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Importing a pdf

Enthusiast ,
Jun 04, 2012 Jun 04, 2012

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How can i import a pdf in indesign? If i drag and drop a pdf, only the first page of pdf shows up with really bad resolution and even the vector in it gets pixelated.

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Import and export , Scripting

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jul 16, 2012 Jul 16, 2012

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Guide ,
Jun 05, 2012 Jun 05, 2012

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Use File>Place command, and check Import Options in same window where you select PDF to import....

Then you have extra window before you place PDF, there you can choose which pages you want to place...

Never mind the poor quality, if you print your layout or export it, quality is OK. InDesign shows you low res display version of placed images and PDFs etc by default.

You can also change the quality of display image by right-clicking the image/PDF and choosing Display Performance > High Quality. Then you will see the content of PDF as you would see it in Adobe Reader....

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 19, 2012 Jun 19, 2012

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okay..how can i ungroup this pdf? i couldn't use the ungroup command. neither ctrl shift g worked. is there any object manager that shows up which objects are selected in a list form view?

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Advisor ,
Jun 19, 2012 Jun 19, 2012

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arjun2 wrote:

okay..how can i ungroup this pdf?

Do you mean place a page of a PDF and then edit individual elements as you could in the program that made the PDF? If that's what you want, that's not the way it works. The page of the PDF is all one image, but there are a few things you can do that will be sort-of like ungrouping the PDF.

One would be to save the PDF with layers. This can be done (for example) if you created the page (from which the PDF was exported) in InDesign  and checked the Create Acrobat Layers checkbox when exporting to PDF. When placed in InDesign, you can switch the layers on or off either when placing, or from Object>Object Layer Options after the PDF has been placed.

Another thing you can do is to place several copies of the same PDF and crop out portions on the different copies. This doesn't work if objects overlap, though, unless overlapping objects are on different layers that you switch off. Text won't be editable, but objects can be resized or moved, if that helps.

There is also PDF2ID, which can convert a PDF to an editable InDesign document. I haven't used this, so I can't say how successful it is, but I expect that you will need to tweak the newly-created ID file to make it look like the PDF to one degree or another.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 20, 2012 Jun 20, 2012

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yes i wanna ungroup various parts of pdf and edit it you're right. can it be done in illustrator maybe? I don't know illustrator. actually i'm making a switch from coreldraw to indesign, so thats why somany posts learning everything

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Community Expert ,
Jun 20, 2012 Jun 20, 2012

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arjun2 wrote:

yes i wanna ungroup various parts of pdf and edit it you're right. can it be done in illustrator maybe?

Maybe, but Illustrator is not a "general purpose" PDF editor and a whole lot of things can go wrong.

Realistically, it's best to edit the content that went into the PDF in the application that made the PDF initially, then make a new PDF.

I've never used PDF2ID, either, but it is intended to open a PDF file to convert to InDesign, not to work with a placed PDF in an existing ID file. It might, however, allow you to open the PDF as editable objects, then copy/paste those objects into your other file.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 23, 2012 Jun 23, 2012

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okay..is there anywhere i can put feature requests like these to Adobe guys?

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Community Expert ,
Jun 24, 2012 Jun 24, 2012

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Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

But don't hold your breath waiting. ID is a layout application, and the only kind of placed content you can edit is text. That's not likely to change.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 26, 2012 Jun 26, 2012

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thanks

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Guide ,
Jun 26, 2012 Jun 26, 2012

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Did you purchase ID as a stand-alone or as part of a Creative Suite? Most (if not all) of the Suites come with Acrobat Pro. You could try editing it with that (if it is editable).

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Enthusiast ,
Jul 16, 2012 Jul 16, 2012

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i have adobe acrobat. . that's a good idea. anyway,how can i make the adobe pdf place the pages respective to their postions. example i have 91 page pdf , if i import it i have to place pages one by one. is there an option it places those 91 pages of pdf on my blank pages of indesign in one go?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2012 Jul 16, 2012

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Look in your scripts panel. You'll find a script for placing mulitpage PDFs.

Bob

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2012 Jul 16, 2012

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Enthusiast ,
Jul 18, 2012 Jul 18, 2012

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Bob Levine wrote:

Look in your scripts panel. You'll find a script for placing mulitpage PDFs.

Bob

thank you sir. is there a page that lists down all the default scripts avaialable and what each script does?

Peter Spier wrote:

an even better script is at InDesignSecrets » Blog Archive » Zanelli Releases MultiPageImporter for Importing both PDF and INDD ...

Thank you peter

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Jul 19, 2012 Jul 19, 2012

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You can write down the default scripts available by Indesign by yourself on a piece of paper and to know what these scripts do :-

In the script panel , right click on any script and click , "Edit Script"

The Extend toolkit will open up wherein the first few line describe what does the script do (It is mentioned under "Buildinfo" )

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Jul 19, 2012 Jul 19, 2012

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Found something while reading tought to share , here is the link for the sample scripts and what they do :-

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/WS0836C26E-79F9-4c8f-8150-C36260164A87a.html

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Community Beginner ,
May 04, 2015 May 04, 2015

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This worked a treat for me - thanks for the heads up!

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New Here ,
Aug 08, 2013 Aug 08, 2013

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Do you know any way to choose different pages in the pdf without placing? I hate placing.. we work on servers so it's a long path and many clicks to get to the right file, and it's so much easyer to just drag the pdf directly from finder to InDesign..

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Community Expert ,
Aug 08, 2013 Aug 08, 2013

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Try this...

Instead of dragging from the Finder, open Bridge, hold Shift and right-click to choose Place > In InDesign....

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New Here ,
Aug 09, 2013 Aug 09, 2013

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Thank you very much, I would never have thought of that. It makes it easier, but still I think there shoud be added some kind of function to make it easier in InDesign too, like right clicking and being able to choose what page you want.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 09, 2013 Aug 09, 2013

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File your request here: Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

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