Missing pages from InDesign document

[J***@adobeforums.com]

We have a 30-page document that appears to have become corrupt. Here's what happened:

We planned to have the front and back covers printed by an outside source and print the remaining pages in-house. The designer removed all but the covers from the document and packaged the work for the print house, which it is my understanding that when this is done, a copy of the indd file as well as the linked files are copied to a new directory. The problem is, it appeared to the designer as though the original file (full 30-page document) had been overwritten by this packaged file.

I compared the two files and noticed that while they both open identically in Indesign and contain just the covers, the packaged file is 1.3MB and the original file is 10.4MB. I have done some research online, and haven't found a reference to this problem. We don't appear to have a backup of the file, so we're hoping there is a chance of recovering the original file, which based on its size, seems likely to contain the data we need but that Indesign has a problem opening it.

There are no error messages when opening either file.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[J***@adobeforums.com]

I would say you are out of luck, and your designer has learned a valuable lesson about saving to a new file name

[P***@adobeforums.com]

What sounds like may have happened is that the designer removed the pages and hit save before packaging, then failed to undo the page removal before closing the file, or deleted the pages, packaged, then closed the original and said yes to the dialog asking if the original should be saved.

Packaging should have created a new folder and a new copy, as you said. One explanation for the difference in size is that packaging always executes a "save as" which strips out all of the information about changes that have been made (which ID uses for undo during a working session, even after a regular save) and correspondingly reduces the file size. Unfortunately, once the file has been closed, this data is no longer usable, even though it remains behind.

While there is no comfort in knowing what probably happened, and no joy in not having a backup, at least you can now be more diligent in always saving a copy to a new filename, like DocumentCovers, before doing this kind of surgery.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the replies! Lesson learned.