InDesign to FrameMaker Conversion

[kimwitthuhn]

I need to convert InDesign files to FrameMaker files, because we have to get all our technical content in one application and Frame is the winner. We do not use structured Frame, and we have very little experience with xml. What would be the best way to proceed with conversion?

[frameexpert]

You could try saving to Word or RTF from InDesign, then import that into FrameMaker.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Kim:

Word isn't an export option from InDesign but Rich Text Format (RTF) is. Be sure to have an insertion point in the text you want to export before selecting File > Export or Rich Text Format will not be available. 

You can open the RTF in Word to clean it up, and then use File > Import > File (the FrameMaker equivalent of File > Place) to import the RTF or Word .doc or Word .docx file into a FrameMaker document. You can also open Word files directly using FrameMaker's File > Open (which does an automatic conversion).

If the InDesign files had styles, and if the styles are intact in the exported RTF then I recommend saving the RTF as an old .doc file because then you can take advantange of style mapping on the import. 

~Barb 

[kimwitthuhn]

Thank you to everyone for your ideas! I have tried saving the InDesign file as an RTF and then opening it through FrameMaker. My 28-page ID document turned into a 110-page one once it got to Frame. Everything is there, but it's ugly. Perhaps there are settings I need to change to avoid that? We do have styles in the InDesign document so mapping them would be great, but I have to solve the bigger problem of why everything looks horrible first. Thanks in advance for any additional insights you have.

[frameexpert]

Here are some things to try:

1) Open the exported RTF file in Word and save it as a doc or docx file.

2) Import the Word file into FrameMaker, making sure you import by copy (not by reference).

3) You should be presented with a dialog box that allows you to map the Word styles to FrameMaker formats.

Note that you will have to set up your FrameMaker document ahead of time with the appropriate Paragraph, Character, and Table formats (called "Styles" in InDesign and Word).

I do have some discretionary time today if you would like to meet via my Zoom account. There would be no cost for this. Thanks.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What about the ID > PDF > Word doc route? Then you could also extract all the media out of it by renaming the .docx file to .zip and extracting it.

[Barb Binder]

Hey Jeff, that's another possiblity. I'm amazed at how well Acrobat exports to RTF these days. That said, I'd worry about the styles getting lost.

Kim shouldn't need to extract the images from the .docx file, however. InDesign links all images over 48K by default when they are placed into an InDesign document so they should all be sitting in a links folder in the InDesign project folder—Kim can just copy them to the FrameMaker project folder.

Kim, if they are scattered around your drive for some reason, you can collect them all via File > Package in InDesign.

~Barb

[margaretha_2369]

Hello, I am new to this community and I am not sure whether I can continue this old post but I don't want to create a duplicate and this discussion matches my own investigation.

I want to migrate from Indesign to Framemaker. I have tried the above recommendations but I found that exporting from Indesign to Word generates a better output than exporting to rtf, as the rtf output looks messier and does not contain my Indesign styles.

The next step is to import the file in Framemaker using style mapping.

Here is my additional question to this conversation:

Do I first need to set up a Framemaker template containing all my Indesign style?

Or is there a quicker way?

Would it be possible to export the styles from Indesign and import them into Framemaker?  

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

I do not use InDesign. Therefore my comments might not be correct.

When you can export your InDesign files to Word, it could be that such a filter was added in the last years.

When you import the Word file via File | Import | File and get the Word Import dialog, you can select existing FrameMaker formats to map your InDesign styles to or you can select "Add New Format", so that FrameMaker creates new formats for you.

Just make a test to see what works best for you.

Definitely the cleanest way is to create a FrameMaker template and map the Word/InDesign styles to FrameMaker formats.

When you have specific questions about the Word Import or creating FrameMaker formats, then I suggest to create a new thread in this forum.

Best regards, Winfried

[FrameMaker-dk]

I have just finished doing such a project on three law books. I took the approach of copy pasting directly from InDesign into FrameMaker. I did some initial mapping of header styles, but otherwise I found the process easier than the ID->Word->FM route, because I could solve all the graphics and broken text frame issuses along the way.  If there is a consistency to the images/figures, using object styles on the anchored frames can be a good idea.