indesign to word doc

[tuartboy]

ok, i thought there were possibly some fellow designer/print guys in here, so here's my question:

one of our clients is asking for us to convert a manual from indesign into a word doc so that they can edit it in the future. it's a horrible idea, but i'm the one who has to do the conversion. the manual is 100+ pages, so I'm not looking to redoing it.

Is there any application that can do the conversion? I think Acrobat pro may be able to do an export, but I wanted to get people's opinion on this.

Anyone?

Thanks a bunch.

 

[D0ct0rteeth]

No way.

Create an editable PDF. Much cleaner.

- Doc

 

[jayscheuerle]

This isn't a conversion job, it's a redesign in which you won't be able to duplicate everything you see in the InDesign doc. For the amount you're going to charge them for the amount of hours it's going to take, they'd be better off buying their own copy of InDesign and making changes there.

 

[zelmo]

I agree with these guys. If your client won't buy CS for themselves, editable PDF is the way to go.
Otherwise, all you can do is import the text into Word and format to approximate the InDesign doc. UGLY!!

 

[billyergs]

You can try converting the InDesign document to PDF and then use some type of OCR software like this one to convert the pdf to word. It won't be an exact recreation but should be pretty close. You might run into some problems with text flowing into wrong columns and I'm not too sure how well pictures will be placed. Anyways, I think there's a demo you can mess around with.

 

[decksnap]

GFL editing the manual in Acrobat Pro- I've not had much luck. Maybe I'm missing something... or maybe because my postscripts come out of quark.

My guess is you'll have to rebuild it.

 

[MisterMe]

You can try converting the InDesign document to PDF and then use some type of OCR software like this one to convert the pdf to word. It won't be an exact recreation but should be pretty close. You might run into some problems with text flowing into wrong columns and I'm not too sure how well pictures will be placed. Anyways, I think there's a demo you can mess around with.

You don't need OCR. The text within the PDF document would be fully editable within Adobe Acrobat. Converting PDF to Word is a built-in Acrobat Pro function.

 

[Sun Baked]

Inform them of the difference between Word and Indesign, and tell them how hard it is to format a 100-page document in Word that approximates a bad imitation of a document from a desktop publishing program.

You'll basically have to start the design process all over again and hammer the document page-by-page to get a awful looking Word document.

At least they can get something a little better like MicroSoft Publisher...

Depending on how much you are going to charge for all the time it will take, buying Indesign and showing them how to make changes will cost a lot less in the long run that all the time they will spend redesigning the document on Word -- and fixing the ripple effect changes tend to have.

 

[MacDawg]

ok, i thought there were possibly some fellow designer/print guys in here, so here's my question:

one of our clients is asking for us to convert a manual from indesign into a word doc so that they can edit it in the future.

Are they wanting to be able to edit the doc themselves to cut you out of the process?? And they want you to do the work to make it possible?

Nuts...

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[tuartboy]

ha, thanks guys.

ya, i got it to import into acrobat pro and it did an export to word. Just the text and images, no formatting. REdiculous. Not my problem though.

Editable PDF was not good for them because they would have to buy pro and then why not just get InDesign? Not an option for the suits...

Yeah, they just wanted to be able to do it themselves and that's ok by me. (We don't want them around anyway, but they bring in some cash. awful client...)

So, if you see a certain well-known powerboat company with absolutely crappy-looking owner manuals, you now know why! (hope i can say that...)