Chemical / Maths Formulae

[KieranBrennanDublin]

Hi there.

Using InDesign, I am trying to re-format a supplied Word Document, coming from the client. 

There are lots of complex (to me anyway) formulas in the text, which disappear when imported.

I'm using a work-around ... "Printing a PDF" from the supplied document and then "placing" in a picture box in my InDesign Doc, but really, in 2019, there must be another way (which is 100 times more time efficient)?

Any help appreciated.

[Jongware]

I can recommend MathTools (http://movemen.com/). It is 100 times more time efficient as I've found that often you don't need to do anything with the imported formulae – they come in as editable text with appropriate styling.

Well worth its price, even if you only need it for a single project. (Except when your hourly rate for manually re-doing all formula's is exceptionally low. Plus, you could make errors in that.)

(Just so you know: this formula is not "chemical" in any way. It might be pure "maths" but it seems more like Applied Physics to me.)

[KieranBrennanDublin]

Thank you for the reply, I will give this product a try, have you direct experience using / importing Mathematical formulae from Word to InDesign, with success? Is it simply an 'import' command?

[Jongware]

Yes, we have used this for an equation-heavy doctoral thesis with success. Even better: we spotted a minor inconsistency in equation editing and inquired with movemen about this. Before we knew it, an update was provided and it processed our document exactly as we wanted it to.

Compared to our old method – copy the equation text out of Word, PDF, or a HTML export or re-type it into InDesign, restore original formatting one element at a time, add lines using tables or text boxes with paragraph rules, and use tracking, kerning, and baseline shift to move various parts into position –, the extra time needed to process equations was reduced to zero. (After initially setting up all formatting parameters.) That is, the equations came in exactly as the author created them in Word and with our formatting applied to them.

Since recalculating formulae positions and displaying them is a graphically intensive task, InDesign did slow down a bit, but nothing we aren't already used to (it also slows down when you use graphics, when you use GREP styles, when you have long tables, and/or when you use certain fonts – you know, the usual).

So, to answer your questions: yes it does, and yes it is!

The plugin needs to do additional processing on the original file so you should not use the regular "Place" command, it has a Place Word File menu entry of its own. The text gets imported as usual, and formulas appear in what's called 'math zones'. All math parts are styled, and changing the styles on a basic level is as easy as changing a paragraph or character style. (There is an impressive amount of additonal style editing possible – but that's not for first time users nor for the faint of heart. I checked them out, was Duly Impressed™, and then decided that the default settings were exactly what I needed after all.)

[KieranBrennanDublin]

Purchased this product and it's so good, and they gave great support on installation so I can't recommend it highly enough. Thanks again.

[vladan saveljic]

you could use for example mathtype (with mt-script plugin)

they are not free and you should learn to use them with word and indesign

[KieranBrennanDublin · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the suggestion, I bought from http://movemen.com/ and it's amazing, works beautifully. Thanks.