Well, we never use word files created from PDFs. We’d rather get it double-keyed. If we have it keyed, then we mark it up with the paragraph styles, and the keyboarders key in the italic, bold, small caps, etc., as well as the paragraph styles.
If we get a word file from the author/copy editor to use, we run a macro that captures the italic, bold, etc., as well as em and en dashes. We strip out double spaces, double returns, etc. Sometimes they use basic tagging for paragraph styles that we can search and replace on.
Then we save it as a regular text file.
The final macro puts spaces between the periods in the ellipses, proper space between single and double quotes, adds space between quotes and superior figures, etc. We resave it as a .txt file and then flow into InDesign with xTags.
Note: We use QuarkXpress tagging as we use xTags, and it’s easier to mark up a job with that coding than with InDesign’s coding. xTags saves us a lot of keystrokes and mistakes in keying.
.
