SDL Trados Studio 2014 displays the following error message when you try to open an IDML file:

The selected IDML file was created by an unsupported version of Adobe InDesign and will not be processed.

 

Studio shows this error message because the original file was created in an Adobe InDesign CC version, which Studio 2014 does not support yet. Adobe InDesign CC file types are generally fully supported starting with Studio 2014. However, newer InDesign versions may also change IDML files for enhancements and Studio 2014 is not yet able to open the new version.

Workaround: Change version of the IDML to enable Studio to recognize the IDML

NOTE 1: The following workaround may cause you to lose some InDesign CC features from your files as Studio does not support these features yet. After the forward and backward conversion, check your files for any issues.

NOTE 2: This workaround requires changing information in the IDML files. Re-saving is not as solution because the latest Adobe InDesign version always saves the IDML file in the most recent format.

Pre-requisites

To retrieve the required information from the IDML file, make sure you:

• Have WinZip, WinRAR or a similar (de-)compressing tool installed on your computer.
• Deactivate the option Hide file extensions for known file types for your operating system (see KB article #3330 for instructions).
• Have a text editor installed, for example Notepad. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad to access Notepad.

To change the version of the IDML:

1. Close Adobe InDesign on your computer.
2. Browse to your IDML document.
3. Highlight the document with one mouse click then press [F2].
4. Rename the file type extension *.idml to *.zip and press Enter.
5. Extract the renamed document with either WinZip or WinRar to a folder.
6. Open your text editor and click on File > Open.
7. Browse to the extracted folder and open the file designmap.xml in your text editor.
8. Search for find the field that looks like this: product="10.0 (70)"
9. Change the line to product = "9.2(70)". This is the highest version that Studio 2014 can recognize at the moment.
10. Save the changes and close the editor again.
11. Re-zip all the files and folders.
12. Change the file extension back from *.zip to *.idml.
13. Now open the file in Studio 2014.