InDesign – Saving your document

To save your document as an InDesign document (with a file extension of .indd), go to the File menu and choose Save. However, if you save to this format, you will have to come back to the library or use another computer with InDesign CS5 or later if you want to edit it.

You can also save your document as a PDF (Portable Document Format), which will make a perfect copy of your document that you can read or print from any computer, but you will not be able to edit it.  To save as a PDF, you have to Export the document by clicking the File menu and then choosing Export.

When exporting an InDesign document, you can choose to export not only to PDF, but to a variety of file types, such as html to save it as a file suitable for use as a web page, or jpeg to save it as an image.

When exporting to a PDF, you will choose between Print (choose if you plan to print out the document) and Interactive (choose if you plan to place the document online and would like to have interactive elements such as hyperlinks) format.

When exporting, and saving your files, you can save them to a personal storage device (such as a flash drive). You can save a file and e-mail it to yourself, or save it to a free cloud storage website, which allows you to upload a file and access and download it on any Internet-connected computer. Popular cloud storage sites include Dropbox and OneDrive in Office 365.