Problems inserting text from a PDF | Mac InDesign 2020

[r.ruivo]

Hello, everyone,

I need to insert text from a PDF into a brochure for a client.

• I mark the text in the PDF with ALT + right mouse button.
• Copy the text with "Copy text with formatting
• Paste the text into InDesign via Edit > Paste

Unfortunately, quotation marks then appear and the formatting does not fit. The text will be written in a new line from the 4th column on instead of keeping the format.

I don't know any more. Can anyone help me?

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi,

without seeing a screenshot of the PDF open in Acrobat Pro, I see no way to help.

In Acrobat Pro are you under the Edit PDF workspace if you try this? Guess no. If Show bounding boxes is enabled you should see the "textual units" you are working with. So a "new line" should be visible as a separate text container. Hm. But this is only true in the scope of the Edit PDF workflow as I found out after testing a bit:

With Edit PDF it seems that we cannot copy formatted text. Only the Copy command is available. And if we do that with the Print Production workflow in Acrobat Pro, well, then I can see the issue: There could be additional line breaks after the formatted contents is placed on an InDesign page.

So, currently I see no way to avoid new line breaks.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

Too much depends on how that PDF was created -- but then again, the PDF file format was not designed to cater for easy text sending and editing! So, ask the client for a. Word file (it's the only formatted text type InDesign can umport).

You can still try to Save As Docx from within Acrobat; it attempts to intelligently stitch text fragments together and you may just get lucky.