Problems with exported file from Acrobat to InDesign

[jodmcc49]

I have a PDF file that is 11x17 and have exported it from Acrobat as a MS-Word file and placed it in InDesign 2021 version 16.4.3.166 so I can move things around to make it 8-1/2 x 11. When I select an image, it shows an anchor, but I don't know what it is anchored to and can only move it up just a little bit. I don't know if it anchored to the text or not, since I have never used anchored objects. I just need to be able to seperate the text from image/images if that is what is anchored so I can move the items. I can retype the text if need. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

John

[Joel Cherney]

I have a PDF file that is 11x17 and have exported it from Acrobat as a MS-Word file and placed it in InDesign 2021 version 16.4.3.166 so I can move things around to make it 8-1/2 x 11.

That's a tough workflow. Hopefully the Word export from Acrobat is good enough to make it faster to revise it than it would be to rebuild from the ground up. Word exports from Acrobat work halfway decently in Word, if the source file was a Word file.

When I select an image, it shows an anchor, but I don't know what it is anchored to

Try View -> Extras -> Show Text Threads. It'll draw a dotted line from your anchored image to the point at which it's anchored. But I'd bet that the fact that these images are anchored is not critical to your design, so you might be better off simply using Object -> Anchored Object -> Release, then just moving the object around with the Selection tool as usual. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

InDesign shows where an anchor point is in the text with a 'yen' symbol, like this:

To move anchored objects around freely, you need to change the anchor type to "Custom" and not "Inline." Anchoring gets a bit complicated with the various settings, anchor and alignment points, text wrap and all that. But it shouldn't be hard to rearrange your items by dragging each anchor to a new anchor point and adjusting the Anchor settings.

And unless there's a need to have these objects flow from page to page, you don't really need to use anchoring at all. You can position graphic and text frames any way you like, use Align/Distribute to line them up, and avoid all the issues of anchoring altogether if the items are simply meant to stay together on one page.

Anchoring is for two purposes: to keep objects with designated text as flow through a document changes, and to hook objects into the text flow for things like EPUB export. It's not needed for graphical page-by-page layout.

[Joel Cherney]

You know, I just realized that they could also be inline anchored objects, which would make no sense from a design standpoint, but absolutely makes sense from a source doc -> PDF -> Word -> InDesign workflow. It's document-conversion cruft accretion, right? So, John, unless there is some need to leave these images as anchored (as in James' summary), then it's most likely in your best interests to Release those anchored objects. 

[leo.r]

Maybe you'll have better luck opening your PDF in Illustrator then copy-pasting to InDesign. For your particular purpose it may (or may not) produce some better manageable contents.

[jodmcc49]

Thanks everyone with your suggestions. I finally just exported the images from Acrobat and rebuilt the document, once I figured out what order the images were exported which was left-to-right and top-to-bottom. About 2/3 finished dropping in 500 images.

John

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Sometimes the plain old grind is the easiest way through.