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Converting indesign to word...

Community Beginner ,
Oct 11, 2010 Oct 11, 2010

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Hello!

Further to my post last week where I was trying to avoid having to convert my indesign doc's to word - in the spirit of 'the customer is always right' I now need to convert these 13 doc's over into word so that it can be edited at will.

I have exported the doc's to pdf, and am looking for a converter tool (preferably free) which I can use to do this. The doc's contain photos, and columns of text - nothing too crazy - I would be really greatful if someone knew of a good one? I have tried www.pdftoword.com but an hour later I still have not received any documents emailed to me.

Much appreciate your help as I am a long long way from competent at all this!

em

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Participant ,
Oct 11, 2010 Oct 11, 2010

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Export INDD as PDF.

Save PDF as Word Document.

You will alway loose quality.

InDesign is not supposed to export to Word.

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New Here ,
Oct 28, 2014 Oct 28, 2014

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Thanks Wilhelm! Obvious, and simple but very helpful.

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New Here ,
Mar 06, 2015 Mar 06, 2015

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thanks!!

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Community Expert ,
Mar 23, 2015 Mar 23, 2015

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ID2Office is available since several Years.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 11, 2010 Oct 11, 2010

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Some people have reported better results exporting the PDF to HTML and opening that in Word, but I've never had good results with any conversion of ID to word.

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Guest
Oct 12, 2010 Oct 12, 2010

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I can't comment on the conversion from Indd > PDF and then PDF > Word. But I've used http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp  on many occasions to convert pdfs I get from co-workers into docs. I've found it to be pretty good.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 16, 2010 Oct 16, 2010

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if they're just after the actual copy and not the pics etc, rorohiko has a good tool called textexporter. go to:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/indesign-downloads/text-exporter/

FWIW, i am NOT a rorohiko employee nor a spokesperson.

if however, they want a facsimile version of the file for use with word (pics, text, fonts etc)... good luck with that. its the equivalent of trying to get the quality of a bluray movie by watching a cinema-rip... (which i don't condone ). one is a word processor while the other is an advanced layout application.

If the answer wasn't in my post, perhaps it might be on my blog at colecandoo!

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 09, 2017 Aug 09, 2017

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I tried most of these today and I found the Rorohiko tool to be the best converter. My goal was to wind up with a file with reasonable accuracy in formatting of the text so my client can make edits for the next edition.

I have several tables and boxed items in my document and this tool managed all those details the best of all the ones I tried. Also a lot of local formatting, all of which were handled relatively gracefully. The resulting file required minimum tweaking before sending off to the client.

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New Here ,
Feb 21, 2020 Feb 21, 2020

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LATEST

This follow-up was helpful. Thank you!

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Contributor ,
Jun 17, 2014 Jun 17, 2014

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We publish a 1000 page textbook and the authors have asked for the entire book in Word form to work on the next edition.

I used the InDesign > Export to PDF X1a with normal prepress settings > In Acrobat Pro 11 Save as Other.... > Word document (under Options, choose retain layout).

The results were pretty good, with pictures and layout fairly well preserved. I'm not sure how it will handle tables.

Hope this helps.

TGD

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Jun 17, 2014 Jun 17, 2014

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If you are going the route of InDesign to PDF to Word, absolutely don't use the PDF/X-1a settings since transparency flattening will occur and all RGB content will be converted to CMYK which isn't natively supported in any Microsoft Office application. I would recommend the PDF/X-4 settings instead, keeping color in its native color space!

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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Contributor ,
Jun 17, 2014 Jun 17, 2014

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Thanks Dov!

I was only outlining what worked well for us.

I should have mentioned that we were  working strictly CMYK prepress so X1a worked for us.

The layout conversion wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close to the original and saved a ton of work.

TGD

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 20, 2017 Jan 20, 2017

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InDesign to PDF x1A was ok. In Acrobat Pro DC, I Exported to Microsoft Word, then submenu to Word Document. The conversion distorted the logo and the bottom line of text. I remade the document and gave the bottom margin more space. I replaced the logo with a JPG. Made it work.

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Community Expert ,
May 08, 2017 May 08, 2017

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CMYK and Word? Are you aware that word does NOT support CMYK? ONLY RGB!

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 14, 2017 Jul 14, 2017

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Word for Mac supports CMYK but not Word for Windows

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Community Expert ,
Jul 14, 2017 Jul 14, 2017

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That's not true.

I created a Word document with black, Standard Red, and then picked a red with Mac CMYK sliders. It still gets saved as RGB.

Here's what the swatches look like when you import it into InDesign (choosing Import Options to retain formatting). It adds two RGB swatches:

InDesign CC020.png

You can also see it if you make a PDF from Word for Mac and look at the results in Acrobat Pro > Print Production > Output Preview > Use the Show menu to see the color space of the type.

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Mentor ,
Jun 17, 2014 Jun 17, 2014

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I have good luck with the Export All Stories script included in the samples.

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Community Beginner ,
May 07, 2017 May 07, 2017

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^This 

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2015 Jun 22, 2015

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This worked for me. Choosing the PDF X1a was critical, though I am sure PDF/X-4 will also work. Even if you choose "retain flowing text" it still comes out with better formatting than other PDF options do.

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New Here ,
Jan 22, 2016 Jan 22, 2016

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TOP, it works prefectly

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New Here ,
Mar 04, 2016 Mar 04, 2016

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Very cool. This worked very well for me. I had to do some type finessing — carefully reading the entire document — and replaced a group of shots recreated in photoshop so I could then put as single shot.

I need to find a way to "strip formatting" from a paragraph because it looks like there's multiple styling going on.

I'm a happy camper, impressive.

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New Here ,
Dec 19, 2014 Dec 19, 2014

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This worked very well for us -- but would not be good for creating templates as all the pdf text comes over as individual text boxes.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 23, 2015 Mar 23, 2015

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In the meantime exists a plugin ID2Office, you should consider?

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Contributor ,
Aug 18, 2016 Aug 18, 2016

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I should add that Acrobat has now been updated so that saving to Word format is in the following location:

File > Export to.... > Microsoft Word > Word Document

My cursory experience is that the export function seems to be more robust than when originally posted this solution, but I haven't fully tested it.

Cheers!

Tom

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