Hello,

Please forgive the super-beginner question but here it goes.  I'm writing a 200+ page manual in MS Word and I'd like to layout the book in InDesign (it will be single pages in a 3-ring binder).  I've been watching some Lynda.com tutorials to learn more about the program but I have a specific MSWord to InDesign Workflow questions.

1.  I'm doing all of my editing in Word as one large document.  If I bring the text of chapter 1 into InDesign and then notice a typo:

    a.  is there a way to link InDesign and Word so that a correction I make to the text in InDesign replicates in my Word document? 

    b. or do I just continue using InDesign for further edting of this document (I really dont' want to do this option)

    c. or do I make the correction in InDesign AND make the correction also in Word?

I'm just trying to figure out how the pro's do books, and I'm trying not to have to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

W

You can save yourself buckets of time by properly formatting your Word file with styles. Heading1 for chapter titles, Heading2 for subtitles, Emphasis for italicized text, and so on. If you find yourself clicking on the font box in Word, choose a style instead. That way when you import your Word file into ID the styles will map to ID styles and you can automate things like starting chapters on right-hand pages. Click Show Import Options on the import dialog to get to the import optionspanel, then click the Customize Style Import / Style Mapping button at the bottom to open the mapping dialog.

If you don't have any styles in your ID document, you'll see New Paragraph Style or New Character Style listed next to all of the styles that ID found in the Word document. That's fine, ID will create the styles for you, and you can go back and edit them later if you wish.

In our shop our workflow uses Word for copyedit, then we import to ID for layout, and further proofreading edits are done in ID. There's a standard set of Word styles that we use to tag the Word docs. We publish 200 or so books each year, so process efficiency is high on our list of priorities.

Perry
KidPub Press

In our workflow, once a book is in ID it never goes back to Word; all of our updates and other maintenance are done in ID. If it's just you working on the material, you'll just need to pick which tool you think you are most productive in for writing. Since your project is a manual, page layout is going to be more important than it would be for something like fiction…I'd be tempted to author in ID, especially if you have a lot of graphics to place, callouts, sidebars, and the like. A disadvantage is that you can't just send off a Word file for someeone to edit…they'd need to edit in ID, or, as we sometimes do, annotate a PDF.

Regarding styles, it almost doesn't matter what the styles are in Word, since you'll be mapping them to styles in ID. During edit we just use the Word styles to tag elements of the text, not caring what the Word file looks like. You also have the option when you import the file into ID to leave the Word styles in place and import them rather than mapping them to ID styles, so if you use logical Word styles such as Chapter Title, Caption, and so on, they would appear as new styles in ID, which you could edit. I think a common error that folks using both Word and ID make is to spend tons of time trying to get the pages to look right in Word…they aren't going to look that way in ID without a lot of effort.

If you are committed to keeping the Word and ID content in sync, my advice would be to treat the Word file as unformatted but styled source, and do double edits, especially if the layout is complex. 

Perry
KidPub Press

I would agree that it is best to leave Word behind. I think once you have used InDesign for a while you will never look back. Also the story editor (command + y) is great for giving you an uncluttered space (almost word processor feel) to do your editing.