Inspiring

Question

How to Import and Edit a PDF in InDesign for Recovery

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 15, 2024
2 replies
1026 views

A difficult and complex Indesign document was lost, but I have a PDF of the (almost) finished doc. Is there a way to export a PDF into Indesign so that it can be edited? It's got lots of figures and tables and took me four days to typeset, and if there's a way to get even a rough typeset copy, that would save me a ton of work going from scratch from Word.

Thanks for any help. I see that I can export the PDF into rtf, but if there's a better way I'd love to know it.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Wrap up...

Susan sent me the PDF file and I was able to convert it to and InDesign file without issue. However, the text flow was very choppy with numberous unthreaded text frames. This was especially effident on the tables--every cell was a separate text frame.

Just out of courisity, I exported the PDF to Microsoft Word and it came out great all things considered. Table and paragraphs were intact--the only thing missing was the graphics*.

@Susan Culligan I forgot to tell you about the images. If you use the Export PDF tool, you can extract the individual images from the PDF.

I would choose the settings shown here for best results (although the quality in the PDF isn't that great):

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

To clarify — this is using the ID beta import/convert process?

It's been my experience with converting, importing and extracting data from PDFs that the content is even more fragmented than, say, FXL EPUB; the creation process cares least about logical progression of the content and uses hard returns, multiple text frames, weird layer/stacking etc. All evidence to me that PDF is, always has been and (honestly) should remain an end format and not an alternate live format. The problems are not solvable without considerable restructuring and complexing-up of the format, which is (IMHO) contrary to its purpose.

Might as well have a feature that imports printed content by picking the toner back off the page. Unless all printing is changed to make the letters temporarily-attached elements. Or something. Just the wrong direction for all of this, IMVVHO.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Yes, the beta conversion.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

The current beta version of ID has premiered a PDF-to-ID function. You'll need to install the beta separately from your working edition to try it:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/convert-pdf-to-indesign-file.html

...and I'd REALLY recommend deleting the beta as soon as you're done with this one task, just to prevent confusion and clutter.

Susan CulliganAuthor

Inspiring

Actually, here's what I get when opening the Beta version, and it won't respond to keyboard or touch. Am I missing a way to get past this?

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I just reinstalled the beta and it's working OK on my end. It even converted a PDF from PowerPoint and from QuarkXPress.

If you download connection robust enough? Try uninstalling are reinstalling. If you still have problems, click on my name and I can try converting it for you.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

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