Susan wrote:
I am trying to import a video file into my document, but InDesign says “Cannot place the file. No filter found for requested operation.” What does this mean and what do I need to do? The file is saved as a Windows Media Audio/Video file.
The answer to your question lies in your last statement: Windows. InDesign can import movie files on both Mac OS and Windows, but as far as I know, it uses QuickTime to do the “reading.” Therefore, if QuickTime can’t read it, then InDesign can’t either. Actually, it’s even more restrictive than that — specifically, the documentation tells us:
“QuickTime 6.0 or later is required to work with movies in InDesign. You can add QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and SWF movies, and you can add WAV, AIF, and AU sound clips. InDesign supports only 8? or 16?bit WAV files that are not compressed.”
So even though I can open WMV files in QuickTime on my machine just fine (because I have Flip4Mac WMV), InDesign still won’t accept that kind of file. Oh well. There are a number of converter utilities available on the Web.
By the way, if you are going to import movies into InDesign, note that they will only play once you export them to PDF. (Even in CS4, InDesign does not support movies in any other export format, including SWF.) And you must turn on the Interactive Elements checkbox in the PDF Options dialog box. No checkbox, no movie.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on October 28, 2008
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