Placing a word file with millions tables in indesign

[Shild]

I am making a big indesign document that is going to contain a million tables! The tables are done in word and don`t need any more layout, so I want to place them in the indesign document and preserve all formating. The trouble is that they don`t. Some of the contain jumps into another cells, and because of the large number of tables, I can`t use time to copy and paste all the text into the right cells.

I have of course tried different chioces in the import options, but obviously not find the correct one.

I am considering to make a pdf of the word-file and put alle the pdf together, but then I will lose mye header and footer on the pages that conains tables...

Any suggestions?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm not sure if you're exaggerating or not, but importing from Word is often a slightly fragile process and tables can be almost as problematic as footnotes and endnotes. To scale these issues up to a massive document... well, I suggest that only a segmented workflow, after resolving any and all issues with the Word doc itself, will get you to a workable InDesign doc.

To start with, your Word doc should use styles for all text. If you are using spot overrides ("grab and paint"), it complicates the accurate parsing of the file and multiplies the points at which things can break. Even things like bold and italics should be replaced with named styles, not the integral Word overrides. And then there are other cleanup steps that will help get a better result.

And then... I'd break the document into reasonable chunks for import.

Once imported, I'd create a set of Table and Cell styles that match the result you want. (You can't pre-apply these in Word, since it doesn't have table styles.) You can then go through, applying those styles and cleaning up any format or content faults.

But as for a one-time, no-problem import to the result you want... I'd say it's the next thing to impossible, especially at the scale of content.

[ian chambers]

My only solution to tables in Word is to make each table a pdf and place them in indesign file.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That's not a bad approach, but it cuts off any ability to edit them or adjust styles, and Word's table layouts aren't always... all they could be. To start with, there's no way to globally style and manage them, probably one of Word's most glaring faults as a publication tool. Pulling tables in, assigning ID styles and working from there gives more flexibility.

OTOH, a book of "a million" tables probably doesn't need anything fancy, so maybe placing a PDF of the Word doc is the right approach. But the OP doesn't say why the project is being pulled into ID, so...

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

But the OP doesn't say why the project is being pulled into ID, so...

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

Was thinking the same thing. Why bring such a long, complex Word.docx file into InDesign? Can it stay in Word and then be converted to print/press PDF, or digital/interactive PDF?

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

It is doable (we do this every day, especially with long government data-intensive Word files). And you'll have to pre-test various options to get a workflow that will work for you.

Some critical items:

1. As @James Gifford—NitroPress mentioned, no manual formatting in MS Word. Everything must be formatted with Styles (both paragraph styles like Heading 2 and character styles like Strong (for bold) and Emphasis (for italics).
    
2. Create Table Styles in InDesign that give you easy one-click formatting. Each table will still need a bit of tweaking, but InDesign's table styles can do most of the formatting work and keep your visual appearance consistent.  Your InDesign table style should replicate the appearance of what is in the original source Word file.
    
3. No PDFs of tables. When you place a PDF of anything with text (like a table), it is treated as a graphic rather than as a file with live text. This makes it unreadable by other  technologies, such as screen readers used by those who are blind.
    
4. In the Word.docx file, the author can use Word's table style gallery to quickly create the visual formatting they want. Use a built-in style or create a custom appearance. The style itself won't import into InDesign, but the visual formatting will. Here's what my general settings for InDesign's IMPORT Options to maintain the author's formatting in Word:
     If the Word.docx file was formatted with styles, you can click Style Mapping to control how the styles are imported into InDesign. When done well, it's a tremendous boost to productivity!

Here's a demo: 1st screen capture is the table formatted in Word, second and third show how it came into InDesign without any adjustment. They match! Yours might need a few tweaks here and there, but an InDesign table style could clean that up in one click.

The table in Word.

Import Options in InDesign — Map Styles

The Word.docx file after placing into an INDD layout.

Hope this helps!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

If you are on a PC - or have access to a PC - full version of my ID-Tasker would do the job - re-format all tables and more...

Can you also clarify "Some of the contain jumps into another cells"? Do you mean that tables import incorrectly ?

Have you tried with RTF instead of DOC(X)?