Okay, everybody.
I'm making this video to try and help somebody over on the Adobe InDesign
Forum, that's forums.adobe.com and particularly on the InDesign section.
And you can read along with me, here.
This user reported he was working on a file two days.
It was almost complete and it was tables and text boxes.
"While I was editing the name, all of a sudden, the file crashed, and it wouldn't
open again. I tried to open the file the normal way.
Yes, recover.
No, don't recover and cancel three ways freezed the InDesign..." etc., etc., etc.
So, hopefully Adobe can help them.
Adobe can help people, in some instances, but, basically, what we found is
that our method is quick, and probably your best chance at getting your file back,
quickly, if at all.
So, he or she left a link to the file, and I downloaded it, and it's right here.
And what I, basically, will show you, I try to open it in InDesign CC 2019.
I get that lovely splash screen that I love so much, and it goes through the process.
And, at first, I'm thinking, "Hey, this is looking positive.
It even asks you to update the links."
So, I clicked "Don't update links", hoping that would not... and then, boom!
You get this crash.
And you saw that message.
Well, you see how that was, in the message.
I didn't have time to read it.
And it just keeps going.
And you can't do anything.
It's going to tell me, in a moment, that InDesign crashed.
Now, we, here at Markzware, have various methods and ways to try and to fix files.
What I always try to do is the simplest way, of course, and that is our application,
MarkzTools2. And MarkzTools2 is a standalone utility that will convert
InDesign files into IDML, without even opening them in InDesign.
You don't even need InDesign on the machine.
So, and, by the way, another thing I don't often do.
I open up ID Util, just out with CC 2019 support, and I try to drop the InDesign file
on there and see if I get a preview.
I do.
This is a very good sign that we can do something, here.
Let me see if we can...
Now, we don't get all the pages in Preview.
That's a little bit odd.
So, there is something odd going on, here.
But I do appear to get a lot of stories and all the various images used.
So, this is a positive sign.
We could see it a little bit, but I can't really do anything more than export this.
I could get this...
I could export the stories out of here.
This is a free utility, by the way.
But more than that, not really.
The next thing I'll do is I'll try the MarkzTools2, which we were just
discussing, MarkzTools2. I'll try to drop the InDesign file on there
and create an IDML file. And we see what we got there.
We got that warning.
That's not a good sign.
It's crashing MarkzTools, as well.
You see it did try to make an IDML, but I doubt that the IDML is complete.
I'll try to open it in CC 2019.
This is the folder you get with MarkzTools2.
You'll get low-resolution previews of the images and the IDML file created from the
InDesign file.
But, hey, maybe it worked.
Maybe it squeezed...
It did.
It squeezed out an IDML.
MarkzTools2 was able to squeeze out an IDML from this rather corrupt file, as we
saw. And there it is.
Everything right here.
I don't want to show you too much.
I don't know what this is, exactly.
So, if I then, go and I do "Save As...", and this is how I do it for people who I fix bad
files for.
I'll add a "FIX" to it.
I fixed a couple of them, here.
Then, I go and I do File > Export.
And I'll save a low-res PDF, so the customer can decide if they want to pay
or not. Normally, you have to pay for this.
I'm doing this one for free, to show all of you how we do it.
So, this is just for preview only.
And, then, I would send this to the customer and say, "Look, hey, we fixed
your file. Do you want to pay the $99?"
Basically, it's about 99 Euros or dollars, to fix it.
We don't ask for that second payment, unless it's fixable.
And you see it's a very quick process.
In this case, it was very easy.
You could have done it yourself, if you owned MarkzTools2.
It's an application from Markzware you can get on, over here, on markzware.com.
And you can get that under Products > MarkzTools2.
It's very inexpensive and very handy to have in your toolbox, anyway, to create
IDML files from any InDesign files you have.
A great way for archiving or saving out files.
And we have a lot of other great products, like FlightCheck (and the ID Util you just
saw), which is great for collecting, compressing, and everything, also,
without InDesign needed. It's also standalone and will check many different
file formats. But there is that ID Util we also showed you, briefly, as well, which is
free and you can download it on the App Store.
So, I will now, reply on the forum section here, about the successful recovery.
In this case, I'll get it back to this customer, for free, because we use it in
the demo, here, but for the rest, if you need information
on our "bad file" conversion service... Actually, "bad file" recovery service (We
actually have a conversion service, as well.), just go under Products and click
under DTP File Recovery Service. There, you'll get all the details on how we
can fix bad files, if you ever come across one, as well.
I can't do them always for free, here.
This does cost time.
Time is money and, in this case, it was relatively simple.
There are many other processes I go through, when this doesn't work.
And that's a lot of times that it doesn't work and then, I have to go to the next
step and other tools and some stuff I wouldn't even be able to show you right
here. Some internal tools we have.
In any event, that's how we can fix bad files.
A brief overview, and I'm glad we could help this customer over on the Adobe
InDesign forum. David Dilling for Markzware, wishing you a fantastic day!