CAN ANYONE HELP WITH IMPORTING a Word document into my ID book?

[Caroline5FD8]

Hi Community

I am compiling a book for a friend and have a large contributing Word document (.dotx) with many pages with jpgs and tifs embedded into it. 

I was cutting and pasting the text and photos page by page from the Word document into my ID book setup, but realised it would take ages. 

I searched here and found that I could import it and and even better create threads that would make it all flow beautifully from page to page when I import it.

Well, I can't get it to work!  I will try to explain the best I can, but I am not a designer so apologies.

I made an ID book with a Parent 2-facing page spread and 200+ pages (also showing as 2-facing pages in Pages panel); the Parent has the threads for flow and page numbers - as instructions I followed from ID Help.

Each page of the book (showing as 2-page spreads) is based on the Parent and has the threads going in and out of each page's text box (this took too long to do also - the Adobe help pages are very confusing). 

So far so good.... I then used Place and the import options to keep everything.  After a long while, I get a tiny page icon on the cursor waiting for me to Place my document.  But if I click in the first text box of the page I want it to start from I just get a black thin border across the top of the spread.  Its part of the text box as I can move it around, but the text boxes on each page have been locked together by this black border.

I tried clicking and dragging right to the bottom of the document - this time I don't get the black line but its as if I just have a slightly larger text box on the page (i can see the first lines of imported text but it has just created its own text box) and me dragging to the last pages did nothing.  

There is a red + showing text going outside the box (oh really), so it seems everything has been pasted into just one text box rather than flowing and filling up my book page by page which is what I am trying to do.

What am I doing wrong?

And can anyone tell me what the threads should look like please?  On the Parent spread there is a thread line from the bottom right of the LH page into the top left of the RH page, but also a line spanning the whole spread from LH top left to RH bottom right - is this correct?

Subsequently, all the other pages in the book have this plus a line coming in from the page before (diagonally left into the bottom of the first page and diagonally right from top left all the way to the bottom right of the facing page).  

I am going to continue pasting into separate text boxes for now, because I have wasted hours on this and could have gotten much further with the cutting and pasting! LOL.

I am using Windows 11 and have Adobe CC student subscription so latest version of ID.

I would welcome anyone with time and patience on their hands that can help with this at all. please.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

It is very easy to flow a Word doc into an InDesign document template.

You may want to completely start over, or at least try this with a new INDD doc. Set it up with the page size and margins you want, and Facing Pages (checkbox), and Primary Text Frame (another check box) selected.

On that first page, click the text frame. Go to Files | Place and select the Word doc you want to import. You will get a little "manuscript" icon as your cursor. If you Shift-click in that first text frame, it should load your whole Word doc and flow it to as many pages as it needs.

There are more sophisticated options that let you select and remap styles and do other things that can simplify the formatting tasks to follow, but that's the basic first step. Ask away if you have (more) questions!

[Kayla375147642kys]

Mine is only uploading the first page... is there anyway to have all 127 pages in Indesign?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Read the above. Your document should have "Primary Text Frame" enabled on your Parent pages. Use the Place function, not cut and paste. When you have the "loaded" text cursor, click in the first page text frame, and it should flow to as many InDesign pages as needed.

[Laubender]

Hi @Caroline5FD8 ,

you said that the Word document contains images as well…

This could be problematic when the images are cropped in the Word document and you flow in the whole document.

InDesign's Word Import filter will ignore all cropping and the images will flow in with sizes and especially wrong aspect ratios you probably do not intend.

So my first suggestion would be to uncheck the option to import inline graphics with the Word docx document.

You will do that in InDesign's Import Options that you can enable in the same dialog where you choose the file to import.

Screenshots from my German InDesign on Windows 10:

Well, just ask if something unpredictable happens.

Don't be afraid, there are solutions and workarounds.

All step by step…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Randy Hagan]

The flowing text part I can help you with easily. You don't even have to make a 200 page document.

• Create a 1-page document with master pages based on a facing pages/2-page spread setup.
• Get your Word text using the File>Place menu command
• When you get your text cursor, hold down the Shift key and then place the text

When you do that, InDesign will fill the first page of the text. If there's more text, it'll automatically create a second page and fill it with text ... and a third ... and as many pages as you need to place all the text.

Now the bit about the graphics, as other folks here have said, will be much harder. Trying to place them directly within the Word document isn't going to work well for you. You'd be better off first separating the art from the Word document, then placing the text, and then placing the art separately. You can learn more about how to place those graphics separately through this link.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Caroline5FD8]

Wow, thanks James, Uwe and Randy for your generous time and help. It seems I made it more difficult for myself. haha

I would like to start again but I already have 6 pages done and want the Word document to continue after.  Am I right in assuming that your instructions should still work if I select the page I would like the import to start from (and only have that 1 extra spread in my Pages Panel)  because as you all say ID should create those extra facing pages, right?

Thank you for the mention of graphics - I need them there so I know which photo goes where, and I can re-jig them around after. 

Unless you think it would be easier to place them separately once I have formatted the text?  I am easy either way - I will have more time now if this works..... I will let you know.  Thanks again so much. C

[Randy Hagan]

You can continue with what you've placed already.

• Click on the little bubble with the + sign on your last page (6)
• Create a new page (7)
• Hold down the Shift key and place your text on (7).

It will autoflow the rest of the text into your InDesign document. But frankly, it'll be just as easy to start from the beginning for you as it will to go back and fix what you've already placed.

And it will definitely be easier on you to first format the text, then place the graphics separately and adjust your text layout accordingly. You can use your MSWord document as a guide for what goes where.

And don't feel bad about suffering the learning process with InDesign. One of the dirty little secrets of document production is it always goes faster the second time.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I agree: you will spend less time starting from a full, clean placement and redoing your first few pages than you will trying to add on to the (possibly flawed) work you've done so far. You don't want to have to be sorting out mismatched text flow and style problems by trying to save a little prior work.

[Caroline5FD8]

Thanks to you both.  Yes, I take your advice.

I will start a new book and those other ID pages will hopefully import better than the Word document!

I am in the process of reformatting the Word document with Headings named the same as in my ID book (well the new one will have too); changing text flow options on Images, removing captions, etc etc.  This will take the rest of the day.  

I have a quick question please - will it make any difference if some text/quotes are in text boxes in the Word document?  I wondered how they would import? 

I am slowly deleting the text boxes and just having the text on the page.  There are a lot, so if ID has no problem in importing them I will stop.

Many thanks.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The text boxes should import correctly, but linked objects like those can be a bit fragile in both Word and in imports.

I have generally found it much easier to clean up a document in Word, making all structural, spelling, formatting etc. fixes before importing it to InDesign. This includes things like deleting all extra whitespace (double spaces, double tabs, spaces at beginning and ends of paragraphs, etc.) Word is just a little faster and more efficient at such things, and the "cleaner" the doc you import is, the smoother and faster the work in ID will go.

That is, you might want to un-box all that text before you import it. A simple macro might help here (click in box, hit macro, which selects all text, exits the box, pastes the text and then deletes the box anchor... or some such).

Making sure at least simple styles are consistently applied in the Word doc is a good pre-import step, as well.

[Caroline5FD8]

Fab, I'm doing the right thing then. 

I am now thinking I will continue using the Word document to get edits etc done then, rather than printing a pdf version of the ID book and printing that for feedback/amendments.

I am much faster on Word so this seems like the best plan.  Thanks for the macro tip!

regards 

c

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And just to make it clear, InDesign is not only for "formatting." It's a very capable document development app in itself, with full "word processor" capabilities. I've written books in it.

But for fast word-management, Word is a somewhat more streamlined tool. I write my longer books in it, but only apply minimal structural formatting there. Over time, you figure out what balance works between the two tools.

Learning to write/edit a clean Word doc for optimal import into ID is the bridge skill here. 🙂

[Caroline5FD8]

Thanks so much.  It worked! 

[J_G0067]

When I import my docment It is making my file in to a spread and can not finish loading. Do you know why?

Thank you!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It looks like your Word file is corrupt or damaged. I think most of this is covered in the thread above (and others), but try this:

• Save the Word file as RTF. Use a new filename to avoid confusion.
• Open the RTF file and save again as DOCX and DOC.

In a completely fresh and empty InDesign doc — set up the page size. margins, facing etc. and use a Primary Text Frame, and then save it "blank" — use the Place command to dump first the RTF version. If that succeeds and has no obvious format or content flaws, you're done.

If not, try again with a fresh copy of the blank ID document, using DOC. Works? Good. No? Try it again with DOCX.

If you keep getting this format fault, go to the start of the faulty pages, and look for a specific element such as an anchored image, a table or other "not simple text" element that might be broken. In a COPY of the RTF file, delete that element; try again.

If none of that works, report back.

Note that this assumes you're using some recent version of Word and not a clone. Docs exported from Google, Pages and other clone/equivalent tools often have their own faults. The RTF/DOC/DOCX cleanup process is best done in a "real" copy of Word, and ideally not a web version of 365, which has yet more quirks that can cause problems.

[J_G0067 · Accepted solution]

I think that it worked! I had to remove the Primary Parent page for some reason; it stopped halfway through with the end notes, but when I expanded them, it worked. How do I become an expert book design InDesign?

Thank you! 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Word is always a bit of a chore to import smoothly, unless the doc is short and simple. Every added component (TOC, index, footnotes, and especially end notes) increases the likelihood that something will glitch. Add in that Word docs tend to bloat with old data and get small corruptions as they are edited and saved repeatedly, and you learn to appreciate the times a Word doc imports more or less as expected, without throwing a curve ball back at you.

And yes, many times if the import stalls, going to the end and deleting whatever character is next (just off the last page) will clear a blockage and let the pages flow to the end. Word has many hidden characters and tags that can get left over during editing, or corrupted as above, and ID will choke on that broken bit.

Learning book design is a matter of learning a spectrum of skills, many of which as old as lead type — mostly, the esthetics and organization — and some of which are as new as the last release of InDesign. What you want to look at are general book-design sources, and focus on InDesign's "long document" features such as Books, TOCs, indexing and various approaches to separating and organizing content.

[J_G0067]

Marvelous! Thank you for your response. This might address the query I posted in the new thread. (As posting here is new to me, I did not want to gum up this thread.)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Generally, it's "one project, one thread" even if the discussion evolves across more than one issue. Better to have the whole history in one place, since one problem or issue can often be connected to another.

The bottom line is that while Word and ID work together, it's not always nicely and the endless variations in Word (app versions, file formats, etc.) make even the most controlled import a challenge. There are occasionally complaints that the two "should" work perfectly and seamlessly together, which is nonsenical. Similar tools but completely different histories, makers, user bases and (to some extent) goals. Word is a raw source, not a perfect pre-composition tool for ID.

[J_G0067]

ok! Good to know about the threads!  Thank you James! 

[J_G0067]

I've realized that my design file is corrupt, hindering me from making significant changes without experiencing crashes. Despite this, I've already invested considerable effort into this file and need to implement a major alteration. However, due to the instability I'm unable to utilize its autoflow  feature effectively. The issue does not persist in the new file, but the styling is not there if I copy and paste it in to a new file. 

Is there a method to transfer my existing design file into a new one while retaining all the styling attributes intact? I've tried converting it from a design file to DML format and then back again, even renaming it, but it does not help. Any suggestions on how to proceed? My goal is to establish a primary parent layout for smoother operation.

[J_G0067]

This is what is does when I try to flow text in to the primary parent any ideas why facing pages is turned off

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You have corrupt content that is trying to force an invalid layout. See immediately prior answer.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Have you exported it to IDML, then opened and resaved under a new name as INDD again? That fixes nearly all InDesign file corruption problems.

The only other method is to create a blank new file (page size, margins, primary text flow, etc.) and do a wholesale cut and paste — select the whole text flow content in A, copy, put the cursor in B, paste. That will move all content in the text flow, including any anchored items, and all styles that are in use for any part of the content.

It won't restore page and text-box level formatting. You will have to recreate those.

It will also copy any truly corrupted content in the flow, likely repeating the problem. You may want to select sections of the text — chapters, for example — and paste them one by one into separate documents, or into an interim doc for review and cleanup, then paste them into the new final doc.