Insert My Comments

Comment rescue

Recover your commented PDF's connection with InDesign

Your PDF was born correctly from InDesign, the comments are still there, and yet when returning it to the original document InDesign no longer recognises it as the PDF it expected.

What's failing

A PDF can look perfectly normal and keep all its comments and, even so, have lost or altered the internal information that lets InDesign recognise which document it comes from. The problem isn't necessarily in the comments: what broke is the technical link that allows returning them to the .indd.

What IMC does

It compares the problematic commented PDF with a healthy PDF freshly exported from the correct InDesign document and restores the identity information needed to recover the import route, keeping the comments live.

  1. You provide the commented PDF that InDesign rejects.
  2. You provide a healthy PDF exported from the correct .indd, which serves as reference.
  3. IMC restores the connection information and verifies the result's integrity.
  4. You receive a repaired PDF and try the import again in your InDesign.

The evidence

Problematic PDF

Comments intact · InDesign identifies it as coming from another document

Repaired PDF

Comments intact · identity restored · InDesign imports them again

This journey is validated with a real case: after altering a PDF's internal identity, InDesign rejected it as belonging to another document; with that identity restored from the healthy PDF, it recognised it again and imported its comments.

How far it goes

  • The comments must still exist as live annotations: a flattened PDF can't be rescued this way.
  • A healthy reference PDF exported from the correct InDesign document is needed.
  • IMC certifies what it can verify in the file. The final test is yours when importing in your installation, and we don't promise it will work in every version, installation or plugin.
  • If it's unclear whether the problem is the connection, start with the PDF diagnosis, which is free.

Your files

This repair currently needs both PDFs: the problematic one and the healthy reference. Both are uploaded over a secure connection and processed on a server. The process is kept for 30 days, with its files and its results, so you can continue it, and you can delete it earlier whenever you want. How we handle your files.

Repair your commented PDF

We'll open "Your editorial process" with the connection repair already selected.

Repair my commented PDF

First you check for free in your own InDesign that the repair works. If everything is fine, you pay and download the full repaired PDF.