Moving from Inkscape to InDesign

Report · Jul 23, 2018

I work for a small non-profit. When I began doing marketing materials for them, I was using Inkscape. I've created quite a few materials with Inkscape (a vector editor: https://inkscape.org/en/about/features/ ). Anyway, we finally found it in the budget to subscribe to Adobe. I'm now able to use all Adobe products, and I know InDesign will be my go-to for future publications at my job. I really don't want to lose or be unable to edit my previous work (I also don't want to have to re-create 3 months worth of work). With Inkscape, I can save/export to PNG, JPEG, SVG (which is standard for Inkscape), EPS, PDF, PS, and some others that don't seem useful (to me) from Inkscape.

Is there a way to make these previous materials usable and editable with InDesign or Illustrator at least? When I've tried opening EPS or SVG files from Inkscape to Illustrator, all of my text turns into little black boxes, and/or the quality is awful.

Would it just be easier to keep Inkscape for these documents, but continue with Adobe products for anything new? If it helps, my flyer/brochure templates were coming from Freepik, as I was unable to actually purchase anything.

Report · Jul 25, 2018

I think I've saved artwork as eps file and then opened it in Illustrator, but I'll double check when I get back home. While this is InDesign thread I would copy and paste all texts into InDesign, and after cleaning the graphics in Illustrator imported it into InDesign. That's the way I do that things. But it is choice of the operator when choosing workflow. In my opinion Illustrator is a bit crappy when comes to text related actions.

Report · Jul 25, 2018

The only thing I can't figure out is why my triangles keep disappearing. I did layer/stack and crop these in Inkscape. I stacked the blueprint over top of the blue triangle, then cut the shape out. When I opened your EPS in Illustrator, the text appeared. When I opened my EPS in Illustrator, the text was little black squares and the formatting was messed up. So basically, make the "design" part as a template in Illustrator, then import that to InDesign and add the text?

Report · Jul 25, 2018

I would do that, or recreate in InDesign everything but stuff like logotypes etc. Bright side of this efforts will be knowledge You'll gain after hours of redoing Yours projects. Remember doing something second time is always faster!

Report · Jul 25, 2018

So then those shapes I pointed out in the photo in my above reply - would I just need to recreate those as a part of the template?

Report · Jul 24, 2018

This is a link to the PDF to InDesign converter that's been mentioned. They offer a trial version so you can test it before purchase: PDF2ID - PDF to InDesign, How to convert PDF to InDesign, Convert PDF to InDesign

Report · Jul 25, 2018

EPS is an obsolete format. Stick to native formats.

The screen shot with the pink background indicates that you haven't these fonts installed.