Opening InDesign CS3 files in InDesign CS2
Backward compatibility in Adobe InDesign CS3 allows InDesign CS2 users to open Adobe InDesign CS3 documents by first exporting them to the InDesign Interchange (INX) format.
Content that you create using functionality specific to InDesign CS3 might be modified or omitted when you open the file in InDesign CS2. For example, footnotes and object styles (new features in InDesign CS3) drop out. However, the INX file preserves attributes applied to page objects using the Object Style panel attributes when possible.
To export an InDesign Interchange file from InDesign CS3:
- Open or create a file in InDesign CS3.
- Choose File > Export.
- In the Export dialog box, select InDesign Interchange from the File Type menu (Windows) or Formats menu (Mac OS).
- Click Save.
The table below describes what happens to various features, settings, and elements when you open InDesign CS3 documents in InDesign CS2.
| Feature or Setting | Supported? | Notes |
| Text and Styles | ||
| Non-Breaking Character | Yes (limited) | An InDesign CS2 Non-Breaking Character does not map correctly to the same character in InDesign CS3. |
| Paragraph Styles | Yes (limited) | Opening an INX file that has both [Basic Paragraph] and [NormalParagraphStyle] may cause InDesign to crash. |
| Paragraph Style Panel | Yes (limited) | The Paragraph Styles panel is blank after opening an INX file exported from InDesign CS3. |
| Excel Import | ||
| Linked Excel files | Yes (limited) | Named Range and Cell Range import preferences will be lost for linked Excel files. |
| Documents | ||
| Numbering | Yes (limited) | Numbering across stories is changed if one of the frames is on different layer. |
| Button Effects | No | Effects applied to buttons are lost in InDesign CS3 INX files. |
| Stroke weight | Yes (limited) | Stroke Weight of picture frames changes from 0 pt to 1 pt. |
| Placed PDF | Yes (limited) | A PDF in an INX file may shift down and right when viewed in InDesign CS2. |
| InCopy Workflow | ||
| Track Changes | No | Enum characters are lost in InCopy Stories containing track changes. |
| Tables | ||
| XML in tables | No | InDesign CS does not support this feature. XML in tables will be stripped out. |
| Lines in tables | No | Diagonal lines in table cells are lost when saving to INX format. |
| Libraries | ||
| Moving Library objects | Yes (limited) | Object preview sticks to the top of the page when a Library object is dragged into an InDesign document. |
| XML | ||
| Import/Export | Yes (limited) | An INX file created from an InDesign XML import or export may crash when opening. |
| Snippets | ||
| Index page numbers | Yes (limited) | Index page number references are changed when unplaced content is added from a snippet. |
| Inline Text frame | Yes (limited) | Content my be lost when dragging in an unplaced content snippet containing an inline textframe. |
| Named grids | Yes (limited) | Named grids do not compose properly in snippets containing more than one object. |
| Tagged inline graphics | Yes (limited) | Unplaced, tagged inline graphics duplicate when dragging structure snippits into new documents and placing in Layout. |
| Object Styles | Yes (limited) | Default Object Style [Basic Grid] does not get added to the Object Styles menu when a frame grid snippet is imported. |
| Page Object | Yes (limited) | Page Object is lost when a snippet is imported to a spread that is smaller than the spread the object was exported from. |
| Linked image items | Yes (limited) | Linked image items appear with corrupt datalinks when the images are stored on a shared network location. |
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