microsoft word table of contents formatting keeps varying

In the Place dialog box, select the Word document that you want to place, then enable the Show Import Options checkbox and click Open. Instead of copy and paste, InDesign provides some options for retaining the formatting of text when you choose File > Place. This can be detrimental because work has been lost and will need to be performed by someone a second time. In essence, this strips all of the formatting from the text including any formatting you wish to keep. Many users will select all of the text in a Word document, copy the text, then paste it into InDesign or InCopy. When you bring Word content into InDesign or InCopy the goal is to remove the undesirable formatting but retain the formatting you wish to keep such as bold and italic styling. This is much more easily accomplished by using styles in Word but that’s an entirely different blog post. Often making headlines bigger or changing their color to make it easier to view and read. I say this because authors are known for applying their own formatting to documents to “enhance” the visual appearance of the file while they’re writing.

Once the content has been finalized, the designer can flow that Word document into InDesign or an editor can flow the content into an InCopy file in preparation for layout.Īlthough the process of bringing a Word document into an InDesign or InCopy file may seem like a simple process, retaining the desired formatting of that Word document can present some unique challenges.

Editorial staff often keep content in the Word format when working with authors because it’s easy to go back and forth with changes until the final content has been completed. In many situations, content is authored in Microsoft Word due to its widespread availability as an application on most computers. As I’ve written in the past, Word is often an integral part of any InCopy workflow.

Microsoft word table of contents formatting keeps varying