Comments on: Importing iWork or Excel or Anything Else Into InDesign

By: Susan Everson

Susan Everson — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:51:45 +0000

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.

By: Alex Anichkin

Alex Anichkin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:42:41 +0000

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.

By: Susan Eskite

Susan Eskite — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:08:02 +0000

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.

By: Matjaz

Matjaz — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:45:53 +0000

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.

By: Matt Deatherage

Matt Deatherage — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:22:14 +0000

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.)

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:35:54 +0000

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.

By: Matt Deatherage

Matt Deatherage — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:37:58 +0000

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.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:40:02 +0000

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.

By: Matt Deatherage

Matt Deatherage — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:40:59 +0000

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.

By: Eugene Tyson

Eugene Tyson — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:34:59 +0000

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.