Importing MSWord w/o losing formatting

[ebluegirly]

Riddle me this:

I am creating a brochure in InDesign. I am sent the preformatted (in Word) text and import it into ID, but when I do this, I have to keep going back and forth between programs to see what it looks like in Word so that I can match it in ID. It is extremely tedious and seems counter productive. Is there any way around this? Any help would be appreciated. THX.



ebluegirly

 

[AdobeTim]

What sort of formatting isn't being imported?

 

[ebluegirly]

I am creating a 4 color, 20 pg brochure and when I import the text, it loses all the bold, indents, bullets, etc...
Can u help?

 

[AdobeTim]

Are you on a Mac or PC? You can put the Word doc in my public folder on my iDisk. Mac: Go > iDisk > Other user's public folder. My iDisk name is adobetim. If you're on a PC, go here to get the Windows iDisk utility:

http://www.mac.com/1/iTour/tour_idisk.html

 

[AdobeTim]

The Word file should be importing correctly, but occasionally saving it as RTF, rather than Word format can give you more predictable results.

 

[solarwarrior]

If you do not have a bold version of your fonttype installed can als gove the problem. In indesign you have to have a bold version of your font, you cant force it like in Quark.

 

[robiNETpl]

Hi

On my page -

http://www.suwalski.pl/dtp

- in Download area, you'll find macros for Char styling in Word.

robin

Scripts for AdobeFamily

http://www.suwalski.pl/dtp

gg 3753393
Skype: indesignscripts

 

[twitchosx]

This is simple. In OSX, you just open the Word doc.. go to Print and in the print window, choose Save as PDF and import the PDF. Otherwise, you should be able to copy the text from Word and past into Indesign which will place a RTF text box with the stuff. It usually gets screwed up anyway. The only other thing to do really is print out your word document and refer to that when formatting the text in InDesing so that you dont have to switch between programs.

 

[inkwell]

Hello! I am having a similar problem. When I try to copy and place or import formatted text from a word file into ID, it loses all bolding, etc. Did you find a solution to your problem? Thanks! Inkwell

 

[Eggles]

I don't understand why anyone would want to carry over formatting applied in Word to InDesign. As has already been pointed out, Word will let you apply bold and italics to words that may not actually be present in the font (ID will NOT let you apply bold or italics if that font isn't installed). Word docs also bring in RGB blacks so that if the ID file is to be offset printed, it can cause problems.

>>I have to keep going back and forth between programs to see what it looks like in Word so that I can match it in ID. <<

For goodness sake, if you are going to persist with this silly workflow, PRINT the Word document out.

But better still, save the Word doc** as a TXT file (which strips out all formatting), use File>Place to get it into ID, and apply all formatting in ID, using the printed Word doc as a guide. Set up paragraph and character styles in ID to speed up the formatting, as IDs styles are far superior to Word's anyway.

** no doubt the Word doc is supplied with all the old-fashioned typewriter formatting included - double spaces after sentences and double returns after paragraphs. Get rid of them in Word by using Find>Replace before saving the TXT file.

 

[ebluegirly]

In response to Eggles: The reason I needed to be able to import the formatting from Word to InDesign is because I am creating a technical document and my boss formats it in word and them emails the document to me - expecting to keep the same margins and tabs and everything - but it doesn't work that way - so he ends up spending all this time to get the formatting just right an I have to go back and decipher it and do it twice. I was just trying to save us both some work. I ended up just having to reformat it again in InDesign - pain in the ars - but it is done now - so I'm not worried about it anymore. And for the record - I DID print it out, not just ALT-TABing my way thru the day thank u Thanks to everyone who responded. There were some helpful tips.