Adobe InDesign CS2 - Working with File Types and Extensions

So let us go down and choose the Berliner Poster, very similar to the size of the one that we just created and go ahead and click OK. Now this will open up a very large document automatically set to fit in window. I am just going to talk very importantly about file types for a second.

If you go up to the File Menu, let us say, we have created some design here that we want to save, just go down and either choose Save or Save As, document is not actually saved at this point, so either command will actually invoke the Save dialog box and what it is going to ask you is just to save that wherever you want to. Go ahead and hit desktop for a second because we have probably want to keep this file anyway. It is just a test run. The important thing here is the file type, currently called untitled-4.indd. This is the correct suffix for an InDesign document. That is basically what the double d stands for at the end. You come down here to the bottom of this dialog box, you will see this format type, we have InDesign CS document. We also have InDesign CS template. Now if you select template, you will see the suffix at the top here ends in indt. That is how we tell the difference between a document and a template inside of InDesign.

Now, there is also a new format that has been introduced in this version of InDesign CS2. What we can do is just hit Cancel or hit the Esc key to get rid of this dialog box. Go back to the File menu now, go down and choose Export and in this dialog box, we can see the format at the bottom is PDF. We saw that briefly earlier on, but underneath there is an option called InDesign Interchange. Now if you choose that, you will see this new suffix called inx. Now this allows you to save an InDesign file compatible with previous versions of InDesign, in this case, CS1. This is very handy if you have created a design in CS2, but someone does not have CS2 at this point. You might be using features that are very specific to CS2 and you do not want someone who is using CS1 not to be able to work on those or see them or make changes to them. What this does is basically make the file back with Compatible so all the same look and feel of the document is respected when opened in another version of InDesign.

So that is just a small one I wanted to point out to you, but it is not in the same location as the other save options. This is a very specific export option and this is where you will find it underneath the PDF option right there.

Now once again, I am just going to hit the Esc key or click cancel to remove that dialog box. I have mentioned that there are also a couple of other file types. One is indb which is an InDesign book and indl which is an InDesign library which again, we will see a little bit later on.

Now when it comes to opening documents inside of InDesign, one of the first questions that people will ask when using this program is what about quark files and what about PageMaker files and these are really just a couple of standards there. You can open QuarkXPress files from version 3.31 to 4.x, so anything within that range. Likewise with PageMaker files, you can open from 6.x to 7.x, so it is a little bit more flexible than the previous version of InDesign.

Now when you open these files, they do convert very smoothly, very quickly and also fairly accurately. I have only noticed a couple of problems opening Quark files in the past with things like the vertical alignment of type inside the text frame can shift slightly. That can easily be corrected, but it is just something you do have to look out for. Everything else, the style sheets, the colors, the guides, the margins, the images. Everything else comes in very nicely.

To open those files, it is a very straightforward process. You do not have to import or convert or anything else. You simply go to File and choose open and it will massively open the Quark file and PageMaker file and convert it immediately.