What are the things to take note when using word document that contain both text, tables and pictures into indesign report? what kind of formatting must be done in work because indesign cannot handle it?Take two examples that I was told by someone else :placement of tables in word document. The plan is just place the table near the text and let indesign reposition it for best visual. For e.g. we might need 4 columns of text and let the table stretch across two columns before the text using indesign. But we were told that indesign cannot keep the table as “whole”, the table will get broken into pieces when attempting to place it in different place. Font type, font size and font colors. We might need different font type, font size and font colors for best visual. The plan is to keep simple formatting for font in the text in the word document and later let indesign handle the change for best visual. We were told this will not happen because font formatting changes need to happen in word.

Mystical_intell2026

Participant

Question

Best Practices for Importing Word Documents with Tables and Formatting into InDesign

Forum|Forum|9 hours ago
May 21, 2026
2 replies
33 views

What are the things to take note when using word document that contain both text, tables and pictures into indesign report?

what kind of formatting must be done in work because indesign cannot handle it?

Take two examples that I was told by someone else :

placement of tables in word document. The plan is just place the table near the text and let indesign reposition it for best visual. For e.g. we might need 4 columns of text and let the table stretch across two columns before the text using indesign. But we were told that indesign cannot keep the table as “whole”, the table will get broken into pieces when attempting to place it in different place.
Font type, font size and font colors. We might need different font type, font size and font colors for best visual. The plan is to keep simple formatting for font in the text in the word document and later let indesign handle the change for best visual. We were told this will not happen because font formatting changes need to happen in word.

BobLevine

Community Expert

You need to find more knowledgable people to talk to. Start by following Peter’s advice.

Mystical_intell2026Author

Participant

which is why I am coming here direct to ask the actual indesign users.. I suspect that the person telling me this just prefer to use word application and want to keep most of the jobs there.

BobLevine

Community Expert

That may be, but the truth is that both applications have their place. Word is the proper tool to use for composing long documents which can then be brought over to InDesign for final design and publication.

By using styles properly (something most Word users don’t do) the move from Word to InDesign can be pretty painless.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Neither of those assertions is true.

For best results, your word document should have properly defined and faithfully used styles (which can be redefined as you like in InDesign) rather than locally applied formatting, but even the worst habits of most word users can be overcome fairly easily.

What InDesign cannot do is split a table row across a text frame boundary, as in placing a long table that must use several pages, or repeats the same table columns several times across the width of a page.

Beyond that you have far more control of all aspects of your layout in InDesign than you could hope to achieve in Word.

Mystical_intell2026Author

Participant

Below is an example that i see popping up. The right shows the word document structure (assuming that it has all the correct word style and table style set up in word document). the table is inserted into word doc from excel as table object (not an image or chart).

The left is what the output from indesign needs to look like. The table is unlikely to stretch across different pages but very much frequently appear in different parts of the text area. Below is showing the table (top left corner) on top of the first two columns of text. I occasionally see table being squeezed as one table maybe at the end of the third column (bottom right).

The table must not be split in any way but it is likely that report designer might want to change the font color within the table. example in word, the settings are set with basic formatting but the designer might want to change header row to different font settings from the others.

I really want indesign to do the above because to do it in Word application will involves a lot of section breaks and it can cause a real headache.

BobLevine

Community Expert

One thing to try is to remove the table and then place the Excel file using InDesign or take Excel out of the equation and just design the table in Word. It really depends on the content of the table.

One thing I would advise against is inserting the table as an Excel object. That will add an unnecessary layer of complexity. Use Paste Special from Excel in Word and paste it as RTF.

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