Comments on: MS Word to InDesign: Quasi-Styles Problem http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php InDesignSecrets Blog and Podcast Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:03:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Lisa A http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-469720 Lisa A Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:48:58 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-469720 Ralph, As far as I am aware, this is only possible through the InDesign>InCopy workflow, that's assuming your client would be prepared to invest in InCopy. Ralph,
As far as I am aware, this is only possible through the InDesign>InCopy workflow, that’s assuming your client would be prepared to invest in InCopy.

]]> By: Ralph Bentley http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-469715 Ralph Bentley Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:35:27 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-469715 Doing page composition in Word is cruel and unusual punishment. But, a job is a job, I guess. The whole thing about adding local formatting to the style list is just one of the "features" that makes Word unsuitable for serious production line work. The only recourse is to do EVERYTING with styles. In other words, to take total control of the type, you must create character styles and use them religously. No local formatting allowed in serious typesetting. Maybe this is what the designers of Word had in mind; punishing us for using local formatting by polluting the style list, making it infinitly long and unuseable by doing local formatting. Who knows? At any rate, the question I have is does ID externally reference a text file? Any kind of text file. What I want is for someone to be able to edit text in their word processor and when I open the InDesign file, have their changes show up. Now THAT would be useful. Anybody know if the program does this? Doing page composition in Word is cruel and unusual punishment. But, a job is a job, I guess.

The whole thing about adding local formatting to the style list is just one of the “features” that makes Word unsuitable for serious production line work. The only recourse is to do EVERYTING with styles. In other words, to take total control of the type, you must create character styles and use them religously. No local formatting allowed in serious typesetting. Maybe this is what the designers of Word had in mind; punishing us for using local formatting by polluting the style list, making it infinitly long and unuseable by doing local formatting. Who knows?

At any rate, the question I have is does ID externally reference a text file? Any kind of text file. What I want is for someone to be able to edit text in their word processor and when I open the InDesign file, have their changes show up. Now THAT would be useful.

Anybody know if the program does this?

]]> By: Toni http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278971 Toni Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:53:12 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278971 Anne Marie! You were right -- somehow "HTML Typewriter" was selected for the character style in certain patches of the text. I also finally was able to just copy paste (rather than import)... but I knew that was just circumventing the problem. Thank you thank you thank you! Anne Marie! You were right — somehow “HTML Typewriter” was selected for the character style in certain patches of the text. I also finally was able to just copy paste (rather than import)… but I knew that was just circumventing the problem.

Thank you thank you thank you!

]]> By: Anne-Marie http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278769 Anne-Marie Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:04:27 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278769 Toni, sounds like there's a Character Style interfering. Select the paragraph in ID and make sure that the "None" style is highlighted in the Character Styles panel ... if not, Option/Alt-click on None. Also make sure your paragraph style isn't applying a nested character style somehow. Toni, sounds like there’s a Character Style interfering. Select the paragraph in ID and make sure that the “None” style is highlighted in the Character Styles panel … if not, Option/Alt-click on None.

Also make sure your paragraph style isn’t applying a nested character style somehow.

]]> By: Toni http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278730 Toni Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:43:21 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-278730 I am laying out a magazine,and one of the articles is really giving me trouble. I apply the bodycopy style we've set up (and used successfully on dozens of other articles and spreads) but patches of the article keep coming up in Courier New! I reclick the paragraph style and it says that indeed, the character style SHOULD be Minion Pro, but for some reason the copy is still in Courier New. I change the font manually to Minion Pro, and then my style sheet says it is being overridden! HELP I've copy and pasted the text into a new word (actually "open office is what I use) document, and tried importing the new one, but the problem is still the same. Can anyone enlighten me?? (email me privately if you want at toni . milak (at) gmail . com) Toni I am laying out a magazine,and one of the articles is really giving me trouble. I apply the bodycopy style we’ve set up (and used successfully on dozens of other articles and spreads) but patches of the article keep coming up in Courier New! I reclick the paragraph style and it says that indeed, the character style SHOULD be Minion Pro, but for some reason the copy is still in Courier New. I change the font manually to Minion Pro, and then my style sheet says it is being overridden! HELP

I’ve copy and pasted the text into a new word (actually “open office is what I use) document, and tried importing the new one, but the problem is still the same.

Can anyone enlighten me??
(email me privately if you want at toni . milak (at) gmail . com)

Toni

]]> By: Philip Ulanowsky http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-150779 Philip Ulanowsky Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:46:58 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-150779 Forgive me, as this responds to the Word styles issue first mentioned above, but unless I misread, Anne Marie, you seemed unaware of, and no one else mentioned, the Tools/Options/Edit option, Keep Track of Formatting. When unchecked, local formatting overrides do not create endless new styles automatically, something we Word DTPs have to deal with constantly in the corporate world. Between that an the individual stlye palette's "Automatically update", one can go nuts without trying, and leave a trail of (document) corruption behind. Forgive me, as this responds to the Word styles issue first mentioned above, but unless I misread, Anne Marie, you seemed unaware of, and no one else mentioned, the Tools/Options/Edit option, Keep Track of Formatting. When unchecked, local formatting overrides do not create endless new styles automatically, something we Word DTPs have to deal with constantly in the corporate world. Between that an the individual stlye palette’s “Automatically update”, one can go nuts without trying, and leave a trail of (document) corruption behind.

]]> By: Manuel http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-119452 Manuel Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:46:22 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-119452 When using QX 4.1, long time ago, I had an Extension named Styling that gave you the chance to apply the Paragraph Style selectively. Keeping or not Bold, It., Color, etc. I tried to find it for InDesign with no success. Vision's Edge still have it for QX and we'll evaluate to use QX just for this job since it has so many changes per line already done in MS Word. We tried to use the old QX 4.1, but the clipboard between OS X and OS 9 doesn't preserve the It., Bold, color etc. When using QX 4.1, long time ago, I had an Extension named Styling that gave you the chance to apply the Paragraph Style selectively. Keeping or not Bold, It., Color, etc. I tried to find it for InDesign with no success. Vision’s Edge still have it for QX and we’ll evaluate to use QX just for this job since it has so many changes per line already done in MS Word. We tried to use the old QX 4.1, but the clipboard between OS X and OS 9 doesn’t preserve the It., Bold, color etc.

]]> By: Khaled http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-64520 Khaled Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:18:43 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-64520 please send to me.. please send to me..

]]> By: Anne-Marie http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-50566 Anne-Marie Tue, 01 May 2007 12:28:32 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-50566 Alan, from your comment it doesn't sound like you missed a detail ... not sure why you say that. If you imported a Word doc and kept its styles, it also kept its local overrides. Anyway to retain italics and bolds while stripping out all other local overrides with the Option/Alt-click on style name technique, you have to convert them to character styles first. (Option/Alt-clicking leaves character style formatting intact. You have to add Shift to the key combo to strip those out as well.) You can do a Find/Change with formatting to apply a bold or italic character style to locally formatted text, or you can try Dave Saunder's "Preserve Local Formatting" script which you can download from our <a href="http://indesignsecrets.com/plug-ins-and-scripts/" rel="nofollow"> Plug-ins and Scripts</a> page. Alan, from your comment it doesn’t sound like you missed a detail … not sure why you say that. If you imported a Word doc and kept its styles, it also kept its local overrides.

Anyway to retain italics and bolds while stripping out all other local overrides with the Option/Alt-click on style name technique, you have to convert them to character styles first. (Option/Alt-clicking leaves character style formatting intact. You have to add Shift to the key combo to strip those out as well.)

You can do a Find/Change with formatting to apply a bold or italic character style to locally formatted text, or you can try Dave Saunder’s “Preserve Local Formatting” script which you can download from our Plug-ins and Scripts page.

]]> By: Alan Reynolds http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-50545 Alan Reynolds Tue, 01 May 2007 11:47:58 +0000 http://indesignsecrets.com/ms-word-to-indesign-quasi-styles-problem.php#comment-50545 Thank you for this article. I must have missed some detail, because when InDesign kept the styles it also 'kept' the line spacing distance, which was very different from the book. So my book designer had to over-rule "local" adjustments and set all back to his styles. Can you please point me to directions how to keep italics without having to resinsert them by hand? Thank you for this article. I must have missed some detail, because when InDesign kept the styles it also ‘kept’ the line spacing distance, which was very different from the book. So my book designer had to over-rule “local” adjustments and set all back to his styles. Can you please point me to directions how to keep italics without having to resinsert them by hand?

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