Retaining Tables from Word to InDesign

Report · Oct 23, 2019

I have a 200 page Word document that has many tables of varying row and column lengths,

some tables have split columns within rows, etc. some have 1 cell headers, others have multi cells comprising the headers.

I've tried importing tables in a number of different ways but am finding it to be quite frustrating and it seems that a lot of manual manipulation is requried to get tables to retain their layouts, whilst alos confirming to InDesign's page margins and other formatting (such as font stylings)

Does anyone have advise or a step through guide they could help me with?

I've read through a few Adobe documents that explain how it works but they are too vague and don't address many of the issues that occur.

Report · Oct 23, 2019

I'd just use File>Place

You can then select the Word file and select Show Options

The other way to do it is by copy and paste - but before you copy and paste from Word - go to your InDesign>Preferences

And go to Clipboard Handling

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Thanks Eugene,

Only problem with this option is that the Tables inexplicably just width, instead of gripping to text box width,

and not in a consistent way either, so I have to manually rescale each table once imported.

Being that there is at least 200 tables, this is a real unnecessary waste of time on this project.

is there any way I can force the Tables to retain their total width, and individual column widths as they are in Word,

or failing that, at least force them to fit the text box width when being placed?

Also I saved styles for tables in InDesign, which work of I create a fresh table in InDesign,but do not work if I try and apply the table styles to Tables placed from Word. Do you have any advise on how to get that working also?

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Magic words here are: Woodwing SmartStyles

But this wizard can't help with height problems - https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/33854788-op... - your voice will be here today or tomorrow.

Remember, never say you can't do something in InDesign, it's always just a question of finding the right workaround to get the job done. © David Blatner

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Hi George I installed the Woodwing Smart Styles plugin, but it doesn't fix the issue of cells with content longer than the page disappearing.

Do you have any tips here?

The issue is this:

Word let's tables reach the bottom margin of a page and even if a cell has not completed, it will still show on that page, and then continue onto the next page.

Whereas in InDesign if a cell has not completed its content within one page view, then that entire cell,row, and all following content in the table simply disappears.

I saved table as a Smart Style (from Woodwing's PDF instructions) but when i apply that Smart Style it does not fix this issue.

Am I missing something?

Report · Oct 23, 2019

100% feel your pain - solutions for third party product are good - I'd definitely recommend.

Put in a feature request here - https://indesign.uservoice.com/

Other than the 3rd party solution - it's a manual process.

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Hi Joel,

see into the 3rd-party plugin SmartStyles by Woodwing that is extremely good with creating and applying table layouts ( and other things as well: https://www.woodwing.com/en/smart-styles-adobe-indesign-plugin

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Hi Uwe.

I installed the Woodwing Smart Styles plugin, but it doesn't fix the issue of cells with content longer than the page disappearing.

Do you have any tips here?

The issue is this:

Word let's tables reach the bottom margin of a page and even if a cell has not completed, it will still show on that page, and then continue onto the next page.

Whereas in InDesign if a cell has not completed its content within one page view, then that entire cell,row, and all following content in the table simply disappears.

I saved table as a Smart Style (from Woodwing's PDF instructions) but when i apply that Smart Style it does not fix this issue.

Am I missing something?

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Quote: "Word let's tables reach the bottom margin of a page and even if a cell has not completed, it will still show on that page, and then continue onto the next page. Whereas in InDesign if a cell has not completed its content within one page view, then that entire cell,row, and all following content in the table simply disappears."

I'm wondering if your tables are triggering a combination of 2 things in InDesign:

InDesign can't split a row across 2 pages (or 2 text frames). The entire row must fit in order for any of it to be visible.
Check to see if the text frame that holds the table has a red + in the lower right, which indicates overset text. You might need to either expand the length of the text frame to accommodate the hidden part of the table, or continue the text flow into another frame.

Report · Oct 23, 2019

Hi Uwe, I don't have any overset text (as I've already flowed them onto more pages/text frames)

But the big issue I have is that this Word file has 200 tables, half of which have cells that flow over pages,

now in my InDesign I can't even display them as InDesign won't show any cells that extend past a page.

Is there anyway in InDesign with or without the Woodwing plugin, that allow me to force these cells to display?

Report · Oct 23, 2019

>> Word let's tables reach the bottom margin of a page and even if a cell has not completed, it will still show on that page, and then continue onto the next page.

Ok, I will quote myself:

>> But this wizard can't help with height problems - https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/33854788-op... - your voice will be here today or tomorrow.

Remember, never say you can't do something in InDesign, it's always just a question of finding the right workaround to get the job done. © David Blatner

Report · Oct 24, 2019

Hi George-S, ah yes I see now that you did say that. That is really bad news for me. Quite depressing now that I fathom the depth of the grave I have dug myself now

Report · Oct 24, 2019

See more info about this table "shortcoming" at https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/33854788-op (Adobe's open forum for feature requests).

It appears that the InDesign engineering team is working on letting a row split across pages. But that doesn't help you right now, but maybe in the next release?

Report · Oct 24, 2019

Yes it looks like George has been requesting this feature as far back as 2004, so I guess it will happen sometime in the next 2months or 13years.

Report · Oct 24, 2019

Hi Joel,

if the problems are with table rows where the height cannot be held by a single text frame you have no chance to do that automatically with InDesign. Not for now. Maybe next year.

Could be that there is a script around that could split table rows between text frames.

If not you have to do tedious work.

First flow the Word document in very large text frames with a different document so all text in every cell is visible, then identify the rows with height too large to fit your previous layout. Then do a new row below and distribute the contents between the two rows. Then copy the table over to your other layout.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Report · Oct 24, 2019

oh dear, this is very bad news. a a large project has just turned into an extremely large project on a medium-to-large budget. oh dear.