Place (import) text

InDesign imports most character and paragraph formatting attributes from text files but ignores most page-layout information, such as margin and column settings (which you can set in InDesign). Note the following:

• InDesign generally imports all formatting information specified in the word-processing application, except information for word-processing features not available in InDesign.

• InDesign can add imported styles to its list of styles for the document. A disk icon appears next to imported styles. (See Convert Word styles to InDesign styles.)

• The import options appear when you select Show Import Options in the Place dialog box, or when you import an Excel file. If Show Import Options is deselected, InDesign uses the import options last used for a similar document type. The options you set remain in effect until you change them.

• If InDesign cannot find a filter that recognizes a file by either its file type or file extension, an alert message appears. For best results in Windows, use the standard extension (such as .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .xls, or .xlsx) for the type of file you’re importing. You may need to open the file in its original application and save it in a different format, such as RTF or text-only.

For more information on import filters, see the Filters ReadMe PDF file located in the InDesign application folder.

If you select Show Import Options when placing a Word file or an RTF file, you can choose from these options:

Table Of Contents Text

Imports the table of contents as part of the text in the story. These entries are imported as text only.

Index Text

Imports the index as part of the text in the story. These entries are imported as text only.

Footnotes

Imports Word footnotes. Footnotes and references are preserved, but renumbered based on the document’s footnote settings.

Endnotes

Imports endnotes as part of the text at the end of the story.

Use Typographer’s Quotes

Ensures that imported text includes left and right quotation marks (“ ”) and apostrophes (’) instead of straight quotation marks (" ") and apostrophes (').

Remove Styles And Formatting From Text And Tables

Removes formatting, such as typeface, type color, and type style, from the imported text, including text in tables. Paragraph styles and inline graphics aren’t imported if this option is selected.

Preserve Local Overrides

When you choose to remove styles and formatting from text and tables, you can select Preserve Local Overrides to maintain character formatting, such as bold and italics, that is applied to part of a paragraph. Deselect this option to remove all formatting.

Convert Tables To

When you choose to remove styles and formatting from text and tables, you can convert tables to either basic, unformatted tables or unformatted, tab-delimited text.

If you want to import unformatted text and formatted tables, import the text without formatting, and then paste the tables from Word into InDesign.

Preserve Styles And Formatting From Text And Tables

Preserves the Word document’s formatting in the InDesign or InCopy document. You can use the other options in the Formatting section to determine how styles and formatting are preserved.

Manual Page Breaks

Determines how page breaks from the Word file are formatted in InDesign or InCopy. Select Preserve Page Breaks to use the same page breaks used in Word, or select Convert To Column Breaks or No Breaks.

Import Inline Graphics

Preserves inline graphics from the Word document in InDesign.

Import Unused Styles

Imports all styles from the Word document, even if the styles aren’t applied to text.

Convert Bullets & Numbers To Text

Imports bullets and numbers as actual characters, preserving the look of the paragraph. However, in numbered lists, the numbers are not automatically updated when the list items are changed.

Track Changes For InCopy

Selecting this option causes highlighting and strikeout to appear when you edit the imported text in InCopy while Track Changes is turned on; deselecting this option causes all the imported text to be highlighted as a single addition. Track Changes can be viewed in InCopy, not in InDesign.

Import Styles Automatically

Imports styles from the Word document into the InDesign or InCopy document. If a yellow warning triangle appears next to Style Name Conflicts, then one or more paragraph or character styles from the Word document have the same name as an InDesign style.

To determine how these style name conflicts are resolved, select an option from the Paragraph Style Conflicts and Character Style Conflicts menu. Choosing Use InDesign Style Definition causes the imported style text to be formatted based on the InDesign style. Choosing Redefine InDesign Style causes the imported style text to be formatted based on the Word style, and changes existing InDesign text formatted with the Word style. Choosing Auto Rename causes the imported Word styles to be renamed. For example, if InDesign and Word have a Subheading style, the imported Word style is renamed Subheading_wrd_1 when Auto Rename is selected.

Note: InDesign converts paragraph and character styles but not bulleted and numbered list styles.

Customize Style Import

Lets you use the Style Mapping dialog box to select which InDesign style should be used for each Word style in the imported document.

Save Preset

Stores the current Word Import Options for later reuse. Specify the import options, click Save Preset, type the name of the preset, and click OK. The next time you import a Word style, you can select the preset you created from the Preset menu. Click Set As Default if you want the selected preset to be used as the default for future imports of Word documents.

If you select Show Import Options when placing a text file, you can choose from these options:

Character Set

Specifies the computer language character set, such as ANSI, Unicode UTF8, or Windows CE, that was used to create the text file. The default selection is the character set that corresponds to the default language and platform of InDesign or InCopy.

Platform

Specifies whether the file was created in Windows or Mac OS.

Set Dictionary To

Specifies the dictionary to be used by the imported text.

Extra Carriage Returns

Specifies how extra paragraph returns are imported. Choose Remove At End Of Every Line or Remove Between Paragraphs.

Replace

Replaces the specified number of spaces with a tab.

Use Typographer’s Quotes

Ensures that imported text includes left and right quotation marks (“ ”) and apostrophes (’) instead of straight quotation marks (" ") and apostrophes (').

You can choose from these options when importing an Excel file:

Sheet

Specifies the worksheet you want to import.

View

Specifies whether to import any stored custom or personal views, or to ignore the views.

Cell Range

Specifies the range of cells, using a colon (:) to designate the range (such as A1:G15). If there are named ranges within the worksheet, these names appear in the Cell Range menu.

Import Hidden Cells Not Saved In View

Includes any cells formatted as hidden cells in the Excel spreadsheet.

Table

Specifies how the spreadsheet information appears in the document.

Formatted Table

InDesign tries to preserve the same formatting used in Excel, although the formatting of text within each cell may not be preserved. If the spreadsheet is linked rather than embedded, updating the link will override any formatting applied to the table in InDesign.

Unformatted Table

The table is imported without any formatting from the spreadsheet. When this option is selected, you can apply a table style to the imported table. If you format text using paragraph and characters styles, the formatting is preserved even if you update the link to the spreadsheet.

Unformatted Tabbed Text

The table is imported as tab-delimited text, which you can then convert to a table in InDesign or InCopy.

Formatted Only Once

InDesign preserves the same formatting used in Excel during the initial import. If the spreadsheet is linked rather than embedded, formatting changes made to the spreadsheet are ignored in the linked table when you update the link. This option isn’t available in InCopy.

Table Style

Applies the table style you specify to the imported document. This option is available only if Unformatted Table is selected.

Cell Alignment

Specifies the cell alignment for the imported document.

Include Inline Graphics

Preserves inline graphics from the Excel document in InDesign.

Number Of Decimal Places To Include

Specifies the number of decimal places of spreadsheet figures.

Use Typographer’s Quotes

Ensures that imported text includes left and right quotation marks (“ ”) and apostrophes (’) instead of straight quotation marks (" ") and apostrophes (').

You can import (or export) a text file capable of taking advantage of InDesign formatting capabilities by using the tagged text format. Tagged-text files are text files containing information describing the formatting you want InDesign to apply. Properly tagged text can describe almost anything that can appear in an InDesign story, including all paragraph-level attributes, character-level attributes, and special characters.

For information on specifying tags, view the Tagged Text PDF at www.adobe.com/go/learn_id_taggedtext_cs4_en (PDF).

The following options are available when you import a tagged-text file and select Show Import Options in the Place dialog box.

Use Typographer’s Quotes

Ensures that imported text includes left and right quotation marks (“ ”) and apostrophes (’) instead of straight quotation marks (" ") and apostrophes (').

Remove Text Formatting

Removes formatting, such as typeface, type color, and type style, from the imported text.

Resolve Text Style Conflicts Using

Specifies which character or paragraph style to apply when there is a conflict between the style in the tagged-text file and the style in the InDesign document. Select Publication Definition to use the definition that already exists for that style in the InDesign document. Select Tagged File Definition to use the style as defined in the tagged text. This option creates another style name, with “copy” appended to it in the Style panel.

Show List Of Problem Tags Before Place

Displays a list of unrecognized tags. If a list appears, you can choose to cancel or continue the import. If you continue, the file may not look as expected.

You can then select custom presets from the Preset menu in the Import Options dialog box whenever you open a Word or RTF file.