Adobe InDesign CS5 : Saving Files in Other Formats

InDesign's Save, Save As, and Save a Copy commands let you save documents and templates using InDesign's native file format. The Export command (choose File => Export or Ctrl+E) opens the Export dialog box, from which you can save documents and some individual document elements such as stories and graphics in several other formats. And InDesign has separate menu commands for exporting Web and e-book documents.

1. Export formats for whole documents

To export entire documents, InDesign provides the following options (accessed from the Export dialog box unless otherwise indicated):

• InDesign Markup (IDML) format: This format lets InDesign CS5 save files readable by InDesign CS4 and some specialty publishing programs. (It will also be readable by the next version of InDesign — presumably to be called InDesign CS6.) The trick is to export, not save as, files to the InDesign Markup format. IDML files have the file name extension .idml.

• Production formats: You can save the document as an EPS or a PDF file for use by prepress tools and service bureaus or for import into other applications as a graphic. You get the choice of exporting individual pages and page ranges, not just the whole document. Choose the Adobe PDF (Print) or EPS options in the Format pop-up menu (Mac) Save as Type pop-up menu (Windows) in the Export dialog box.

• Online and interactive formats: You can save the document in XML format for use in online database-oriented content-management systems by choosing the XML option in the Format pop-up menu (Mac) or Save as Type pop-up menu (Windows) in the Export dialog box. InDesign can also export interactive PDF files (retaining video, audio, and actions), as well as export Flash Player presentation files (SWF) and Flash project files (FLA).

  You can also export your document to the Web's structured HTML format (XHTML) by choosing File => Export For => Dreamweaver. (Despite the menu option's name, any Web browser and most creation tools can work with these exported files.) Finally, you can export to the Digital Editions e-book format meant for Web-based distribution of rich-media documents by choosing File => Export For => EPUB.

2. Export formats for document elements

You can also export pieces of your document, such as text files and graphics. Be sure to select the objects (use the Type tool for text and the Direct Selection tool for graphics) and then choose the appropriate options from the Export dialog box (choose File => Export or Ctrl+E):

• Word-processing formats: If you place the text cursor into a story, you can export its text (select a range of text if you want to export only that selection) into one of three formats: RTF (Rich Text Format) for import into word processors with only basic formatting retained and Text Only for import into word processors that don't support RTF (no formatting is retained). You can also export selected stories to the InCopy Document format, for use in that add-on program ; exported stories appear in the Assignments panel.

• InDesign Tagged Text format: Whether you select text using the Type tool, you can save the story in the InDesign Tagged Text format (for editing in a word processor and later reimporting into InDesign with all InDesign formatting retained).

• InDesign Markup (IDML) format: This new format is meant to allow document xchange with the CS4 and next (CS6?) versions of InDesign and InCopy; developers can also use it to open InDesign files in applications they create.

• JPEG format: You can export individual or multiple graphics as well as entire pages and layouts to the JPEG image format by choosing the JPEG option in the Export dialog box. You can also export text frames, which convert the exported text to an uneditable image.

• Animation formats: You can export InDesign pages and documents as Flash Player presentations (SWF files) or Flash Pro projects (FLA files) for further work in Adobe Flash Professional.

• Buzzword format: You can export InDesign text to the Adobe Buzzword subscription-based online editing tool.

• Document snippets: You can also export selected elements to a snippet file by choosing InDesign Snippets from the Export dialog box. Or simply drag the elements out of your document in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer; you import snippets by dragging the snippet file (which has the file name extension .idms) into your document from the desktop or a folder.

2.1. Working with exported tagged text files

The InDesign Tagged Text format is a powerful capability that few people use. It exports your current story's text as a text-only (ASCII) file that any text editor or word processor can open. It uses embedded codes to indicate formatting, so you can edit the text elsewhere without fear of losing that formatting. This format supports all the formatting you do in InDesign — such as fonts, kerning, or style tags — as well as making it easy for you to automate the layout of database-derived documents such as catalogs. 

If you learn the codes, you can actually specify InDesign formatting in another program (such as exporting from a database). Most people don't use the InDesign Tagged Text capability because the coding can be tortuous. And if you use it to create files for import into InDesign, you'll find that you can't use both Tagged Text codes and your word processor's formatting, so you must code everything with tagged text and save the document as a text-only (ASCII) file.

The best way to understand the Tagged Text format is to export some of your own documents to it, and open the resulting file in a word processor to see how InDesign coded the file. A warning: The Tagged Text format can be complex, especially because most codes have two forms: a short (abbreviated) form and a long (verbose) form; you choose which InDesign form exports from the Export dialog box in InDesign (choose File => Export or Ctrl+E, and then choose Adobe InDesign Tagged Text as the file format). Note that a Tagged Text file is simply an ASCII text file, so it has the file name extension .txt and uses the standard text-only file icon in Windows and on the Mac.

Here's an example of verbose coding (because the code is so long, I had to add line breaks; slightly indented lines are actually part of the same code segment):

<ASCII-WIN>
<DefineParaStyle:Normal=<Nextstyle:Normal><cTypeface:Regular>
   <cSize:10.000000><pHyphenationLadderLimit:0><pHyphenation:0>
   <pHyphenationZone:18.000000><cFont:Times New Roman>
   <cColorTint:100.000000>>
<DefineCharStyle:Default Paragraph Font=<Nextstyle:Default Paragraph
   Font>>
<DefineCharStyle:Hyperlink=<BasedOn:Default Paragraph Font>
   <Nextstyle:Hyperlink><cColor:Blue><cTypeface:Regular>
   <cSize:10.000000><cHorizontalScale:1.000000><cBaselineShift:0.000000>
   <cCase:Normal><cStrokeColor:><cUnderline:1><cFont:Times New Roman>
   <cPosition:Normal><cStrikethru:0><cColorTint:100.000000>>
<ColorTable:=<Black:COLOR:CMYK:Process:0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,
   1.000000><Blue:COLOR:RGB:Process:0.000000,0.000000,1.000000>>
<ParaStyle:Normal><pHyphenation:1><CharStyle:Default Paragraph Font>
   <CharStyle:><CharStyle:Hyperlink>www.adobe.com<CharStyle:>
   <CharStyle:Default Paragraph Font>. <CharStyle:><pHyphenation:>

Here is the same text with abbreviated tags:

<ASCII-WIN>
<dps:Normal=<Nextstyle:Normal><ct:Regular><cs:10.000000><phll:0>
   <ph:0><phz:18.000000><cf:Times New Roman><cct:100.000000>>
<dcs:Default Paragraph Font=<Nextstyle:Default Paragraph Font>>
<dcs:Hyperlink=<BasedOn:Default Paragraph Font><Nextstyle:Hyperlink>
   <cc:Blue><ct:Regular><cs:10.000000><chs:1.000000><cbs:0.000000>
   <ccase:Normal><csc:><cu:1><cf:Times New Roman><cp:Normal><cstrike:0>
   <cct:100.000000>>
<ctable:=<Black:COLOR:CMYK:Process:0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,1.000000>
   <Blue:COLOR:RGB:Process:0.000000,0.000000,1.000000>>
<pstyle:Normal><ph:1><cstyle:Default Paragraph Font> <cstyle:>
   <cstyle:Hyperlink>www.adobe.com<cstyle:><cstyle:Default Paragraph
   Font>. <cstyle:><ph:>

What does all that coding mean? It's for a one-page document with one frame that has simply one line of text: This is a hyperlink to www.adobe.com. The text is black, except for the Web address, which is in blue underline.

As you can see, there's a lot to Tagged Text codes. InDesign comes with a complete list of codes in a PDF file called Tagged Text.pdf that you can find in the Tagged Text folder within the Adobe Technical Info folder on the InDesign installation disc.

In practical terms, you may not mind editing Tagged Text slightly or leaving the tags in a file when you alter the file's text; but you're not likely to forgo the friendly formatting available in your word processor and in InDesign to apply Tagged Text coding to everything in your text files.

2.2. Exporting files as JPEG graphics

The process for exporting to JPEG is simple: Select the objects to export, choose File => Export, choose JPEG in the Export dialog box's Format pop-up menu (Mac) or Save as Type pop-up menu (Windows), and click Save to get the Export JPEG dialog box (shown in Figure 1).

In the Export area of the Export JPEG dialog box, you choose whether to export the selected graphics, entire pages and page ranges, or the entire document.

Figure 1. The Export JPEG dialog box

You also can control quality, format, and resolution settings.

In the Image area, you have the following options:

• The Quality pop-up menu lets you control the image quality, with choices of Low, Medium, High, and Maximum. Note that the higher the quality, the less the JPEG image can be compressed.

• The Format Method pop-up menu controls how the JPEG image appears in a browser. The default Baseline option displays the entire image at one time, whereas the Progressive option has it build up line by line — a good option for very large files so that viewers can tell something is happening as the image loads.

• The Resolution field lets you specify the output resolution in pixels per inch (ppi); 72 ppi is appropriate for the Web, assuming that the image will be used at the same size, but you should pick a value of 300 for images to be published at the same size in print.

• The Color Space pop-up menu lets you choose how InDesign exports colors in the JPEG image: RGB, CMYK, or Gray. (RGB is the color model used for on-screen display, and CMYK is the color model used for professional printing)

In the Options area, you have the following choices:

• The Embed Color Profile option, if selected, embeds the InDesign document's color profile into the JPEG image so other programs can more accurately duplicate the color you intend.

• The Anti-alias option, if selected, smoothes boundaries within your image, such as the edges of lines.

• The Use Document Bleed Settings option, if selected, includes the document's bleed area as part of the exported image.

• The Simulate Overprint option, if selected, adjusts the colors of objects that overlap each other in InDesign to look more like they would if printed. This option should be selected if you are creating previews of complex documents that have lots of overlapping colors, because it more accurately reproduces the print intent.

Click Export when done setting these options.

NOTE

The Color Space pop-up menu and all four options in the Options area of the Export JPEG dialog box are new to InDesign CS5.