Punctuation Issues with Imported Text from Word in InDesign

[Frans van der Vleuten]

Hello,

I am importing a Word document (cmnd+D) into a text element.

This is (a part of) the Word-document: (look at the komma)

The komma is on the normal place, after the word. But when I import this in Indesign, it looks like this:

Indesign moves all punctuation marks!!! Then what happens when I want to select them or delete them, I can not even select them, look: 

I am sick and tired of this random sh!t happening, it costs me a lot of time every time. I can not work like this. Please help me with a solution.

Frans

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

If you are placing DOCX - try RTF.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Word import is an inherently fragile, slightly glitchy process unless you have an absolutely perfect Word file — which is somewhat rarer than a unicorn.

The best process for importing Word is to do a Save-As to a new filename as a last step with the file, which purges file bloat and garbage. This will result in a fairly clean import most times.

When that doesn't work, save the file to RTF, as RT suggested, and then open that file and save it (all under a new filename) to DOC and DOCX versions. One of those three should import as well as the file/content is going to. Also, it can help to go through the Import Options menu and review/adjust any settings or import options that might apply to the file.

All that said, I've never seen an import move a punctuation/space combo like your example shows. I'd suspect the file is slightly corrupted or bloated with back-end data, which the above processes should fix.

[Peter Spier]

I would also check the language assigned to that text, and perhaps you are using a localization that allows right to left formatting? Or maybe you are using the World-Ready Paragrah Composer and the regular composer would be better?

[Joel Cherney]

I think you've nailed it, Peter. If it is something right-to-left being turned on by a bug, or otherwise accidentally (either in Word's styles, or in InDesign's preferences), then switching the composer applied to the text from the World-Ready Composer to the Paragraph Composer should fix it immediately. 

Frans, it might be impossible to select that comma with the mouse, if it's set to be right-to-left text. That's kind of normal for Hebrew or Arabic text - it is possible to select it with the mouse, but it's not intuitive at all. Better to try to select it by putting your cursor a few characters away and using the arrow keys to navigate, and Shift+arrow keys to select.

[Frans van der Vleuten]

Hello Peter,

I found out that indeed this has something to do the formatting of the text element to Arabic. Thank you!