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• • April 5, 2019 at 1:06 pm #115864
    Mike Z

    Member

    I’m having a problem with text formatted with paragraph styles not pasting into a new document with the exact same formatting and line breaks. I set up my 6 page newsletter template to match the previous formatting done in Quark. I used a different pair of subhead and text paragraph styles for each of the 5 stories. Then I made a new document with several very tall pages with the same column width text boxes, 1 for each story having 1 single tall text box. Having selected basic style for the new text boxes, I pasted each story from the 6 page layout to the single page doc’s 1 tall box for each story but I stopped after noticing the line breaks were different in the 2 documents. My plan for each new newsletter edition was to paste 1 story at a time from MS Word into the single column document to gauge column length as I did with Quark. Then I can just adjust the paragraph styles for each story as necessary to fit in the space on the 6 page layout which has standing masthead, publisher info, ads, etc.
    The paragraph styles are coming over to the new single page working documents as expected but the word spacing and line breaks were different in the new document. I thought when you pasted between documents all the formatting comes over from the source document unless you ‘paste without formatting’. I did a normal ‘paste’. What am I doing wrong?

  • April 5, 2019 at 2:34 pm #115870
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    It’s possible the Basic Style is defined differently in the two files. Reflow is also possible when copying from a very old InDesign doc to a new one. Or perhaps there is local formatting on the text (look for a + symbol next to the paragraph style in the para styles panel).

    In general you do not want to copy and paste from Word to InDesign, except for very small amounts of text. You should use File > Place.

  • April 5, 2019 at 4:30 pm #115883
    Mike Z

    Member

    Thanks, David

    Some background info. I started both documents as new documents in IDCS4. Could have used CS5 or 6 but CS4 opens lots faster. I had to make the long column working document to prepare for the new edition I will be working on Monday so I ended up cutting and pasting the text boxes from the 6pg layout to the working long col. doc 1 story at a time. Now they match but I will need to resolve this as the plan is to have all the new stories pasted or placed into the long column docment and paste into the 6pg layout once the column lengths are figured out and adjusted. I’m assuming I should have the 6pg text boxes empty and un-threaded with the paragraph style set to basic.

    I will check the paragraph styles in both documents and also makes sure no character styles are referenced in the paragraph styles. I did create a character style for italic style only, no font size, etc to make the referenced papers in the text italic.

    Can you elaborate on why copying from Word is not prefered? There are some tables in some of the supplied Word stories that we have been saving as PDFs from Word and placing in InD. Not sure if the tables would place directly with the text. I do need to use the InDesign paragraph styles and I am not sure if the Word docs used any defined paragraph styles. It would be helpful if placing the Word doc directly kept the italic and bold type while honoring the font and size of the InD paragraph style.

  • April 6, 2019 at 6:40 am #115890
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I would encourage you to take a look at some of the training on Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning, such as Anne-Marie’s excellent course on Word/InDesign integration:
    https://www.linkedin.com/learning/word-and-indesign-integration
    or my courses on essential indesign.

  • April 6, 2019 at 8:16 am #115891
    Mike Z

    Member

    I experimented with placing a Word doc directly into an InDesign text box with a preselected custom paragraph style, Trajan Pro 13.5 on 15.75, just to be way different from the Word formatting. I checked Show Import options, Customize Style Import and mapped the Word Normal Style to my custom style.

    2 problems, the text came in as Times New Roman 12 pt (from Word) but with 15.75 leading (InDesign).
    The table also extended well beyond the text box width and could not be resized, just clipped on the right side. I can delete the tables before importing but I have to have the InDesign styles honored or it will be quicker to cut and paste.

    I tried the linked in course link but found only a preview, maybe because I am not a linked-in member.

    As a paid InDesignSecrets.com member, which forum is best to post in, the Private Member Forum or the General ID Forum? I had originally posted in both so more people might see it but the Private forum post disappeared.

    Thanks

  • April 6, 2019 at 9:16 am #115893
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Hi Donna, sorry your earlier post disappeared. I believe I answered that one in the General Forum and then noticed that it was a duplicate of one here, so I removed it.

    There are many reasons why text could come in like that. Might have a character style applied to it, for example. More likely, though, the text had local formatting applied in Word. Here are a couple of articles you can read:

    https://creativepro.com/import-word-files-into-indesign-remove-local-formatting-but-keep-italics-and-bold.php
    and
    https://creativepro.com/retaining-important-formatting-when-importing-word-documents.php

  • April 27, 2019 at 11:09 am #116276
    Mike Z

    Member

    Thanks for the help. Been swamped at work but this job went much easier in InDesign and the customer approved the first proof.
    The 2 importing Word posts above helped me fix the problem. I was able to import the Word files while mapping to my ID paragraph styles and did the find/change and clear overides. Still placed pdfs of the Word tables and charts because the ID column width was so much narrower than the 1 column Word docs but making them achored graphics speeded up the process.

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