Spaces Disappear When Importing Word Doc Into InDesign

[BNO-Kofi Bonner]

When importing a Word doc (MS Word 365 for Mac, El Capitan) into InDesign CC 2015, all of the spaces disappear - causing all of the text to run together.

The spaces in the Word doc we start with look fine, but when we import (not copy and paste, but import) it into InDesign, the spaces aren’t included.

Does anyone know why this happens and what we can do to stop it? Thanks!

[Ashking007]

Great. Thanks

[xtinehoude]

This solution just saved me hours of work. I was supplied with a large legal document of a word file that was an export from a pdf. The word document looked fine but import into indesign removed most spacing. Thank you so much for sharing this tip!

[Milk Bottle Benny]

This worked for me, thanks so much, I was also converting a PDF to a word doc, all the spaces seemed find in the word doc but then when I placed it some of them were missing, esspecially in all the headings, but some of the body copy too. Find and replace spaces for spaces, save, place again and it all worked!!!!

[dawnborendesign]

Genius! The only thing that worked! THANK YOU.

[Steven_F]

THANK YOU!!! This issue has been plaguing me for years, and this is the easiest, quickest solution!! 

[Lynda5E1F]

THANK YOU! This works wonders. Was starting to go insane trying to find a solution to this when importing a 120 page academic doc and thinking I'd need to add spaces in between every word! 🙂

[Laubender]

"If anyone is struggling to get the file to import after doing the above, saving it down to lower version of ms word helped clear out any remaining issues that popped up."

"This comment should be #1 on this conversation."

Hm. I disagree. Why?

Well, the original source of the formatted text of our OP BNO-Kofi Bonner was not a Word file.

The word file was done by exporting texts from a PDF using Acrobat Pro DC.

If someone can see a solution in saving a Word file to a previous version, the issue is a different one and should be discussed in a new thread.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[J E L]

That's a very important distinction point, @Laubender. Thanks for adding it here!

[karina127 · Accepted solution]

This was happening to me when I imported a Word doc into a blank InDesign file. Turns out the text in the Word doc was justified. I left aligned everything and reimported with no issues 🙂

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing the solution. I am sure it will help other community members. In addition to this solution if anyone else experiences similar issues with files on two different computers, please ensure you have the same fonts installed.

Thanks
Rishabh