It’s worth highlighting David Baldaro’s latest comment on the original post. There have been some discoveries.
“Folks, I’ve been chatting with the R&D team on this issue. For all the details check out my blog, http://david.baldaro.me.uk/2009/03/xmpie-and-the-missing-plug-in-issue/”
Here’s an excerpt from David’s blog:
[From one of the XMPie R&D folks] “The problem that is experienced is a result of XMPie adding properties to certain components of the document. For example – A spread gets the property of whether it has a visibility ADOR or not. A box gets the property of whether it has text length handling (auto flow, copy fitting) and if so In what way.”
“The way this is implemented is by using the only technology available for this by Adobe which as a by-product forces that the properties are added to the document whether you actually place valid values or not (meaning – whether you set them or not). If they are not set to specific values they simply get null values – but still the properties are there. Since the properties are there taking the document and opening it in another InDesign installation provides a warning that there is no support for these properties – i.e. the “missing plug-in” warning.”
David continues:
“So, the answer here is not straight forward, and XMPie is talking to Adobe about this matter it would seem. Gal goes on to mention that they have seen this issue replicated in several other Adobe Plug-ins that make changes to the document in the same way; so it would seem that this is not solely an XMPie issue.
The best way to overcome this?
* You could always install the XMPie plug-in I guess; free-of-charge and fully functional from www.xmpie.com.
* If you are the creator of the document then disabling or removing the XMPie Plug-in; before resaving the document should work.
* Exporting the document to an INX or IDML file will also do it’s best to remove any conflicting tags.”
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My thanks to David for doing all this detective work. Clearly, the problem is not solely an XMPie issue: it seems that some of the normal interactions required for a plug-in may force the plug-in to modify the document in ways that permanently alter the underpinnings.
Have you encountered similar circumstances with a plug-in? We’d like to hear about it!