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Pasting/Importing Graphics

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sr3849

Technical User
Jan 2, 2004
1
US
I am having trouble pasting and placing graphics from Word. In PageMaker there is a "paste special" feature and most graphics came in clearly. Is there anything like that in InDesign? If not, how can I paste graphics and have them come out clearly? If I can import them (place), what program should I place them from? Word doesn't place graphics clearly.
 
You should not be using any graphics other than TIF or EPS (or native Photoshop or Illustrator files). ID is a professional desktop publishing app, Word graphics are designed for Microsloth's shoddy apps and will only print well off of a bubblejet or laser printer. They are not designed for professional print.

The only way you should be bringing graphics into ID is through File>Place (Ctrl + D) if you want to avoid problems down the road.

Just my opinion as a DTP professional.

If you really need these particular images, try copy/pasting into Photoshop, and saving as a TIFF. Then place that file into ID.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.
 
Viol8,
Taking cheap shots at MS products doesn't require much expertise and it doesn't answer sr3849's honest question. You may be doing fancy DTP for the magazine industry but it doesn't mean that the DTP I'm doing for the Mutual Fund industry has any less value. My department does a multi-million $$$ business producing custom reports for the big name fund companies. We've been getting along quite well using Excel to create custom charts and graphs and using PM's Paste Special function to place them into our custom reports. ID isn't nearly as friendly in the importation of Excel charts and may I remind you that Microsoft Excel is pretty much the standard spreadsheet in the industry. We've known for over a year that PM is going away and that we are going to have to migrate to ID. But, we've not been able to determine the best way to import Excel charts to our satisfaction.

Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Seek and ye shall find! [peace]

I love Mondays cause they're the Second day of the week!
 
That was not a cheap shot from viol8ion - that was pure honesty. viol8ion demonstrates plenty of expertise. Likewise, I doubt that he was trying to insult anyone that uses MS products.

Microsoft Office applications produce RGB graphics that are intended for your inkjet printer or office color laser printer. Because they cannot produce CMYK or spot colors, they are inappropriate for large-scale professional printing on 4 or 6-color presses. While many RIPs can now convert RGB images to CMYK, most designers prefer to manually convert RGB images so that they are not surprised by the RIP's output.

If I need to import MS Excel charts into a page layout program (whether PageMaker, Quark or InDesign), I first print to a file using a virtual PostScript printer. I can then take the PDF or EPS output into Illustrator to convert RGB to CMYK and clean up any oddities that happen when going to PostScript (such as missing bullets).

The original question could be better answered if we knew whether we were talking about vector or bitmap graphics. MS Word's bitmap graphics are woeful and viol8ion's advice holds true. MS Word's vector graphics can be transferred using the virtual PostScript printer technique. The best option is to use the graphics before they were placed into MS Word.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?
 
jimoblak, thanks.

horqua,
It was an honest answer, and more than just opinion. The MS graphics are NOT designed for professional processing. They WILL cause problems in PM and ID, as thousands of people have attested in these forums as well as Adobe's forums. Your copy/paste special may work in some cases, but it is not the end-all cure-all. It will cause problems down the road with some people, whereas a proper work-flow will always reduce the potential problems.

I always try to point people into a correct work-flow so that they will have clear sailing and limited hassles, especially as deadlines loom. I never deprecate another's occupation or purpose for using these apps, I try to explain how they work.

If you had read my entire answer, you would see that I gave a very clear and appropriate way to change the graphics over to a format that would be appropriate and are known to NOT cause problems.

peace

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.
 
Viol8 & Jimo,
I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree. But, I'm in a situation where I need a live link to the chart/data. When I turn the Excel chart into a PDF in order to import and place, the link is dead meaning I can't update info in Excel, Update the Link in ID, and have the changes come thru. I work with live fund data that is constantly in flux. When the data collection dept receives updated numbers on a fund's history, I have to update that info and Excel and update the link in PageMaker. Changes are done immediately and I can move on. InDesign requires that I re-PDF the chart and reimport or update the dead link. Seems like too many steps for such a simple transaction. Lets wait and see what the PageMaker update for InDesign holds. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I apologize for jumping on you.

Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Seek and ye shall find! [peace]

I love Mondays cause they're the Second day of the week!
 
Hello Horqua,
Sometimes it is difficult to see the wood for the trees.
If you have a working system that does what you want by using Pagemaker. Why change it?
I use mainly InDesign nowadays, but I have kept my Pagemaker on the computer - just in case.
I will probably uninstall it later on - but for now it is waiting patiently while I do most things with InDesign.

 
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