How do I convert an AI file to an editable InDesign file?

[KenzieMainStreet]

Hey all. I'm very new to this graphic design world & have been teaching myself these programs. I work for a family owned restaurant and have been in charge of recreating our menu's and catalogs. As I had zero experience in graphic design, and much to my dismay did zero research prior to starting this, I created our 30 page catalog in Illustrator. After 3 months of learning & making this catalog (which turned out beautifully despite the difficulty of using Illustrator to make a catalog), I had heard from multiple friends in the industry that InDesign should have been my way to go. So now I'm attempting to switch over to InDesign with all my menus, so that I can keep editing them. The menu is constantly changing and updating so the work on editing this file is never going to end and that's why I still need to be able to edit this file with all the layers in InDesign. Anyone got any tips, or suggestions on how I go about this besides starting over from scratch?

[BobLevine]

The best tip you'll get is to start over and in the future, ask questions before you begin.

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

Starting from scratch with InDesign is as steep as starting a new career from nothing in, say, designing nuclear power plants. It is professional level software, and it assumes you have a fairly solid background in the graphic industry. This forum is littered with questions from people diving in to it as if it's Microsoft Publisher, holding your hand for every step and shielding you from all the "technical stuff". InDesign does not do that.

So be prepared for that.

You can get started with Adobe's own introduction: https://helpx.adobe.com/nl/indesign/tutorials.html – I haven't ever read it (as my background indeed is firmly based inside the graphic industry, what with me starting between the printing presses as a photographic layout sheet maker) but I think it's safe to say even this assumes a modicum of relevant background knowledge.

You can copy not too complicated graphic elements between Illustrator and InDesign. If you have extensive graphic artwork that you'd like to re-use, such as a huge border with all sorts of effects applied to it, don't copy; save it as a regular AI file and then use "Place" in InDesign to import it.

[Geоrge]

>> Anyone got any tips, or suggestions on how I go about this besides starting over from scratch?

Don't go here before you're not have learned all basics video courses from Lynda.com about InDesign.