*** From the Archives ***
This article is from January 27, 2011, and is no longer current.
PR: ID2Office — InDesign to Office Format Conversion Tool Announced
[Editor’s note: Wow. Can’t wait to try this.]
San Francisco, CA, January 27, 2011 — Recosoft Corporation, the developer of the PDF2Office® family of products, PDF2Office® for iWork utility, PDF2ID® tool for Adobe® InDesign® and PDF converters announces ID2Office.
ID2Office is a new InDesign tool to convert InDesign files to the Microsoft Office file formats. ID2Office converts InDesign files to the Microsoft Word/PowerPoint file type while maintaining the layout.
ID2Office converts the text, associated fonts and styles, paragraph structure, corresponding property information, frames linking information, tables, graphics and other InDesign object and document properties to the matching Microsoft Word/PowerPoint object and file properties; converting every page to an equivalent page to the final Word/PowerPoint document.
ID2Office has been engineered from the ground-up to provide seamless integration with Adobe InDesign eliminating the requirement of recreating the contents of the InDesign file in Microsoft Word/PowerPoint.
Key Features
- Supports InDesign CS4/CS5: ID2Office operates as a plug-in for Adobe InDesign which allows converting InDesign CS4/CS5 document to the target Office format.
- Convert to Office 2007-2011 formats: ID2Office converts the InDesign file to the latest Microsoft® Word/PowerPoint 2007-2011 type.
- Accurate Conversion: ID2Office maintains the layout of the InDesign document when converted to the Word/PowerPoint type. Paragraphs, Tables, Graphics, and other object property information are converted appropriately.
- Detailed Controls: ID2Office provides precise control over the conversion process. Options for image type, image resolution, frames linking, paragraph spacing controls exist designed for fine-tuning the conversion result.
ID2Office is scheduled to ship in the Spring of 2011 and will be available for InDesign CS4/CS5 for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms.
All inquiries for ID2Office should be directed to [email protected]
Macworld 2011 preview
Recosoft is previewing ID2Office at Macworld 2011 at booth no 519.
System Requirements:
Macintosh Intel-based Mac with a minimum 1.4 GHz processor. Mac OS X 10.4.11 and above, and as per InDesign CS4/CS5 requirements. Application Software: Adobe InDesign CS4/CS5
Windows:Pentium III @ 800 MHz or higher. Windows XP with SP3, Vista, Server 2003/2008, Windows 7, and as per InDesign CS4/CS5 requirements. Application Software: Adobe InDesign CS4/CS5
About Recosoft Corporation
Recosoft Corporation is headquartered at Osaka, Japan and is the developer and provider of cross platform software and information technology solutions. The company is a leader in designing and delivering PDF converters and PDF file conversion software solutions enhancing workflow automation and productivity. For more information on Recosoft PDF converters, visit https://www.recosoft.com/
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hoho! I was actually searching for the tips of converting ID to MS Word. Good news
This is great news. I hope that they eventually come out with Office2ID. That would be even better.
I think it’s kind of unbelievable that they were able to do this. I can’t even create Word documents in Word let alone InDesign… :D
I’m at Macworld and will meet with Recosoft later today. Maybe they’ll give me a demo… I’ll have more details about this in the next podcast.
@David,
Have fun! :)
YES! YES! YES!
Will it be possible to make a template in word so people without indesign can type in the word template, and be able to be exportable to indesign without losing most (I would assume not all) formatting?
Melissa: doesn’t this already work for you?
(Although we are importing Word text into InDesign, rather than exporting Word into ID.)
I’m sorry, I guess I don’t understand- doesn’t what work for me? Are we speaking of a software, or indesign in general?
I guess to be clearer, I should say, I see that this converts an indesign file to a word file, but does it do it the other way around? Can it make a well-designed word file into an indesign file?
Any idea what the pricing will be?
@Melissa: No, it does not import Word or Powerpoint files. It only exports ID to Word/Powerpoint. If you had a complex word file (with layouts, etc.) you could probably export as PDF, then use recosoft’s PDF2ID to import that layout as editable text and objects.
@Jennie: They have not announced. When I was standing at the booth at macworld, they were asking potential customers how much they thought it was worth… $99? $149? $199? $249? More? What do you think? My sense is that it could pay for itself pretty quickly.
Really, this benefits the non-INDD user instead of the designer. Looks like non-INDD user will be able to see clearer formatting and styles in the WORD files than we were previously able to supply in RTF format. Am I correct? I would love to purchase this for my editor.
It sounds like a one-way street. INDD files will get turned into Word files for updating/mangling by non-INDD users — and when the file needs to be imposed and printed? PDF? I don’t see it going back into InDesign.
By the way, if you export a PDF from InDesign and use Acrobat X (or one of the various online providers who do this for free) to export the PDF to Word, it does an incredible job of creating a Word file that looks identical to the PDF, including graphics and tables…
Hello Ariel,
I’m representing Recosoft the creators of ID2Office.
We also make PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint conversion tools (please take a look at the PDF2Office family on our web site its been around for about 10 years).
What you mentioned about making a PDF out of an InDesign file and using a PDF to Word converter may work at times; but its simply not the proper solution.
When a PDF is created, all high level structural information such as a word, line, paragraphs, tables, text flow is lost (this is a small list – I can go on forever so to speak).
By using ID2Office, we retain the high level structural information when converting to Word/PowerPoint.
Words come out properly, Lines are formed properly, Tables come as Tables, Paragraphs are consistent and we also allow you to tune the paragraph spacing controls.
Furthermore, you don’t risk the Postscript nightmare (Text may become Postscript – ie non-existent in the PDF file) where text is lost in the final PDF. We invested our effort and time in creating ID2Office as we know that the PDF route simply doesn’t work in many cases.
@Rose: “Mangling” is a great term for it! No offense to Recosoft (they have some very good products), but I don’t see the practical use for this. NO ONE seems to know how to use Word correctly in the first place, and those who receive these converted files will probably assume they can make changes and turn it back around for output from ID and all will be wonderful with the world.
Or am I missing something?
Any chance Recosoft will be doing a demo in DC in May?
@Lori: I have talked with them about coming out. I hope they’ll be there. We will have several other plug-in and scripting developers on site, which will be great.