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visionastudio
New Participant
January 22, 2019
Answered

import Word files with Excel tables linked in

  • January 22, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 913 views

Hello everyone,

I've been involved for many years in the layout of corporate balance sheets.

The files that are provided to us by their technical area are Word files that, in addition to containing texts and tables, also contain external links to Excel files that reside on remote servers; this is because those who update data in Excel (an essential resource for those who draw up a balance sheet) are also found updates in the Word file.

I've always paged the balance sheets making the copy and paste from Word and then from the Excel tables, this because the result of the direct import in Indesign has always been disastrous, but I'm still at the 2015 version of ID.

Do you know if in later versions Adobe improved this aspect? I can not try because my mac does not support these versions, I ask because I should switch to Mojave to make these attempts but the mac needs to work and not to try programs, unfortunately

Do you have alternative solutions to suggest to me, please?

Thank you so much for your collaboration and have a nice day!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer hammer0909

    From what you describe, the problem you have doesn’t lie in InDesign but rather how the Word/Excel content is created Which you probably don’t have much control over.

    You our May want to try placing the content out on the pasteboard of the document to give you a little more formatting control from the start, then you can copy paste into your document as needed.

    Another option worth looking into is Wordsflow by Em Software which allows you to retain formatting of placed Word content when updates are made in Word.

    Unfortunately no silver bullet here ;-)

    3 replies

    hammer0909
    hammer0909Correct answer
    Community Expert
    January 22, 2019

    From what you describe, the problem you have doesn’t lie in InDesign but rather how the Word/Excel content is created Which you probably don’t have much control over.

    You our May want to try placing the content out on the pasteboard of the document to give you a little more formatting control from the start, then you can copy paste into your document as needed.

    Another option worth looking into is Wordsflow by Em Software which allows you to retain formatting of placed Word content when updates are made in Word.

    Unfortunately no silver bullet here ;-)

      visionastudio
      visionastudioAuthor
      New Participant
      January 22, 2019

      Many  thanks Chad Chelius, i'll try that plugin

      visionastudio
      visionastudioAuthor
      New Participant
      January 23, 2019

      Hi Chad,

      just to update you and the post, nothing good happen by using that plugin (nothing that solve my problem, i mean).

      Same old issue unfortunately.

      Many thanks anyway

      BobLevine
      BobLevine
      Community Expert
      January 22, 2019

      Stop copy/pasting from Word and use File > Place. That should fix most of your issues.

      From there follow Chad's advice.

      hammer0909
      hammer0909
      Community Expert
      January 22, 2019

      To answer your question, there have been no changes or improvements of the Word Import Options in InDesign CC 2017, 2018, or 2019. So you're likely to experience the same behavior in the new versions as what you're experiencing now.

      When you say that placing the Word document in InDesign is disastrous, what exactly do you mean? What you can expect is that the formatting will not in fact be the same as the Word doc, but can certainly be fixed in InDesign by applying paragraph, character, and table styles to the content.

      visionastudio
      visionastudioAuthor
      New Participant
      January 22, 2019

      Hello guys!

      First of all, thank you for the answer!

      Chad Chelius

      I know for sure that styles can help, but the problem is that the material that comes to me sometimes disrupts so much the tables that I no longer know where to look for contents... Columns and rows more than the original make the file not usable.

      The problem is in the input phase, unfortunately, and that's where I would like to solve.

      BobLevine

      Obviously I have already tried to import the files, but the result is unacceptable: if Word texts and tables are quite good, the result of the formatting problems that arise in tables with links to Excel is unfortunately not.

      Copying and pasting is only the last choice.

      Any other tips?

      Many thanks anyway

      BobLevine
      BobLevine
      Community Expert
      January 22, 2019

      Short version of Chad’s response:

      Garbage in, garbage out.

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