Importing iWork or Excel or Anything Else Into InDesign
Karen writes:
The charts generated by iWork Numbers are beautiful and I would like to use some of them in an upcoming Annual Report. I’ve copied and pasted into InDesign, copied them into Photoshop and imported into InDesign as a layered PS file. I’ve also tried converting them to PDF via Photoshop. My Phaser proofs look OK, I just don’t want an unpleasant surprise when the file goes to press. What workflow would you suggest to get high resolution transparent Apple iwork graphics into InDesign?
Well, I have to admit my ignorance about Numbers; I’ve heard great things about it, but have not used it. But whenever someone asks me, “How can I import Excel charts or Corel graphics or [insert some program] files into InDesign,” I always answer with the same list:
- Try getting a PDF out of the program. Typically, you can do this via the Print dialog box. If you have Acrobat Pro, you can print to the “Acrobat PDF” printer.
- If the PDF doesn’t work for some reason, then try opening that PDF file in Illustrator, tweaking it as necessary, and then saving as AI or PDF again.
- If that isn’t working for some reason, then open the PDF in Photoshop. However, this will definitely rasterize the artwork (turn it into pixels), which may or may not be okay, depending on the image/text.
- Of course, you should always see what kinds of file formats the program itself can export. Often they can export PNG or JPG, though the resolution may be too low for print work. But you can try to export a really large version of it as a bitmap and then scale it down in InDesign (scaling a bitmapped image down in InDesign increases its resolution, of course).
As for proofing: You are correct to be concerned. Just because something looks right on a laser printer doesn’t mean it’ll print properly. Try printing a PDF/X-1a file from InDesign, opening it in Acrobat, and zooming in on stuff (and using Acrobat’s other prepress preflighting tools). Does it look right there? Or try printing a part of the document, magnified with the scale percentages in the Print dialog box.
Ultimately, while many people do get some good-looking images out of Excel or other applications, it’s rarely as good and clean as you had hoped. Those programs just aren’t professional graphics apps. There are some charting programs around, but I haven’t seen anything that I could recommend. Anyone remember CricketDraw? Oh, those were the days.
What other workflows do you (readers) recommend for getting these sorts of files out and into InDesign?
Generally if I can create a table inside InDesign then that’s what I aim for. I have never seen the iWork workflow or what it produces, but I’m guessing I can do the same thing in InDesign.
When time is a constraint to a project I usually do as said above and make a pdf of the page and import that to the InDesign document.
I wouldn’t generally dabble in Illustrator or photoshop to generate tables or even flow charts. Usually I just draw the flow chart in InDesign, using the tables or by anchoring text boxes and graphics.
I would do 99% of my work in InDesign. I find that I can copy and paste tables from Excel straight into InDesign, as I don’t typeset the Excel files that come my way so I would want to change the layout and font sizes to match the design.
Another thing I look for, if the file is too complex to be copy and pasted into InDesign, is to look for the save option of Tab Delimited.
Doing this, I can save the file as text and import that into InDesign and create and design a table that would match the design of the document.
I also find it helps to go into the shortcut product area of InDesign and assign specific shortcuts for tables, for instance, CTRL+M would merge cells etc (on Windows Keyboard you can use the Contextual Key and M to merge cells, or Context. Key and U to unmerge), but just for tables. I find it handy to have a shortcut for TEXT to TABLE, that way I don’t have to change hand position when setting the type, hands remain on the keyboard, shaves precious seconds.
Other things I have seen from external typesetters are tables, charts etc. set in Illustrator and the file is placed and embedded in the Indesign document, that means you’d have to unembed the images and open them up in Illustrator to make the changes and I find that work method to be far too time consuming. I prefer to be able to make the changes in InDesign without having to open external programs, when I can.
Place the chart onto a new sheet and use File / Export / PDF.
Eugene, I agree that making tables and such in InDesign is much more flexible. But I think she was talking about things like 3D pie charts, etc.
David, I get ya. I don’t have iWork Numbers, so I wasn’t sure what was being talked about, so I just gave an account of my experience, I’m only using lowly PC, I don’t have access the fancy iWork/Mac Apps.
In that case, would it not be better to create the PDF from iWork, as said, then open it in Illustrator, then I’m thinking, to have it editable in InDesign, to copy and paste it across? Let’s face it, the data for creating the Pie Chart is lost when saved as PDF, even when brought into Illustrator, right? So having it Illustrator wouldn’t be a problem, but having the pie chart to edit in InDesign would be at least an option.
For Numbers, this is particularly easy.
Save your document and check the box “Include preview in document” in the “Save As…” dialog box. Control-click (or right-click) on the “.numbers” document you saved in the Finder, and pick “Show Package Contents.” In the resulting window, open the “QuickLook” folder. There you have a PDF of the document, created by Numbers for you – just option-drag it out of the file and rename it as you please, and use it in any version of InDesign, or any application. Even with a 3D pie chart, it’s a vector PDF, so edit it to your heart’s content.
Note that the standard “safe save” methods may wind up deleting this file and recreating a new one in the same place if you change the Numbers document and save it again, so don’t be surprised if some kinds of links/aliases to it break if you use it directly from the “.numbers” document package. For safety, copy “QuickLook/Preview.pdf” to another location and use that. But it works perfectly for me.
Thanks for the input. Matt, great drag and drop information. I just installed Leopard a few weeks ago - iworks this weekend. Amazing power and much to learn.
Text from drag and drop looks great. But the charts themselves look jagged no matter how I import. I’m tempted to just trace them in PS or AI. I’m guessing I’m doing something wrong.
Karen:
I wasn’t saying to drag and drop from a Numbers window to a Creative Suite application. I was saying to let Numbers save a PDF “Preview” and use that file, hidden within the “.numbers” document (which is really a directory).
When I tried that today, I got vectors for everything in the chart. YMMV.
Matt,
Your advice was spot on. I’ve been experimenting all day, with pretty decent results. All of the flat charts export as vectors - success! But the 3D round charts export as images, and they don’t have smooth edges. I’d hesitate to use them in InDesign.
Karen:
Hmm, now I can reproduce what you’re saying. For those kinds of graphs, you may have to print to PDF, but try to use a simplifying utility on it (like PDF Shrink or PDF Enhancer) because the Mac OS X printing system is not designed to make small PDF files, it’s designed to get ink on paper.
(Or print through the Acrobat Pro virtual printer, which ought to work nicely as well.)
I got a request for a “small favour” the other day from a client. She wanted to send to the printhouse a document written in pages and they refused it. She also wanted the document to print in two pantone colours.
I tried the obvious way - exported pdf from pages to open in illustrator to replace colours with pantones. Didn’t work - the characters that have carons messed things up so the lines in columns reached out of it’s column. That happened at export from pages.
The only way was to make a new layout in indd and make a pdf.
For many years, I have used DeltaGraph (Red Rock Software, formerly SPSS, http://www.redrocksw.com/deltagraph/mac/) to create graphs for print. It can make any kind of graph you can imagine and some you’ve probably never heard of. It saves graphs as EPS, PDF, JPG, TIFF, PNG and more. You can make graphs in grayscale, CMYK, and even incorporate spot Pantone colors.
Hi,
for press quality PDFs - from Numbers or Pages please use the three step process Pages/Numbers - Print to PostScript - Open PostScript file in Acrobat Distiller. The PDFs you get that way could be used by professional printshops and imported into any other design app. I have been using iWork for two years now to produce a magazine with CMYK separated PDFs. Thanks.
We’re looking for a new graphing program that will be more print-friendly than SigmaPlot, which we currently use. Our annual report contains about 1500 graphs, which we have to export as PDFs and recolor in Illustrator before placing them in InDesign. This is workable, but a pain. We’ve looked at DeltaGraph, but have been a bit suspicious, as it doesn’t look like there’s been an update for several years. So I’m very interested in Susan’s comment. I’d really appreciate any advice people may have on the best software for making tons of graphs that are ready for print. Many thanks.