Word Document Footnotes Not Importing Fully into InDesign

[istos22981053eke3]

Hello everyone,

I have a Word document that contains footnotes. When I import this Word document into InDesign, it should normally come with its footnotes, but for some reason only footnotes after a certain point are imported. While there are a total of 112 footnotes in the Word document, only footnotes after the 32nd footnote are imported into InDesign.

I have never encountered such a problem before, so I don't know if the problem is with Word or InDesign. I am using Word version 16.44 and InDesign version 18.4.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help."

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Unfortunately, problems with foot and end notes from Word are more common than not. It can take a number of attempts, with various fixes and tweaks in each, to get a full set of notes to import correctly.

Since some notes are importing, that bypasses a few potential problems. The most likely reason is that the Word file is corrupt in some way, so try these steps:

• First, is it a real Word file? Or a file created in some other tool (Google Docs, Apple Pages, etc.) and exported to Word? Few tools create a truly clean Word export file — it's usually good enough to open in Word, but stumbles on import to other apps. If you created it in another tool, the fix is to open it in a real copy of Word and do a Save-As under a new name. That will often work.
• If it's a real Word file, it may be bloated with undo and other data that piles up during long rounds of editing and saving. Save the file to RTF, then open the RTF and save it to new names as both DOC and DOCX. That will purge all the bloated data and give you three different file formats to import. For no truly consistent reasons, some docs import better from one format or another; sometimes RTF is flawless, sometimes DOCX, and perhaps the most commonly compatible version is DOC.
• When you import, be sure to Place the Word doc in a new, blank InDesign document (it can be preformatted, but it's best if it hasn't been edited or modified over time, which can cause other problems. When Place has you pick the file, be sure "Show Import Options" is checked at the bottom, and you will get a menu of import and conversion options that will be helpful in sorting out any further problems.

If that still won't import the document correctly, report back and we'll try the next steps.

[ThreeBuddha]

I was surprised to see that the problem was solved when I saved the file as ‘.doc’ using the ‘Save As’ option instead of ‘.docx’. While it’s certainly gratifying that the solution was so simple, the possibility of such a major error recurring in other documents is equally frightening.

Since the problem is not with Indesign, is there a way to detect this problem initially from Word? Perhaps saving other documents as ‘.doc’ may not work and potential problems may go unnoticed. Unfortunately, Word is not an application I am very familiar with, so from which menu and settings could we detect such a problem beforehand?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ThreeBuddha

DOCX is Microsoft's proprietary format - Adobe can only try to reverse engineer it.

DOC is similar - but Adobe had much more time to try and "crack" it.

DOCX -> DOC/RTF conversion also strips / simplifies latest features.