Is clean Word import actually possible?
Willyv55 Aug 30, 2010 3:07 AMUsing Word 2007 and InDesign CS4 I wonder if it is actually possible to achieve what we'd like to do.
I'm an experienced Word developer and an inexperienced InDesign user. I'm developing an advanced Word template for a magazine with the following purpose:
- to make writing easier for the writing staff (using Word)
- to make production easier for the production staff (using InDesign)
- to ensure that documents delivered to the production department are as error-free as possible (in all areas)
The writing staff just needs a pleasant writing environment. There's no need for their documents to look anything like they would in print. This means they can do with a pleasant screen font and pleasant and effective ways of distinguishing between different titles, sections and other typographical elements in Word. In other words, there is no need for a connection between the typography in the Word documents and the typography in print - other than styles.
What we'd like to do is:
- use exactly the same paragraph and character style names in Word and in InDesign
- have InDesign ignore any Word formatting and just use style names for formatting decisions
The idea is that InDesign (in our case) shouldn't need anything else from Word than text marked with style names. When a Word document delivers a piece of text marked as style X, InDesign knows how to format style X. There's no need to consider what Word did with it, other than the name of the paragraph or character style.
Is this at all possible? It seems like a very natural thing to ask for but impossible to actually achieve.
I've tried importing Word documents with several different import options, including saving the document under a new name or as an RTF before placing it. Neither 'Import Styles automatically' or using 'Style Mapping' works.
Being the Word developer I'm able to deliver a technically perfect and quality assured Word document to InDesign, ensuring that only legal style names are used. But InDesign doesn't seem to know what to do with it...
Again, I'm an inexperienced InDesign user so I hope I'm wrong. On the other hand there seem to be lots of problems in this area. Even a simple test where I defined three paragraph and two character styles in InDesign and then used the exact same styles in a simple Word document doesn't import correctly. I could make these documents available for download if anybody would like to play with them.
I'd be grateful for any input!





