Claudia McCue

Aug 13 2010

Beware Back-saving: Why Time Travel Is Dangerous

If you’ve watched much science fiction, you know things always go wrong in time travel. Somebody drops a USB drive in ancient Mesopotamia, and next thing you know, dinosaurs are roaming the streets of New York.

Same thing goes for back-saving files for earlier versions of software; I always caution designers to avoid this if possible. However, I realize that designers often encounter mixed versions of applications, especially when freelancers are involved. I try to always keep files in their native habitat, in terms of software version and platform. The notion of opening up an innocent PC Illustrator CS5 file in a Mac CS4 version of Illustrator makes me twitch.

I’ve had my convictions strengthened this week; I’m working on a book in InDesign CS5, but the publisher wants the final files in InDesign CS4. I’m taking advantage of the Track Changes feature in CS5 to work with the editor, and that’s working great. However, when I export to InDesign Markup (IDML) — the only way back to CS4 — things fall apart. Paragraph formatting goes wonky. Styles based on other styles have forgotten the overrides that separated them from the parent styles, and the original formatting (mainly nested styles that I’d un-nested) bubbles back up. Like a zombie movie.

I don’t recall this happening when I back-saved from InDesign CS4 to CS3. I don’t know if I was lucky, or if back-saves have become more dangerous in the new version. The moral of the story? If you are forced to time-travel, make a PDF before you jump. Place the PDF in a separate layer in the converted file, and turn its visibility off and on, so you can check for issues.

Be careful out there. Watch for dinosaurs.

6 responses so far

6 Responses to “Beware Back-saving: Why Time Travel Is Dangerous”

1. # This Week in InDesign Articles, Number 36 | InDesignSecretson 24 Aug 2010 at 1:30 am

   [...] Claudia is concerned about the reliability of back-saving in her article on Why Time Travel is Dangerous. [...]

2. # Leslie Waughon 25 Aug 2010 at 7:52 pm

   This article is so true and right on target. Back Saving may SEEM like a dream come true but truthfully it’s just problems waiting to happen. I had an entire indesign book of over 200 pages fall apart before my eyes while trying to back save for a fellow designer stock in the CS3 dark ages. Needless to say…come one people it’s time to upgrade!

3. # Matheuson 15 Sep 2010 at 5:53 pm

   ” (…) Place the PDF in a separate layer in the converted file (…)” What do you mean by it? How do I place a PDF inside a InDesign document/file and compare the .indd file with the .pdf toggling between “each” layer visibility? I never wondered it was even possible! (I’m on a PC, Windows 7, using both InDesign CS5 and CS4 when “needed”.)

   Thanks!

4. # Claudiaon 16 Sep 2010 at 10:25 am

   Matheus,

   What I’m recommending is that you place the PDF of the original document in a *new* layer in the converted document, then turning off (and on) the visibility of that new layer containing the PDF, so you can see the differences.

   But your comment prompts another idea, still involving the PDF. If you want to check layer-by-layer, when you generate the PDF from the original document, choose Acrobat 6 (or above) compatibility, and check the option to “Create PDF Layers.” This will preserve the layer arrangement you had in the document.

   Then, once you have the PDF placed in the converted document for checking, you can control the visibility of layers in the PDF by using Object > Object Layer Options. Check the Preview checkbox in the Object Layer Options dialog, and use the “eyeball” controls to turn on/off layers, watching the results in the document.

   Hope this helps!
   –Claudia

5. # Matheuson 16 Sep 2010 at 6:32 pm

   Claudia, thank you so much for your reply and attention! But mostly what I don’t know how to do, is how to even place a PDF inside a InDesign document! Does it make the file size much bigger? I didn’t know it was possible! It means I can “place” a PDF inside a .indd document? How do I do that? Can I do it without a plug-in, natively from InDesign CS5?

   Thanks for your help!

6. # Claudiaon 16 Sep 2010 at 6:40 pm

   Matheus,

   You place a PDF just as you would a Photoshop or Illustrator file: File>Place, and hold down the Shift key while you click the “Open” button. A dialog appears: choose which page (or page range) you want to place, and choose how it should be cropped (usually, you’ll want to choose “Trim”). Then, just click in the page and position the art. (you don’t need a plug-in; InDesign “understands” PDFs.)

   Of course, you cannot edit the PDF with InDesign; it’s just placed as artwork.

   It won’t add any more to the file size than, say, a Photoshop image, since graphics are not embedded by default.

   Hope this makes sense!

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