Answered by Jay Nelson, Editor and Publisher, Design Tools Monthly

Question:
All too frequently, my customers complain that they can't open QuarkXPress or InDesign files that were saved down to earlier versions. For example, someone gives them a QuarkXPress 7 document that's been saved in version 6 format, and they can't open it in QuarkXPress 6. Same for InDesign CS3 and CS2. What advice can I give them?

Answer:
The thing to remember is that when you tell either QuarkXPress or InDesign to downsave a document to an earlier version, only the latest update to that earlier version may be successful in opening it.

QuarkXPress 7 optimizes its downsaved file for QuarkXPress 6.5.2 -- so tell your customers to apply the free 6.5.2 update to any version of QuarkXPress 6. Ditto for QuarkXPress 8 and 7: they need version 7.5 to open files downsaved from version 8.

InDesign CS3 has a different approach: it downsaves to a .inx file, which is a set of instructions that only the final version of InDesign CS2 can interpret. They'll need CS2 version 4.0.5 to open it, or CS3 version 5.0.4 to open an .inx file exported from CS4.

By the way, here's how to downsave those files:
To export a file from QuarkXPress 7 in version 6 format, choose File> Export> Layouts as Project…, then choose 6 from the Version pop-up menu. Same for exporting from 8 to 7.

To save a version of an InDesign file that can be read by the earlier version, choose File> Export… and then choose InDesign Interchange from the Format pop-up menu.

This question was answered by Jay Nelson, Publisher & Editor, Design Tools Monthly. We love DTM's tips and advice and think you will, too. For a free sample PRINTED issue, contact Design Tools Monthly at 303-543-8400, e-mail info@design-tools.com, or go to their website: www.design-tools.com.