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bluetooth

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 1, 2007
662
1
Toronto
I have a document with a lot of graphs, charts etc. It is a Word document. Is there a way to import these into ID or will I need to recreate all the charts and graphs?

Still getting familiar with ID, old Quark user...so if anyone has any tips on importing or producing graphs and charts in ID, it would be appreciated.

thanks
 
You can literally copy and paste them in... that is, if you want them rasterised, not separating properly, the fonts all going loopy.

If you're preparing work for press, it's best to recreate the graphs in Illustrator which isn't too time-consuming if you set up a template first and import the fields into the graphing tool. The table tool in InDesign is lovely; far better implemented than in Quark.

This issue is one of my biggest professional bugbears and my next job will not involve any academic or research publishing if I can avoid it.

What's the final product supposed to be?
 
It's a booklet with a lot of facts and figures, graphs, pie charts, other charts, etc.

Here is a sample page of the Word document. Let me know what you think would be my best plan of attack. I haven't done graphs or charts of this nature before.

thanks for your help.
 

Attachments

  • sample.pdf
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I feel for you. The tables look OK and in some ways, they're almost already done.

If I didn't have much time, was being paid little, and I was laying out the publication all in mono, I'd set the entire publication in Arial, much as they've used there in that table to keep some consistency. Arial is a horrible face but if the work is done and that's what the client is expecting, don't waste your time redoing them if the measure (column width) fits your format.

You've just got to keep an eye on any footnotes that are marked up in the tables and how they fall in the layout. End-notes, rather than footnotes, might be more useful here.

Then I'd make proper PDFs from the Word document through Distiller ensuring the fonts were all embedded, then I'd place the tables into InDesign.

If I had all the time in the world, I'd lovingly redo each table in colour and set the entire project in typefaces of my choosing.

The graphs will need redoing in Illustrator but honestly, it depends on how much time you have to do the job. If I only had one day to do the entire job, I'd be cutting corners left, right and centre, rasterising the supplied graphs at 1200ppi in either greyscale or CMYK and making sure they weren't downsampled when producing a press PDF.

In a job like this, I usually set the type out properly, leaving fixed and set spaces marked up for the graphic elements, then send it out for a first copy proof while I get on with the figures. This usually buys a day or two while you get on with other things.

The path you take is all relative to deadlines, money, client's expectations, target audience etc.
 
You can click and drag the document onto InDesign. I feel for you, I get graphs with so many different typefaces, I just have to create unified piece. My company dont hand out original files but instead the low res documents.
 
You could always save the Word doc as a PDF and then open it in Illustrator and see if it would let you isolate the graphs and save them as EPS files.
 
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