InDesign to After Effects, Copy Paste Paths. Can this be done?

[doctorsney]

So I get print campaigns built in InDesign and need to build spots (tv web) from them and need to copy paste shapes from the InDesign files and want to just paste in AE and create masks/shapes etc

Can this be done? Am I confusing it with Illustrator's copy/paste paths?

Does it need to be said years later that this is a thing that would make life easier? Can't we just make every path object transferable between these apps seamlessly?

[davidarbor]

InDesign to After Effects is not a common workflow, which is why there's not support for it (it would certainly be nice, but nothing comes for free, each of these workflows has to be built and tested). You're best off saving out a .AI or PDF and going from AI to AE. If you're not familiar with the tool Overlord from www.battleaxe.co, it's incredibly useful and can send art directly from AI to AE.

If you want to request this, you can do so from the AE UserVoice site. I just took a look and there's already one requesting support for layered ID files to import into AE, so you can vote on that.

UserVoice: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects

ID to AE workflow: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/37560445-importing-indesig... 

[doctorsney]

Overlord looks AMAZEBALLS.

[davidarbor]

Yeah, it's pretty amazing, and worth every penny. It's only gotten better over time with things like gradient support being added. 

[robertd69306378]

Agreed. Overlord is a must when working with illustrator files in AE. Life-changing for Motion workflow. One thing to note is that sometimes the kerning/tracking doesn't copy across but its an easy fix - you just go back to illustrator, highlight the text, copy, go back to AE and overwrite/paste the text in.

[Mylenium]

"Seamlessly" is technically impossible, but I agree, it would be nice to get at least some consistent support for basic paths across all Adobe programs. The rest has already been said - AI is your intermediary here. You might also want to talk to the people who create the print stuff on how they can help you facilitate the process by e.g. relying more on linked AI and PS assets where possible, so the whole thing gets more reusable from the start (within the limitations imposed by print-centric workflows in teh first place, of course).

Mylenium

[doctorsney]

yes I think I wound up copy pasting from ID to AI, and then copy/pasting from AI to AE - which works - if you want to use AI as a bridge, which seems excessive, but when you're on deadline who cares as long as it gets done.

Thanks for your reply!

[colinm88669257]

I just tried this, copy pasting from ID to AI and then to AE. Didn't work. Can you help?

[Ronny236845289feg · Accepted solution]

just save the AI file and import it into AE, then you wanna rightclick on the layer -> create -> create shapes from vector layer