Without getting in the whole Mac vs Windows debate, one of the pluses for InDesign users on Windows is the ability to look at the file icon in Windows Explorer to tell what version of the program created it.
Unfortunately there’s no way to see this same information on a Mac. Every INDD file has the same display icon which is based on the last installed version. The two icons below represent a CS3 file and a CS4 file on a Mac.
Even using show info won’t tell you anything as the screenshot below clearly show. Both files are showing as InDesign CS4 files.
While double clicking the file in either operating system will result in the same thing…launching the most current version of InDesign, at least on Windows you can just right click the file and choose open with to pick the proper version of the program to open the file with. Of course you can do that on the Mac also but it’s not as easy to know which version that is.
The good folks at Rorohiko have come with a workable solution for this problem, a free utility called InDesignProxy. Once installed and cofigured you can create an alias anywhere you’d like (the desktop is as good a place as any) and then just drag your InDesign files onto the alias. InDesignProxy will then automatically launch the correct version of InDesign to open your file.
Download details as well as installation instructions can be found here.
As I move back and forth between Windows and Leopard I’m finding a few of these little things that bug me but this one at least has an easy solution.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on November 28, 2008
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