BRANCHED: InCopy stories problem (Was IDML conversion - paragraph merged)

[a.yalda]

Hello,

I have been running into the same problem with some of my files, however one stands out as quite odd. I have two InDesign files with the same InCopy file. In one InDesign file the paragraphs are correct, and unmerged. In the other InDesign file the paragraphs are merged together, with the second one taking on the style of the first.

It happens to be a paragraph that has a nested style of small caps and specific indentation, so it is very obvious, but it is within hundreds of pages of text.

I use Woodwing with my workflow so the file is a wcml file, but it seems that it is the exact same behavior as the icml file troubles as covered above.

In looking at the wcml file, it simply looks like the <Br/> tag is missing from the export of the file. Does anyone know if this is acknowledged as a bug from Adobe?

Any help is appreciated.

Best regards,

Adrian

[BobLevine]

I've branched your question to a new discussion. In the future please do not re-open old threads that have very little to do with your issue.

Now, on to this.

You've given us very little to go on. What version of InDesign/InCopy? What operating systems? Have you checked with Woodwing?

[a.yalda]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply and I will do this in the future.

I'm using InDesign and InCopy CC 2014. I'm running on Windows 7 Pro.

I have not looked into this with Woodwing yet, as I was checking into whether anyone else was having similar issues.

It looked like, from the thread I read before, that this was something being looked into by Adobe.

Is there any more information I can give to help resolve it?

Best, Adrian

[BobLevine]

It sounds like you have different definitions assigned to identically named paragraph styles.

[a.yalda]

I checked the styles and they are the same. I imported styles from one document to the other and vice versa with no difference. When the paragraph gets merged the first paragraph takes on the style of the second paragraph (as there is no longer a paragraph return). These documents have the same InCopy file (wcml--Woodwing InCopy Markup Language).

I included some screenshots so you can see what I am referring to. As you can see, they unicode values are different for this specific character. As you can see The paragraphs are merged in one file, but unmerged in another.

CORRECT:

INCORRECT:

The Unicode 0x2029 is a "Paragraph Separator," but this character does not seem to be understood by InDesign (or many other programs--it seems to be a rather obscure character).

Any help is appreciated.

[BobLevine]

So you're actually trying to combine two paragraphs into one and keep the separate styles? That's not going to work, at least it's not going to work easily.

[a.yalda]

No, and forgive me if I'm being unclear.

The paragraphs are supposed to be separate.

When exporting to InCopy, they are getting merged--they should never be merged.

If gone unnoticed, the publication would have two paragraphs incorrectly merged, sometimes with a very different style than they should.

[BobLevine]

Ah, okay. I have never seen this happen. Are you actually using Unicode to create the paragraph break or is that getting inserted upon export?

[a.yalda]

I'm not using Unicode, just normal InDesign para returns.

It seems to be inserted on export.

I checked the file that is exported and normally a </break> tag is inserted after each paragraph, but it is omitted between these specific paragraphs.

I have had this happen at random before (about 5 instances I can remember) and thought that whomever was working with the file accidentally deleted it, but found this unicode character in investigating further.

[BobLevine]

Check the export without the Woodwing plugins. Like I said, I’ve never seen this before.

If it works without the Woodwing plugins then you need to contact them.

Be prepared to be told that it’s been fixed in a new versions CC2014 is now two versions out of date and CC2017 was release almost a year ago.

[a.yalda · Accepted solution]

As a note, this was checked and it occurs with Woodwing and without Woodwing. Seems to be a bug with InCopy.

Workaround is to add a blank space before the offending paragraph return. The bug seems to come from when a paragraph return character is at a specific multiple, the 4,000th or 8,000th character in the document or something like that. In such a case, the <br> tag is omitted from the generated ICML file on check-in (as ICML files are newly written each time they are checked in) and the character is changed from a normal paragraph return to a "paragraph separator."

In InDesign, a GREP search for \x{2029} will find any of these characters so that you can find and convert them to a correct paragraph return.

[Laubender]

Aha…

We can see this with IDML as well. The bug is known. See this discussion:

During the exporting INDD into IDML, the error occurs.

Some details:

Re: During the exporting INDD into IDML, the error occurs.

Inserted tables can influence the bug:

Re: During the exporting INDD into IDML, the error occurs.

Quoting myself:

Inserted tables can influence the bug.

It seems that the number of rows are counting as characters.

A table with 2 rows will shift the bug by: -1

A table with 5 rows will shift the bug by: -4

It seems a bit weird, but my tests are showing this.

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

Add your voice here and vote for fixing the bug:

Paragraph Return is changed into Paragraph Separator (U+2029) – Adobe InDesign Feedback

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

Hi together,

finally this bug that can be already seen with InDesign CS4 is fixed with the latest Prerelease versions of InDesign CC 2019.

Go to Prerelease and test versions 14.0.2.321 and 14.0.2.323. I am currently testing the fix with my old test files from CC 2017 and opened with the latest prerelease version.

The fix is working for me.

Also see Abhinav Kaushik's (Quality Engineer, Adobe InDesign) reply here:

Paragraph Return is changed into Paragraph Separator (U+2029) – Adobe InDesign Feedback

Regards,

Uwe