Q: Can you only create packages in InDesign?

A: I know you’re referring to e-mail-based Assignments, aka InCopy packages (INCP in CS3, or ICAP in CS4) or assignment packages; and the answer is “essentially, yes.” Only InDesign can initiate the remote workflow by creating an InCopy package “from scratch,” that is, from a regular assignment in a layout. An InCopy user can’t do this; they can’t decide on the fly, “Oh I think I’ll work on this from home, I’ll send it to myself.” However, if an InCopy user receives a package from a designer and opens it in InCopy; then she can create another package from it. She can either return it to the designer as an InDesign package, or repackage it into another InCopy package, assumably for another editor (by choosing Forward to InCopy from her Assignments panel).

Can you explain again why the remote workflow won’t work with remote designers?

Well, I suppose it can, if the remote (offsite) designer keeps the layout on their home computer, creates assignments there, and then sends out e-mail-based assignments (InCopy packages) to the editors (and they return InDesign packages back to her).  In other words, if you keep the workflow all remote, it can work.  I actually have a few clients, some with over 60 people around the country, who are putting together publications in this way.

But when people ask this, they almost always have something different in mind. They’re thinking that the designer could “bring work home” by sending a package to himself at the end of the day, or that the editors could unpack the packages on the server since they’re all on the network, or that a production manager could create an InDesign package for a subcontracted, off-site designer. None of those work.

When the editor opens the INCP file, can you change where it unzips itself – so it’s unzipped onto a shared drive?

No, that’s built-in to the system. On PCs, the INCP (or ICAP) unzips itself into the user’s My Documents > InCopy Assignments folder; on Macs, into the user’s Documents > InCopy Assignments folder. (The first time an InCopy user opens a package, the software creates the InCopy Assignments folder on its own in those locations.) The contents of the package are copied to a folder named the same as the assignment itself. So if you look at the InCopy Assignments folder, you can see a folder representing every assignment package you ever opened in InCopy. I’m not sure why you’d want to put the contents onto a shared drive automatically, but you could always move the unpacked folder to a shared drive manually.

When we tried the remote workflow, we had a problem with elements from the Master Pages randomly “migrating” onto the layout pages. This caused the layout to be edited to contain a mess of elements that was unusable for the remote editor. Have you encountered this? Is there anyway to prevent it?

Sorry, I’ve never encountered that before. The only things that should be editable in an InCopy package are the stories that the designer associated with the assignment. The packaging step itself has nothing to do with master page items, it’s more like a “copy files and zip them up” operation. So before you package, turn on View > Show Assigned Frames to help identify them in the layout, and make sure you haven’t inadvertently included master page items in the assignment you’re about to package.

How secure is Dropbox?

Dropbox, the virtual server solution I demo’d as an alternative to the remote workflow (or even as an alternative to a local server), is quite secure. All uploads/downloads are done over an encrypted (SSL) channel, and files stored on Dropbox are also encrypted. You can read more details about Dropbox security here.

What was the format of the file you put on dropbox, i.e. was it a .incp?

No, there’s no need to use InCopy packages when you and a remote user are sharing a folder via Dropbox. You just treat the folder on your hard drive as though it was a folder on a local server. In the webinar I just put the full project folder in my Dropbox folder: the InDesign layout file (INDD), the assignment files, the linked InCopy stories, the whole shebang. Remote InCopy users open the layout or assignment from their Dropbox folder and check stories in/out as usual. It’s a miracle, I tell ya! (Except: Remember that Dropbox inexplicably allows two InDesign users to open the same layout file at once. So don’t do that.)

The InCopy Notes feature seems to be glitchy. Sometimes difficult to get the new note icon to light up. Also clicking on the note icon in Layout view does not always bring up the note in the notes panel. Comments?

The Notes feature could stand some improvement, I agree.  I don’t think it’s glitchy, though, just … hmmm … guess I’d call it “high maintenance.”   First, in order to see the icon for a note in Layout view, you have to remember that it’ll be the same cap height as the text in which it was placed. So the Note icon for 6 pt. photographer’s credit line will be like a flea speck; but the Note icon for a 60 pt. headline will be huge. I seldom bother looking for these visually; just go to the Notes menu (or open the Notes panel from the Window menu) and choose Next Note. InCopy will put the text cursor next to the note and center it onscreen. You can cycle through all the notes in a document by just using the Next/Previous Note commands.

To get the Notes panel to open when you click on the icon, you have to get your cursor hovering over the top half of the Notes icon (the downward pointing triangle), so you might need to zoom in first to see where that is. When it’s hovering in the right spot, the cursor changes to a pointing finger. Now you can click and the Notes panel will open. See? High maintenance.

———

Hoo-boy! I told you they were great questions, yes? Final part 3 (with questions about master pages, conditional text, and package errors) coming up tomorrow!

As promised, attendees, I grabbed the entire transcript from the Chat window so I could make sure and answer all your questions, which I do so below to the first section. Some of these I already covered during the 30 minute Q&A — I’ll still reprise the answers here for the benefit of my blog readers.

Q: Would you say again how do you set up layout view as default?

A: Start up InCopy but don’t open any files. Choose Layout View from the View menu. It should now carry a checkmark (before, Story View had the checkmark). From now on, when you open files they’ll open in Layout view.

If you change the default font in galley/story, will it apply to all documents you open or just the one you’re working in?

It will apply to all documents, period, even after you quit InCopy and start it up again.

Can you format paint — copy formats from one bit of text to another?

No, unfortunately you can’t. There’s no Format Paint tool like in Word, nor an Eyedropper tool like in InDesign. Maybe next version! In the meantime, though,  remember your friend, Quick Apply (Command-Return or Control-Enter), which I demo’d in the webinar. Very fast way to apply formatting.

When you showed how to ”Arrange New Window”, how did you then go to a split screen so that both views were shown on same open file?

Choosing Window > Arrange > New Window adds the new “clone” of the first window so you can have 2 different views of the same document. To see both windows at the same time, in CS3 choose Window > Arrange > Tile Vertically (or Horizontally). In CS4 you can use the Arrange Documents widget in the Application bar across the top and choose a window arrangement.

Can you assign text on one layer but not another (e.g. localized versions with text on different layers)?

In InDesign, the user can assign a text frame to a specific layer. You can’t do that in InCopy, but in your Layers panel you’ll see the frames are on those layers, and you can Hide/Show the individual layers the designer added. So the designer can set up localized versions of text on different layers, and the editor can show/hide these at will.

In CS4, the new Conditional Text feature lets you hide/show text selections, instead of entire frames, a very powerful feature and ideal for many multilingual publications. The InDesign user can create the conditions in the panel, and the InCopy users can assign text selections to the conditions as well as hide/show the conditional text.  I demo’d this in the webinar.

We work across several sites where we have our own servers. Is there a way to get In Copy Assignments folder to redirect to be placed on server rather than individual hard drives?
[And]
Can you change where the icma file is stored so it’s on a network drive — not C:?

By default, InDesign creates the assignment folder inside the folder containing the layout. So if the designers have opened a layout on their individual hard drives, then InDesign defaults to saving the assignments in the subfolder it creates on that same hard drive. If you can get the designers to work off the server, then InDesign will save the assignments there too.

Sorry, but I don’t know of any way to force InDesign to automatically export the assignments to a location other than the default, though I suppose (like anything), it can be scripted. As I showed in the webinar, designers who want to work on the layout locally need to use the Change button in the New Assignment dialog box to choose a different location for the assignments folder, its assignments, and the content folder (and its exported stories) too.

Why are icma file dates not updated with each use and save of changes?

Not quite sure what you mean here. ICMA files (CS4 assignment files) and INCA files (CS3 assignments) aren’t updated every time you update the INDD file, that’s one of the advantages of using an Assignments-based workflow.  It’s only if the designer makes a change to the InCopy frames in an Assignment (such as changing their size, or adding new/deleting existing) that the little yellow ‘Update me!” icon appears next to that assignment’s name.

If the designer made a change to other elements on the spread, or to things not part of the assignment at all, then there’s no need to update the assignment. Thus the editor isn’t bothered by constant “Out of Date” messages for the layout as the designer saves changes to the InDesign file. However it does mean that the designer needs to pay attention to the status of their assignments in the Assignments panel as they work on the layout, and to keep updating assignments as necessary.

OR maybe you’re thinking that when the InCopy user saves changes, the assignment file should show a new modification date? A common misconception. Actually, there’s no possible way an InCopy user can change anything about the assignment file (or a layout file, if they’ve opened an INDD document). That’s why the command in InCopy is “Save Content” and not simply “Save” like every other program.

The InCopy user is actually saving changes to the external, linked InCopy stories (the INCX or ICML files) that the assignment or layout is giving them access to. So if you look in the project’s folder where the linked story files are contained, you will see the modification dates update as the InCopy user saves changes. But only the InDesign user can modify (and save changes to) the assignment and layout files themselves.

You can read Part 2 here.

You can read the complete list of resolved issues in the Release Notes, but for me, the biggest issues fixed for InCopy users are:

• Notes now appear in all pages of PDFs exported from Layout view,
• Word > InCopy style mapping presets are working again, and
• Windows InCopy no longer reports missing links “when opening certain INDD files created from the Mac OS” even though links are accessible.

There are many more bug fixes for InDesign; you can read the Release Notes or look at Steve Werner’s post about it on InDesignSecrets.com

Full-day InCopy seminars

First, I’m really excited to be able to do two full days of InCopy/InDesign workshops on September 15 and 16. (Finally, I’ll have the time to cover everything I want to cover!) I’ll be doing these in one of the beautiful presentation halls at the Institute for Graphics and Imaging, just west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s the same place where I did a 2-day InDesign Master Class a couple years ago, if any of you were there.

Each full-day workshop is “stand alone,” though I suppose some users might want to take advantage of the opportunity for face-to-face training and attend both days.

Tues., Sept. 15: Collaborative Workflows using Adobe InCopy and InDesign
Fee: $195 for all-day seminar; discounts available*

An introductory workshop to the InDesign/InCopy workflow, this session is ideal for prospective users or those who have recently switched and are still kind of unclear about it all. I’ll cover the different ways to set up the workflow (what gets installed where), who should (and shouldn’t) be using it, how to share stories and keep up to date, and so on. More details are available on the workshop registration page. or download the PDF brochure.

*Enter the InCopySecrets discount code ICS15 for $25 off! Other discounts are explained on the registration page.

Wed., Sept 16: Adobe InCopy and InDesign Master Class
Fee: $195 for all-day seminar; discounts available*

Though all users are welcome, I’m aiming this seminar at editors, designers, and production managers who have at least a few months of InCopy/InDesign (any version) under their belt. I plan to cover more advanced topics like creating InCopy layout templates, troubleshooting font issues and permission issues, tips and techniques for keeping all the files and filetypes straight and error-free, using cloud computing solutions for remote workflows, and more. More details are available on the Eventbrite registration page, or download the PDF brochure.

*Enter the InCopySecrets discount code ICS16 for $25 off!  Other discounts are explained on the registration page.

InCopy Webinars

If you can’t travel to Milwaukee, or can’t afford a full day outside of the office, but still need some InCopy workflow help,  how about an hour in front of your computer? I’m going to show just the most essential information from both of these workshops in two separate webinars.

Wed. Sept. 9: InCopy + InDesign: Getting Started
Fee: $39.00, for 1 hour webinar plus 15 minutes of Q&A
Early bird fee of $29.00 until Aug 28 2009

This is an introductory eSeminar on how the InCopy/InDesign workflow works, with essential information for new users on how to make the transition smoothly and successfully. Send me your questions beforehand, or stick around afterwards to ask them live. Register here.

Wed. Sept. 23: InCopy + InDesign: Tips and Techniques
Fee: $39.00, for 1 hour webinar plus 15 minutes of Q&A
Early bird fee of $29.00 until Aug 28 2009

I’ll be showing some of my favorite tips and how-tos for more advanced topics like remote workflows, troubleshooting, templates, and hidden InCopy features. Send me your questions beforehand, or stick around afterwards to ask them live. Register here.

——————-

So there you have it, four ways to get up to speed with the InCopy/InDesign workflow this September … I’m looking forward to seeing you at one or more of them!

When you run into an issue where users on one platform can check out stories from a layout or assignment, but users on the other platform cannot, look at the filenames to make sure they’re not the root of the problem. (After making sure everyone’s server permissions are correct, of course.)

Recently, a user was describing this exact same situation in a thread on the Adobe InCopy forums on Adobe’s web site. Actually, what he reported was that the links to some of an assignment’s stories were being reported as “Missing” (a red stop sign) by the Windows InCopy users, but were fine for the Mac InDesign users—even though all files were stored on a central file server. Weird, huh?

Early on, one of the people trying to help him out asked him, “Are there any non-Lower-ASCII characters in any of the filenames? Accented characters can get remapped on servers, so that’s something to watch out for.” The user said no, the InDesign users employ a strict naming convention for assignments and layouts, always avoiding accented characters. After a few more bouts of “try this” and “try that,” all unsuccessful, he posted a screen shot of his InCopy’s Links panel showing the missing story links. I don’t think he’d mind if I showed some of it here:

Can you spot the problem? The two missing stories have accented characters in their filenames, right near the ends of the names. When the user unlinked those stories from the layout, and re-exported them with new filenames (sans accents), InCopy had no problem finding the filenames and the “missing link” issue was solved.

How Did It Happen?

The InDesign users, while careful not to name assignments or layouts with accented characters, had no control over how InDesign automatically named stories when using one of the InCopy > Export All Stories to Assignment commands. As you know, in that situation, InDesign uses the name of the layout as a prefix, inserts a hyphen, and appends the first word or two from each text frame to keep the filenames unique. (If the text frame is empty, it adds “Text 1″ “Text 2″ and so on.)

In this case, some of the text frames the Mac-based InDesign users were exporting to InCopy format had a first or second word that contained an accented character, and that character in the filename was getting remapped on the Windows server.

It would be nice if InDesign would strip out high-ASCII characters when using them as filenames, but it doesn’t.

Adobe’s Advice

It was heartening to see a couple Adobe engineers jump into the forum discussion to help out, especially since the forums are expressly not supposed to be an official resource for tech support. One helpful Adobe guy offered some insight into exactly how InDesign autonames InCopy files as it exports text frames, even though I think he got his file types confused at one point (so I’m editing this quote to correct it):

InDesign automatically names .icml files that it creates in the Contents folder while generating InCopy Assignment files (.icma), using this formula:

Trim to 26 characters ([.indd file name] + [story text]) + .icml

If the INDD filename is 26 characters or greater, then the story text never contributes to the names of the .icml, and the subsequent .icml files in the same Assignment file will be clipped and incremented.

In other words, if the INDD filename is 26 characters (“AbcdefGhijkLmnopQRstuvwxyz.indd”) or more, InDesign doesn’t grab a word or two from the text frame for filenames. It just uses the layout name, like so

AbcdefGhijkLmnopQRstuvwxyz.icml
AbcdefGhijkLmnopQRstuvwx-1.icml
AbcdefGhijkLmnopQRstuvwx-2.icml
[...]
AbcdefGhijkLmnopQRstuvw-10.indd

Thus, to avoid the “accidental accents” problem entirely, you could rename the layout so it has at least 26 characters before you start exporting stories to InCopy format.

Otherwise, you could comb through the layout and either remove (perhaps Convert to Note) any first words in frames that have unusual characters before exporting all stories, or export each problem child frame individually to InCopy format (InCopy > Export > Selection), in which case you get a chance to name the ICML file yourself. Do either one of these actions, and then you can use the Export All Stories commands as before, since it won’t re-export frames that are already linked to external ICML files.

Download the InCopy CS4 Hands-On Guide (5 MB PDF file)
Download the Sample Files.zip (150 MB)

Although the introductory section gives newbies an overview of the InCopy/InDesign workflow itself, the main focus of the guide are the new features in InCopy CS4. You become familiar with each of these new features — like cross-references, conditional text, the new Links panel, and so on — by downloading the accompanying sample files and following along with the step-by-step exercises in the guide. Instructions for installing the sample files and setting up your preferences are in the beginning of the Hands-On Guide.

If you’d like a peek, here’s my “anatomy of the Assignments panel in InDesign” illustration, from the introductory section:

The sample files used in the hands-on exercises are the same ones that Adobe sales staff use in their own demos, so if you’ve attended any of these, you may already be familiar with the fictional Check magazine.

[I still insist that this guy who's profiled in the magazine's feature story (he's supposed to be the lead actor in an upcoming feature film) is a lost Baldwin brother! But Adobe says no, he's just an actor the design firm hired for the shoot. I don't know — you tell me:]

Mainly it’s editors who ask the question, but designers too would appreciate the ability to occasionally save a version of the contents of a text frame being shared with InCopy.  Well, I now have a solution, but need your help. More on that further down.

As InCopy users know, versioning is not built in to the workflow. When you check out a story in  a layout or assignment, even the Save As command is dimmed. You can only do a Save As with standalone InCopy files. So editorial users make do with Track Changes, or with some manual workarounds. (Note that K4 and SmartConnection systems have a versioning feature, I believe, but I’m talking about the “normal” InCopy workflow here.) And in InDesign, even if you do a Save As to the layout, the text frames are still linked to the first version’s InCopy stories.

So last year I joined forces with a couple InDesign/InCopy developer geeks (and I mean that as a compliment), Peter Truskier and Jim Birkenseer, to address the issue. Last month we released the first beta version of InVersion. It’s a low-footprint plug-in for InDesign and InCopy that lets you save and restore versions of each story in your publication, whenever you want.

For example, here’s a screen shot of part of the contextual menu you see when you right-click on a story you’ve checked out:

Unlike VersionCue, InVersion doesn’t require a database or anything special like that, it just uses your existing project folder to store and track versions of InCopy stories. Also, InVersion only saves a version when you specifically choose the Save A Version command, instead of every time you save a story or check it in, which we think makes the most sense.

It works the same in InDesign as it does in InCopy.  In fact, InDesign users could use InVersion even if their company isn’t using InCopy. They’d just need to use InDesign commands to export the story to InCopy format first (kind of like exporting the story to RTF format), and from then on they could use InVersion to save and manage iterations of main stories or sidebars, without having to do Save As’s to the full layout.

We Need More Testers

For the past month we’ve had a small group of InDesign/InCopy users download the beta and the PDF how-to, use it, and give us feedback to a private forum we’ve set up. The very first bit of feedback we received was so great to hear:

“I’ve done some testing in an InVersion installed InCopy and a standard InDesign without the plug-in, and it works fine. [...] I deleted the Versions folder to see what would happen and if the workflow still works using the latest incx file – it works fine. I can see the most use on the InCopy side where editors needs versioning (without the hassle of Version Cue). It’s simple, elegant, it works. Me Like! ”

But before we release it into the “wild” commercially, we need many more InCopy and InDesign users to try it out and tell us what works and what’s missing. There’s not much to test, it’s actually quite straight-forward and simple, and it would help us immensely (plus, active testers get a free copy of the final release!).

Right now the InVersion beta is only available for CS3 (Mac and Windows), but CS4 will follow shortly.

So if you’d like to join the fun and you’re using either CS3 or CS4 of InCopy or InDesign, please e-mail me at amarie [at] incopysecrets.com with INVERSION in the Subject line and I’ll get you signed up. Thanks!

How can two newspaper pages (in two InDesign files) share a common InCopy file. So that one half of the story flows in the first page and rest in the second page.

These are called jump stories in my part of the world. Is such a thing possible without using any additional plug-ins?

Sumil’s question reminded me of the ingenious solution that Russell Viers, InDesign trainer/newspaper expert extraordinaire, came up with recently for this exact situation.

Essentially, you link the same InCopy file (ICML) to the two InDesign layouts, and then use the Conditional Text feature in InDesign/InCopy CS4 to show/hide text at the jump. So, no plug-in is necessary (nor do I know of any that would do this), but you do need the current CS4 version of InDesign and InCopy .

You can read Russell’s step-by-step instructions in this post on InDesignSecrets.com, the sister site to this one.

Curious about the Conditional Text feature? You’ll find a 10-minute video on using Conditional Text in InCopy CS4 in my ID/IC CS4 Workflow title on Lynda.com. (Scroll down to Chapter 7, “Advanced Text Editing in InCopy” to find the link.) But to really do a deep dive into the topic, check out the five videos (about 40 minutes total) in the Chapter 4: Conditional Text chapter in my InDesign CS4 New Features title.

In neither case, though, do I show that uber-cool solution that Russell Viers came up with. The guy’s a genius!

If you see a scary red stop sign icon (it’s a hexagon, I checked) on a workflow story, instead of the usual globe or pencil, it means the story’s link is missing — neither InDesign nor InCopy can find the external InCopy file that is linked to the text frame. Which means that no one can check out or edit the story.

What happened? Someone (I’m not saying it was you) moved or renamed one of the interrelated files that are part of the whole InCopy/InDesign workflow, or saved it in the wrong location in the first place. Some real world examples I’ve heard include:

• Designer exported a frame to InCopy format and inadvertently saved it to their own computer instead of to project folder on the server (so to the designer, everything’s fine, but to anyone else opening the layout or assignment off the server, there’s a missing file);
• Editor or designer wanted to bring work home, so they copied the layout or assignment to their USB Flash drive but not the folder full of linked InCopy files (please don’t ever do this, not even if you do remember to copy the InCopy files, use e-mail-based assignments instead)
• Production manager or IT tried to “clean up” the server, and while working in the Finder or Windows Explorer they inadvertently moved or renamed a linked file

Luckily there are a couple ways to easily fix the problem, and one “last resort” fix.

Whoops, Sorry Sir, I’ll Put it Back

If you know where the linked InCopy file is (or can find it with your computer’s Find command) just move it back to where InDesign or InCopy thinks it should be, and the problem goes away.

You can learn the location and filename that ID/IC is looking for with the help of the Links panel, available from the Window menu in both InDesign and InCopy. Open the Links panel and look for the entry with the stop sign icon.

If there’s more than one, click inside the story’s text so that ID or IC highlights that story’s link in the Links panel, the same behavior as the Assignments panel.

Now double-click the missing file’s entry to open the Link Information dialog box, and then look at the Location field at the bottom.

It’s kind of hard to read, but the Location field reports the file’s “Last Seen Location,” the path and filename that IC/ID is pining for. Here’s a zoomed-in view:

Switch to the Finder or Explorer, find the linked file, and move it to that location (renaming it to match the remembered filename, if necessary). Switch back to the program, and both IC and ID should immediately remove the Missing Link icon. Now you can check it out and proceed as usual.

I Meant to Do That

What if you moved or renamed the linked file on purpose, and want to keep it that way? For example, let’s say that to fix an InCopy story which was exported to the wrong location (see the first bullet point above), you went to the Finder/Explorer and moved the INCX file to the correct location.

Now you just need to tell InDesign what you did. With the missing link selected in the Links panel, choose Relink from the Links panel menu (or, if you still have the Link Information dialog box open, click the Relink button to the right of the Location field). The Relink dialog box opens, allowing you to navigate to the new location of the file. Select it and click the Open button.

If you’ve renamed the link, you’ll get an “Are you sure?” alert, a failsafe in case you selected the wrong INCX file. Just click Yes, and InDesign shrugs its shoulder, links to the story to the “new” INCX file, and the stop sign goes away. If you look at the Location field in Link Information, you’ll see it’s now updated with the new path and filename.

Only InDesign is able to relink stories to a layout (and thus, to an assignment). Even though InCopy has a Relink command, it only works with standalone InCopy files, at all other times it’s dimmed.  But as soon as the designer saves the layout file and updates the assignment, InCopy users can choose File > Update Design to see that the link is fixed.

By the way, InDesign CS4′s revamped Links panel has a wonderful new feature called Relink to Folder.

Relink to Folder allows you to quickly fix a whole bunch of missing links that are missing only because someone moved or renamed the folder itself (the one that contains the missing files), or because you moved all the linked files to an existing folder with other files. It doesn’t help if you’ve renamed the files, though.

To use the feature, shift-click all your missing links in the Links panel, choose Relink to Folder, and in the resulting dialog box, select the folder containing the linked files. Click the Choose button, and InDesign reestablishes links to all the missing files it finds in that folder.

When you’re done, remember to save the changes to the InDesign file, updating any affected assignments if necessary, so that the InCopy users working on the layout can choose Update Design and see healthy links again.

In Case of Emergency, Unlink

If the linked INCX file is nowhere to be found, the only solution is to unlink the story in InDesign (not possible in InCopy), and then re-export the story to InCopy format.

To unlink a text frame from its external INCX file, open the layout in InDesign, select the story’s entry in the Assignments panel,  and click the Trashcan button at the bottom of the panel.

Doing so doesn’t delete the story in the layout (dumb icon, in my opinion), it just breaks its link to the external INCX file. If clicking Trashcan icons makes you nervous, you could use the Unlink command instead, found in both the Assignments and the Links panel menus.

After you unlink a story, the text remains in the layout, intact and unchanged, within a “normal” InDesign text frame (no workflow icon). Now just export the story to InCopy format again, however you normally do it, and it’s once more available and ready for checking out.

So if you’re using an InDesign/InCopy CS3 workflow, and you need to get another copy of ID or IC for a new hire or to bring a new publication into the workflow, you’re a little bit stuck. (Unless you’re ready to move everyone—designers and editors—to CS4 at the same time.) That’s why one of the most frequent questions I’ve been getting lately is, “Can InDesign CS4 work with InCopy CS3?” while the second-most frequent one is, “Can InDesign CS3 work with InCopy CS4?”

The answers are “Yes” and “Yes” … but because of new file formats and extensions, you might have to modify the way you work.

InDesign CS4 with InCopy CS3

In layout-based workflows, editors open InDesign layout files (INDD) and edit the workflow stories within them. Even though InDesign CS4 files have the same INDD file extension as CS3, InCopy CS3 cannot open InDesign CS4 layout files. If you try, you’ll get an error:

The only way to allow InCopy CS3-using editors to continue working with CS4-using designers is to provide them with Assignment files instead of having them work directly on the layout.

Even if you’re already using an Assignment-based workflow (editors open INCA files instead of the actual INDD layout), InDesign CS4 users will need to pay attention, as Assignment files have changed file extensions and formats in CS4.

You must be careful to make assignments and their stories compatible with CS3. Otherwise, they’re created and exported in the new CS4 formats—ICMA (assignments) and ICML (stories)—which InCopy CS3 cannot open. (Adobe changed the file formats to make them more accessible to XML editors outside of the programs … a topic for another post.)

You make assignments compatible with CS3 when you create them, by choosing that option in the New Assignment panel in InDesign CS4:

If you had selected frames in the CS4 layout file at the same time you created the new assignment, the external InCopy files that InDesign CS4 exports and includes in the assignment will also be compatible with InCopy CS3. That is, InDesign will export them with an INCX (InCopy CS3) extension instead of ICML (InCopy CS4). Otherwise, creating “Optimized for CS4″ assignments automatically exports stories to ICML format.

If, on the other hand, you export stories as a separate step (dragging them from Unassigned InCopy Content to the Assignment name in the panel afterwards), when you export them you need to make sure to choose the InCopy CS3 format in the Export to InCopy dialog box:

So, let’s say you have just one editor who’s working on a publication. Assignments, which help you split up a large publication into editor-specific layout files, don’t make much sense in that workflow. To keep things simple, all you need to do is to create a single assignment that is the entire layout. You could choose Edit > InCopy > Add All Stories to Assignment > New, for example, being sure to specify Compatible with CS3 in the New Assignment dialog box as shown above. Tell your editor to open the INCA file instead of the INDD file, and you’re good to go.

In fact, even if you do have two or five editors working on the same publication, you could still create a single assignment that is the entire layout and have them work on it concurrently. It’s a little-known fact that multiple editors can open the same assignment (INCA or ICMA) at the same time, just as they can with INDD files. After they open it, all workflow stories within it will be accessible to them, and the usual rule of “one user per checked-out story” still applies.

By making the Assignment compatible with CS3, you can be assured that any email-based assignment packages you create can be opened by remote editors using InCopy CS3. (Yes, packages also got new file formats in CS4.)

InDesign CS3 and InCopy CS4

It’s a lot easier to work with this combination. InCopy CS4 can open InDesign CS3 layouts (INDD) and the InCopy files that InDesign CS3 exports: stories (INCX), assignments (INCA), and packages (INCP). When the InCopy CS4 user saves changes to these files, they’re saved in the same format they were opened in automatically, without them having to choose any specific format. That means that other InCopy CS3 users and InDesign CS3 users on the team should have no issues working on files that the InCopy CS4 user worked on.

The one time that InCopy CS4 users might have to be careful is when they’re working on a stand-alone InCopy file, one that they’ve created (File > New) or one that they’ve opened directly from a publication’s “content” or “stories” folder. After editing the file, when they save their changes (or close it with unsaved changes), InCopy will put up a “Save As” dialog box. This is because it wants to save the document in the new InCopy CS4 format.

Assuming the InCopy user doesn’t want to do that, they  should be sure to choose the “InCopy CS3 Interchange” format in the dialog box before hitting the Save button:

Doing so saves the standalone document in CS3-friendly INCX format instead of the new ICML format.

Are you using a mixed-version workflow? I’d love to hear how it’s going for you … add your comment below!