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• • September 9, 2013 at 9:26 pm #65225
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    This one has me stumped, so I turn (as usual) to the gurus who seem to know all.

    When I select a story in an InDesign document (CS6, if that matters) and export it as rich text format, the resulting document (which I open in Word) has very many (but not quite all, see below) of the spaces replaced with tabs. Since the text I am working on does include some tabs — particularly headings — it is not a simple matter of using Find-and-Replace and replacing all tabs with spaces. I need to go through and replace them one-by-one. Very frustrating!

    The curious thing is that some paragraphs are unaffected. I have looked at para styles and everything else I can think of but have been unable (so far) to work out what distinguished the changed paras from the unchanged ones.

    Please don’t tell me I am imagining things!

  • September 10, 2013 at 6:22 am #65235
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    My first theory is that it’s not inDesign which is adding the tabs, but rather Word, on opening. (But maybe I’m just like a doting parent who can’t imagine finding fault with a child.) ;)

    Try opening the RTF with something else (like TextEdit on the Mac)?

  • September 11, 2013 at 3:25 am #65240
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Thanks for your reply, David. Sorry for the delay in responding but I have been away from the keyboard all day.

    Sorry to have to report, but an export to .rtf opened in TextEdit still has most (but not all) of the spaces replaced with tabs. [Heavy sigh!] I haven‘t done more than a cursory check at this stage, but it seems that only two of the 25-odd paragraph styles in the document (one of them being a child of the other) have escaped the multiple tabs.

    Exporting to .rtf is not something I need all that often, but it should work on those occasions when I do need it.

  • September 11, 2013 at 8:25 am #65242
    Gert Verrept

    Member

    @furry. Very strange behaviour. I export daily indesign (CC) files to rtf. Never had that problem, but what I saw is that if you use the font Helvetica Lt STd (open type), the french letters (é, à, è and some others) are not converted correctly. We have a script that selects the text, applies Arial (basic font in Windows) to it, and then converts it to rtf. No problem with the chars anymore. In our case the text is the most important thing, not the layout, so changing the font doesn’t matter.

  • September 11, 2013 at 8:35 am #65243
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Yeah, like Gert, I export to RTF regularly and have not had that problem. I would try things like clearing up possible corruption by exporting to IDML and opening that IDML file and then exporting. Another idea: export the story as InDesign Tagged Text, then import that tagged text into a new document, then export as RTF.

    I would also be curious about if TextExporter from rorohiko is any different.

  • September 11, 2013 at 7:43 pm #65244
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Curiouser and curiouser (to quote Lewis Carol and to confuse my spellchecker). I tried exporting to IDML and then exported as .rtf from the new file. Still tabs everywhere in TextEdit.

    Gert, I am not having trouble with accented characters as my current document is entirely in English. Nor am I using either Helvetica Lt Std or Arial. The fonts I am using are ITC Souvenir, Optima and a couple of instances of Palatino. The Optima is OpenType, the other two are TrueType.

    David, I have not used TextExporter as I do this too seldom to warrant purchasing it. I wonder if anyone else can offer a comment on it. Or am I the only person in the world to whom this is happening?

    The other curious thing is that it is not happening just with this one document I am working on at the moment but with others as well.

    Curiouser and curiouser . . .

  • September 11, 2013 at 10:33 pm #65245
    Gert Verrept

    Member

    Furry, did you use some special white spaces? Flush spaces are giving trouble with export to rtf. I just checked and the white space in Word is much too big (it seems as if its a tab, but it isn’t). I’m working on Windows 7 64b, Indesign CC. If the text is the most ipmorting thing to end up with, I’d create a basic style with no extra’s, apply it to the text, overriding all char styles. Remove all special white spaces, but leave the real tabs (grep it if possible). You should end up with a “cleaner” file. Then give it a try again.
    I don’t mind spending some time on it, if it’s possible to send me the text, I’ll give it a try at home (but opening in CC, so this will already make a difference).

  • September 11, 2013 at 11:00 pm #65246
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Thanks for the attention you are giving it, Gert. I need to export as text only occasionally and wonder if my difficulties warrant the attention it is getting. But another part of me is intrigued to know why the problem exists and how to solve it. Mostly the only reason I need to export as text (and it needs to be formatted text) is that a colleague who doesn’t have InDesign wants a copy of the doc so he can work on it. He is contented with Word.

    No, the only spaces I have used in this doc are those produced by hitting the Space bar on the keyboard. I am working with a late 2012 27-inch iMac with OS 10.4.4 and 16GB of RAM.

    I am quite happy to send you the file but it is, as you are aware, CS6 and so may behave differently in CC (and perhaps differently again on a PC, though I like to believe those days are far behind us). Naturally I would need an e-mail address. Mine is pardy[at]ozemail[dot]com[dot]au

  • September 11, 2013 at 11:24 pm #65247
    Gert Verrept

    Member

    No problem, mine is gertverrept[at]gmail[dot]com
    I’m leaving in Europe, so mind the time difference. I’ll try to do it as soon as possible after work. The differences between CS6 and CC won’t be a problem I think, because we just need the text.

  • September 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm #65249
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Thankyou, Gert. I have e-mailed you direct. I am living in Australia so am very familiar with time differences.

  • September 11, 2013 at 11:58 pm #65250
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Woops. Accidental message deleted.

  • September 12, 2013 at 6:04 am #65255
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Maybe rebuild InDesign Preferences, too…?

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