Word to InDesign, keeping what Word already knows
A Word file holds headings, tables, footnotes and styles, and a good conversion should not lose any of them on its way to InDesign. Upload the DOCX and download an IDML file where they are still there.
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Why not just place the Word file?
InDesign's own Place command brings in the text and its styles, and for a plain manuscript that may be all you need. It gives you a single flow of text. Text boxes, shapes and multi-column sections often need rebuilding after that, and the page breaks are not kept.
A converted IDML starts from the laid-out document: the same pages, the same columns, the frames where they were.
What comes across
| In Word | In InDesign |
|---|---|
| Paragraph and character styles | Styles under their Word names |
| Tables with merged cells, shading, turned text | InDesign tables, going on across pages |
| Footnotes | InDesign footnotes, numbered as in Word |
| Endnotes | Set after the last paragraph, as Word prints them, because InDesign keeps endnotes in a story of their own |
| Text boxes | Frames that grow with their text |
| Shapes, groups and canvases | Drawn as InDesign shapes and groups |
| Charts, WMF and EMF pictures | Placed as PDFs |
| Columns, including unequal ones | A threaded frame for each, as InDesign has no unequal frame columns |
| Word's theme colours and fonts | Resolved to real colours and fonts |
What InDesign has no direct match for
| In Word | What InDesign lacks | What the file does |
|---|---|---|
| Highlight and run shading | Character shading | An underline as tall as the line, in the shading colour |
| Comments | Word's comment balloons | InDesign Notes at their marks, text only. A CAT tool neither extracts them nor splits the sentence around them |
| Page borders | Page borders | Lines behind the text on the pages that show them. An art border, a picture repeated round the page, is left out |
| SmartArt | SmartArt | Word's last drawing of it, as shapes and text |
| WordArt | Word's warped text effects | The text set straight in a frame |
| Linked fallback fonts | Taking a glyph from another font | Each letter the font lacks is set in an open font that has it |
What is refused, and what happens then
Some Word content cannot be set faithfully yet. Rather than drop it quietly, the InDesign download stops and names the reason on screen, and your Word files still download. Among the things it stops for:
- A picture the file only links to, or one in a format other than PNG, JPEG, GIF or TIFF (a WebP or an SVG). Word's WMF and EMF are fine.
- List numbering in a format we do not yet write.
- Footnotes that carry a mark of their own instead of Word's number.
- A section or a paragraph set vertically, as in some Japanese and Chinese documents.
- Line numbering, or a line drawn between columns.
Pages in a Word file
A Word file flows, and it is only broken into pages when something lays it out. We lay it out with the fonts the IDML will use and follow those pages, so the InDesign pages should stay close to Word's.
They can still differ: Word, LibreOffice and InDesign compose text differently. If yours moves, the threaded text carries it on rather than cutting it off. Text past the last frame stays overset, which InDesign marks, until you add a page.
Line heights
Word's single spacing depends on the font (about 1.15 em in Arial, 1.22 in Calibri) and InDesign's Auto leading is 1.2 em. We write Word's height for fonts we know, so a page does not grow a line at a time. A row in a table is at least as tall as Word sets its lines, since InDesign alone would make it about a third shorter and let glyphs stand over the next row.
Get your Word file ready
- Accept or reject tracked changes, so the text you set is the text you mean.
- Use real styles where you can. They carry over by name.
- If the file names fonts you do not own, decide about them before setting, or the lines will move when you swap them.
Questions
Can I convert a DOCX without translating it?
Yes. Upload it and download the original as an InDesign file.
Should I clear tracked changes first?
Yes. Accept or reject them in Word, so the text you set is the text you mean.
What if something in the file cannot be converted?
The InDesign download is refused with the reason on screen, and the Word files download as usual.
Does the translation keep the formatting too?
Yes. It is written back into the same paragraphs and runs, and it downloads as IDML just the same.
Try it on a file you would otherwise rebuild
Upload the PDF, the Word file or the scan. Download the copy for InDesign, and the translation too if you ordered one, and open them in your version.
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