Importing a ,docx document (book)

Hello

I need to use the demo of Indesign4 to import an 80 page book of poetry created in Word 2003. I need to create a PDF with bleed for a 6in x 9in book.

I have converted the document to Word 2007 docx, but when I try to place this into Indesign I can paste in the document, but only the first page appears, even if the Indesign document has 80 pages at 6in x 9in.

Has anyone any idea of what is happening?



Mike Engles
Importing a ,docx document (book)
Are you pasting or placing (the latter is the correct method)?



Are you familiar at all with InDesign? When you have more text than will fit into a frame, the remainder becomes ''overset'' and is inthe document, but not yet on a page. You'll see a red Plus sign in the text frame outport to indicate the overset.



You can click the overset indicator with the selection tool to load the remaining text into a cursor for threading into a new frame or frames. By holding down the shift key when you click this loaded cursor you will auto-flow all of the remaining text into the document, adding frames or pages as necessary to hold it all. You can also use autoflow when you place the text in the beginning.



Clicking a loaded text cursor behaves differently depending on what's under it when you click. If there is an empty frame (you'll see the cursor change to have included parentheses, indicating that you will flow into a frame) the text will fill flow into the frame, or if the frame is threaded with others and is not the first frame in the thread, into the first frame.



If there is no frame, a new frame will be created on the fly, with the top edge at the y-coordinate where you clicked, and the width will fill the column guides surrounding that point and the frame will extend to the bottom margin. If auto-flowing, subsequent frames will start at the top margin and extend to the bottom. If new pages are required, they will be based on master of the last page the text flowed into, which can cause some unexpected results if the master has a frame not threaded to another on the opposite side of a two-page spread.



Peter
Importing a ,docx document (book)
Hello



Thanks for your reply.



My son and I have got round the problem by importing the text in page by page.



The next problem is page numbering.

The book of 80 pages needs to have the first 10 pages( intro dedication contents etc) in Roman numerals and then in normal numerals. In order to do this we need to make sections. The problem is that the first page of the new section( normal numbers) after the first section (roman) is a single page, wheras it needs to be part of a spread. The resultant PDF has a single page at this point. We are not sure how this will print and it does seems that the page ordering is affected.



We have a master page for the first section (roman) and a second

for the normal numerals.



We are not that familiar with Indesign, but are helping a friend

publish her late husband's poetry. I use Photoshop CS3 and other drawing packages, but have no experience of page layout.



Mike Engles

Normally, odd numbered pages are recto (right hand) and even numbers are verso. InDesign respects this convention by shifting page positions if you change an even page to an odd. Are you trying to put page 1 on the left of the spread?



First of all, I'd recommend that you add a blank page at the end of the front matter to push page one to the right side of the spread, which is where your readers will expect to find it, but if that is not what you have in mind, undo the page numbering temporarily, then select the spread in the pages panel, and from the panel menu deselect allow spread to shuffle. You should now be able to start a new section at page 1 on the left.



Peter

Hello



Thanks for your time and reply.

As you can see we are complete beginners at this.

We are trying to reproduce what was first done in Word 2003 by my friend.

It is quite possible that that is not quite correct either.

We will try your suggestion and report back.



Thanks again



Mike Engles

You should probably head over to the library or a book store and take a look at introductory books. Many people like Sandee Cohen's Visual QuickStart book, though I find it more of a reference than a text. The InDesign Help files are actually pretty useful, too, and of course there are online tutorials such as the ones at lynda.com (and there may be some tutorial videos on your installation disks). You might also want to see if you can locate a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is pretty much the ''bible'' on book layout, and has a lot of information on what is conventional in the publishing industry. Even looking at other books will give you a good idea of what usually goes where.



Word is a word processor with a small bit of layout capability (frustratingly small if you've ever used anything else), and InDesign is a professional layout tool with some word processing capability (as distinct from extensive typographic tools and controls, where InDesign probably overshadows practically any other program). You are dealing with apples and oranges.



Trying to make an InDesign book look like a Word document is both an exercise in frustration and a disservice to the material. You have the potential to make it MUCH BETTER. :)

Mike - You may want to view a few of the videos on this page to familiarize yourself with InDesign:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/InDesign/6.0/WS136D91ED-FAC8-4f4e-82A7-CF406D0131BB. html

Hello



Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

I think that we have now managed to understand the basics of Indesign, a very fine programme. We have done what we set out to do.



I do know that InDesign is a very powerful programme and that our quest of just trying to reproduce a Word document seems unambitious, but we did not want to completely hijack my friend's book of her late husband's poetry. There is still more poetry as well as a couple of novels,so we can be more ambitious, as we learn more.

I will most probably help my son buy the programme.



Mike Engles