Word to InCopy Mapping

Question

We have a workflow that uses Word and Word Styles to format text, and then uses InCopy to place the text within Assignments in an InCopy space. Formatting the text in InCopy is not at present an option.

Style mapping by hand has also been rejected as an option.

What I am trying to do, and have been partially successful with, is to have the Word Styles and the InDesign Styles look the same and create a conflict, so that InCopy can be told to just use the InDesign style when a document is placed. The Word Styles were created by making one InDesign file with all of the possible Styles listed as examples, and exporting that as a RTF. This created functional Word Styles when opened in Word. That was then used to make a Word Template, with the Styles saved.

[Basic Paragraph] and [No Paragraph Style] come over fine, as do two Styles made to communicate an issue with the designer. They were not at any point ever in a folder within InDesign, but the others were. Could this have an impact on how the "name" of the Style is being read?

The different Styles should be functionally identical-- is there something I may have missed in the structure that is making it so they aren't?

I recognize that the easy solutions are Style Mapping or just formatting in InCopy, but I need to make it as automated as possible to account for user ability. I've looked into Scripts and can't quite find one for this issue.

Thank you in advance, expertise is appreciated

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted Answer

Agree with @BobLevine, what are you trying to achieve by bringing the text files in through InCopy rather than directly through InDesign's "place" options? Style Mapping with the Place options can be automated to match the incoming styles with existing ones in InDesign. We do similar workflows with our clients and once the styles are made in Word and InDesign, things come in very seamlessly in seconds.

You mentioned [Basic Paragraph] and [No Paragraph Style] coming into your Word document. These are automated styles of InDesign that don't really work with your type of workflow: you probably never want any text coming in unstyled with [No Paragraph Style], and the incoming version of [Basic Paragraph] might overwrite InDesign's version.

This type of workflow requires good planning, testing, and refinement. If you can give some details about why and what you're trying to achieve, we might be able to give some better advice. Right now I have more questions than answers! 🙂

BobLevine · Answer

Why are you going from Word to InCopy to InDesign? That makes no sense if nobody wants to do any real work in InCopy. If you want to expand on how all of this works along with some screenshots that might help, but Word styles while they do map to InDesign/InCopy styles will often come in with overrides that need to be cleared.

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