Microsoft Word Import Options dialog box reverted to bitty pre-2022 style

[Murrance]

At some stage, InDesign changed the way you could manage paragraph and character styles on import so that you got the option to ascribe, for example, anything called "Heading 1" in Word with "Title" in InDesign and absolutely everything else (I think it was termed '[Any]') as '[No Paragraph Style]', 'Body Text' or whatever you wanted.

Now, in the 2024 update, we seem to have gone back to the old method of having to assign every single imported text style with a paragraph or character style of your own, or - and here is the real headache - specifying [No paragraph style] or character style [None] to each and every style inherited from the usually very messy Word file. I have just done this to a file compiled by multiple users with approx. 100 different styles.

So my questions are:

1. Why?! Surely the switch to being able to group imported styles together was easier and more efficient?
   and
2. Is there any way of getting the circa 2022 version of text import back again?

Thanks for any pointers anyone is able to give (or just sympathy!)

[Mike Witherell]

I could be wrong, but the Show Import Options for a  Word docx file place still has the Customize Style Import switch along with the Style Mapping dialog box. I have never noticed it to change at all since it was introduced in CS2 circa 2005.

Another thought: take management steps to bring the 100-styles-multiple-users thing under control. Humans need a lot of method training on this topic.

[Murrance]

Thanks Mike,
Yes, it's reverted back to single style mapping method and you're right that it must have only been one iteration of InDesign that used the different dialog box method.

I can't see anything either in the initial File/Place window or the Import Options dialog box  that looks like it would allow me to toggle between this method and the one I prefer.

Totally agree it would be easier if everyone stuck to styles at the outset but unfortunately, as it's a community magazine with different and new people from lots of villages submitting content every month, training all of them all the time to use styles in Word would be even more of an uphill struggle than going through each of their styles in turn!

Murrance

[leo.r]

Now, in the 2024 update

If it only happened in the 2024 update, then you can install InDesign 2023 from the Creative Cloud app and import your Word files there (if the process is indeed any different). In this case, can you post screenshots that illustrate the difference?

[Murrance]

Great suggestion!

Re-installed 2022 and have the following screenshots to show you.

[leo.r]

Great suggestion!

Re-installed 2022 and have the following screenshots to show you

By @Murrance

I can only recommend to submit a request to restore the previous import options here:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests

[Nick Passmore]

It's quite possible that I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick — or even the wrong stick — but I can't find that more complex/sophisticated Paragraph Style Mapping dialog in InDesign 2022, 2023 or 2024. Is there some trick to displaying it? I only ever see this:

[Frans v.d. Geest · Accepted solution]

That looks like a plug-in interface, WordsFlow, not the standard interface. Update your plug in to work with 2024.

see also: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/word-import-options-dialog-box/m-p/13812237

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, it's impossible with a large roster of volunteer/remote contributors.

It's even impossible-1 to get a company, office or department to sit for some basic Word methods training, as most of us probably know. "We don't have time for all that fancy-dancy stuff." (So man-weeks a years are wasted on just working with crappy formatting and document faults.)

[Mike Witherell]

Unless I wasn't paying any attention, I have never known this dialog box to be any different in any version. I'm not sure what you might be remembering.

[Mike Witherell]

Hmph! You are right. I wasn't paying attention. 

Now I wonder: why did it re-design and why did it revert back to the older layout look?

[Frans v.d. Geest · Accepted solution]

They changed nothing, it looks like the WordsFlow plug in to me that isn't updated to work with 2024...

[Murrance]

Of course! Thank you Frans. 

It hadn't occured to me that it could be part of a plug-in, and it puzzles me because WordsFlow had been disabled for years on my PC.

I will see if it comes back with newer Em Software versions... and speak very nicely to the accounts department...

[rob day]

Hi @Murrance , It does seem like you were using some sort of plugin as @Frans v.d. Geest suggests. This is the Place interface from CC2021:

[Frans v.d. Geest · Accepted solution]

It is the Em Software WordsFlow plug in interface 😉

[ali31543599c2pi]

اواجه مشكلة في ملف الادوبي ان دزاين لديه حروف تاتي بعد (_) ويجب ان تكتب بصورة منخفضة لذلك يجب ان ابحثعنها وان عمل لها subscript من دون ان يصغر السطر كله واحتاج الى ذلك من خلال تطبيق GREP

[ali31543599c2pi]

اواجه مشكلة في ملف الادوبي ان دزاين لديه حروف تاتي بعد (_) ويجب ان تكتب بصورة منخفضة لذلك يجب ان ابحث عنها وان عمل لها subscript من دون ان يصغر السطر كله واحتاج الى ذلك من خلال تطبيق GREP