over from indesing to publisher could transfer old work easily!
I know about the ability to open idml files, which is great, but for older files it would be very usable ...

[loukash]

1 hour ago, GeGr said:

but for older files

Don't know about ID CC, but ID CS5.5 can open my 18 years old InDesign 2 files without a hitch, and the IDML export is then only a few clicks away. (Not counting the search for missing linked resources and obsolete Type 1 fonts, haha…)

1 hour ago, GeGr said:

import INDD files

That will likely never happen because unlike IDML, *.indd are stored in humanly unreadable proprietary gibberish that would probably require quite some advanced reverse engineering. I wouldn't expect Serif wanting to spend much developer time on that. (And frankly, I wouldn't want them to!)

Whereas an IDML file is in fact a compressed package of XML files with all document content and coordinates readable as plain text. Open an *.idml with BBEdit and read for yourself!

I don't think it was such a rocket science to reverse engineer that.

[Bryce]

@GeGr

If you would like to transfer your INDD files to IDML easily, there is a batch plugin for Indesign that will do your entire harddrive and save them to a folder you specify. It works pretty well from my experience. It's just called batch_convert.

[SamSteele]

16 minutes ago, Bryce said:

@GeGr

If you would like to transfer your INDD files to IDML easily, there is a batch plugin for Indesign that will do your entire harddrive and save them to a folder you specify. It works pretty well from my experience. It's just called batch_convert.

And if you no longer have a copy of InDesign?

[dominik]

6 hours ago, SamSteele said:

And if you no longer have a copy of InDesign?

You could do a one month period of subscription to Creative Suite to do the conversion. That's a moderate expense.

d.

[Bryce]

Or use the free trial. 

[Fur kids mom]

Is this page still viable? Wondering if today's Affinity Publisher is able to open and edit InDesign? 

[jmwellborn]

Welcome to the Forums @Fur kids mom😊  Publisher definitely can.  I suggest that you go to this topic in the Forums for more current information. You will reach it by typing into the Search box at the top of this page the following:

Switching Indesign Files Into Affinity Publisher

[SamSteele]

13 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

Welcome to the Forums @Fur kids mom😊  Publisher definitely can.  I suggest that you go to this topic in the Forums for more current information. You will reach it by typing into the Search box at the top of this page the following:

Switching Indesign Files Into Affinity Publisher

This didn't work for me.

Mac guys try IDMarkz for a solution.

 

 

[wonderings]

You have to use IDML files from Indesign to open with Publisher. INDD files will not open with Publisher.

Be warned that opening an Indesign file in Publisher is not going to give you perfect conversion results. Double check all your work and correct as needed.