Betalogue

I’ve finally figured this one out. Sometimes, when you select the “Export…” command in InDesign (2.0 or CS), which is most commonly used for exporting the InDesign document as a PDF file, InDesign selects the “Adobe InDesign Tagged Text” file format by default rather than the “Adobe PDF” file format — even if “Adobe PDF” was the last option you used.

Now, I know why. InDesign only does this if, when you select the “Export…” command, the tool currently being used in InDesign is the text tool (rather than the selection tool) and the focus is currently on a specific text frame where text is selected or the cursor is blinking.

If you switch back to the selection tool before selecting the “Export…” command, then InDesign will always use the “Adobe PDF” option by default.

It’s a rather stupid “feature”. I mean, I am sure that there are people out there who actually use the “Adobe InDesign Tagged Text” file format (as part of an automated XML-based workflow), but are they really the majority? Is there really any sense in ever making this file format the default option? Surely the vast majority of graphic designers out there use the “Adobe PDF” file format much more often…

Well, at least now I know why InDesign is doing this.

This entry was posted by Pierre Igot on Friday, August 13th, 2004 at 1:20 am and is filed under Macintosh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.