Creative Tip: Convert InDesign files to Microsoft Word.
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Every graphic designer eventually finds themselves facing this client request. You’ve designed a newsletter layout in Adobe InDesign. The client loves it, but they want a template in Microsoft Word they can edit themselves.
CreativeTechs happens to be located in Seattle, just across the lake from the Redmond campus of Microsoft. Needless to say, we get this question a LOT from various graphic designers in our area. There isn’t a perfect solution, but here is a technique that does a surprisingly good job.
Conversion Trick: InDesign-to-PDF, then PDF-to-Word.
Save your InDesign file as a PDF. Then use a utility to convert that PDF to a Word document (this technique also works with QuarkXPress layouts). While there are many PDF-to-Word converters, here is a service (still in beta) that does a remarkably good job maintaining the layout and editability of the resulting Word files:
Link: Online PDF-to-Word Converter (beta)
You’ll have to clean up the resulting Word file, but I’ve been playing with this tool, and it does a surprisingly good job maintaining multi-column layouts, and other tricky elements. For cleanest results, simplify your InDesign layout as much as possible before converting.
Source: This tip inspired by a recent write-up of the PDF-to-Word service on the Lifehacker blog. If you find this tip useful, check out a related tip from four years ago: Create Letterhead Templates in MS Word. That topic remains one of our highest traffic tips over the years.
Credit: The layout used to illustrate this tip comes from StockLayouts.com.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:14 am
greetings and thanks for the tips. as usual i found this one relevant since i am frequently called upon to convert things from indesign to word. when i clicked the links in the “full tip” to get to the “Online PDF-to-Word Converter (beta)”, I got instead a link to the pdf for how to convert from quark to indesign. did i miss something? thanks
-paula
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:22 am
not sure what the blogger intended, but his one works good:
http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp
I gotta try this tip, as right now I am researching a way to get PDF links to work when the source is created on a mac, which right now Word 2008 can’t do! Cheers…
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 am
I also get a link to the PDF for how to convert from quark to indesign…I don’t think you missed something, the link is the issue….
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:34 am
I got the same thing…quark to indesign, is it linking to the wrong document?
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 am
Link is wrong, I got Quark to InDesign as well. I’d love the link for InDesign to Word. I get that “need” quite often from clients….
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 am
here’s the correct link:
http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp
Great tip guys, btw, as have to convert InDesign docs into Word templates so often and it’s normally a complete pain!
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:52 am
Oops! Looks like I didn’t proof my PDF-to-Word link. Thanks for everyone who commented about that (looks like I pasted a link from last week’s tip). I’ve corrected my mistake. For the record, here is the PDF-to-Word site I like:
http://www.pdftoword.com
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 am
I think this is the right link
http://www.pdftoword.com/
i got it by clicking on the lifehacker blog link above
cheers
-paula
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
Thank you so much for the updated links!!! I look forward to using the service soon!
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 am
I have had numerous clients requesting a manipulatable template Word.doc file from a design concept I created in InDesign CS2 or Illustrator CS2. Almost always comes from a client using Microsoft Publisher. I tried the PDF to Word conversion beta on a InDesign CS2 file saved to PDF a week ago. The beta only accepts file sizes up to 10MB. Worked fairly well on converting the text, but some of the formatting was off. Placed graphics and logos had missing elements, photos were completely missing and some text reflowed onto a second page (was a single page 8.5×11 sheet). I sent back my results to their beta site and have not had a response. Great first effort!
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
I just tried the conversion and nothing happened. I chose the pdf file to convert, but nothing happened after that. In step two I had the .doc button clicked. I tried two different files… no enchilada. What am I missing. Feeling stupid on a Monday morning.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
I would love to use this but I can’t find a list of the system requirements. I know you Creative Tech guys use Mac. I’m a Mac person too.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 am
Why would we, as designers, want to do this? If the client is ultimately going to want a Word document from which to produce their newsletter, why not set it up in Word to begin with. If they just want a Word document to handle text editing (too much or not enough copy) wouldn’t it still be better to handle this task in a more conventional way. If the changes made to this Word document then has to be reflected in the InDesign or Quark file, isn’t this method making a simple job ever so more complex? Now you’d have to take an edited Word-formatted file and transfer all the changes back to the InDesign or Quark file. What then? Export another Word-formatted file for the client to peruse? How much more complex can we needlessly make our jobs?!
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
I have gone to the new link you provided and can’t figure out where the download is. (http://www.pdftoword.com) I don’t see it anywhere on the page.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 am
I agree with Keith @9:10am. Why would you want to go trough all these trouble…simply design a word template for that client and BINGO!
The client will still be able to print and send as he pleases…everyone is happy and life goes on!
BTW-Don’t even try to use the link right now…WAY too many peeps trying it out at the moment.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Mercman and Keith are right, this tip is useless and inane (sorry, but it is). Using something like http://echoone.com/filejuicer/pdf-to-word filejuicer to REBUILD the results into a word design. It might save you some time, but i suspect not much if you had all the source for the InDesign project in the first place. I was interested in this post because Indesign creates valid links in PDF files, whereas Word 2008 does not. So I tried a transform hoping the links would be preserved once in a word file, but alas, that’s still an issue MS and Adobe need to work out.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:39 am
To the last few commenters who think this tip is ‘inane’ and too much trouble, consider a few points:
Designing in Microsoft Word is a pain in the arse. Making changes to a Word doc can reflow text, page items and also inexplicably change fonts.
Design changes that can be done in Indesign can take much much longer in Word.
Consider working at a corporate in-house design studio (where you don’t get to bill your client every time they make a change). There are Indesign files in the archives that some manager all of a sudden wants to have in Word format. It would be a whole lot faster to convert them automatically then by taking the time to do each one by hand.
Who the hell wants to design in MS Word?!?
Why wouldn’t you want another tool at your disposal?
Etc. Etc. Etc.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Thanks for featuring our new PDF-to-Word converter on your site. Much appreciated!
March 30th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Oh no. Marketing Execs are ruining my brain.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
For those wondering why someone would use this, consider this. Our website currently offers only photoshop template files for brochure designs. We are soon going to go back and redesign all of them in InDesign and then in Word. That way we can offer our templates in two additional formats which our customers appreciate.
And yes!! Designing in word is a giant pain. So this may make our lives easier once we finish with the InDesign formats.
Thanks for the link. We will try this out.
-Zachary Bauer
CEO Home Brochures Inc.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I only use Tweak pdf to word.
it performs so well.
it is free to try .
you can try it in http://www.tweakpdf.com/
July 30th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Why not use AnyBizSoft pdf to word. A friend recommended this to me as i usually to type some non-editable pdfs for my boss. That is really a life saver to me. I don’t need to type manually any more. Thanks god！
http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-to-word.html#153
August 7th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I am a freelance designer and use CS3 on Vista at home, but work mostly for a small ‘mom and pop’ print shop still running Pagemaker 6.5 on Mac OS 9. Believe me, I would much rather keep the format in InDesign, but they originally designed in Pagemaker and now their client wants to start designing and editing on their own from my files. Needless to say, the only thing their client can use is Word or Publisher which really aren’t layout and design friendly. I wish everyone would realize that Microsoft just doesn’t create a comparable nor compatible product. Adobe is the way to go.
August 16th, 2009 at 1:09 am
I was going to use this but I don’t see how to save an InDesign file as anything but a .indd filetype. Formatting Word 2007 is such a freaking nightmare – I cannot begin to understand it no matter what I do. Word is officially so much worse than it used to be and it was never good.
August 16th, 2009 at 1:21 am
jonas, I also see no point in this. u should all be going the other way, from Word to Indesign if you are serious about publishing. Or go to Word 2008 on a mac, which is a little better. But if you get that far, go to Pages which is by far better then Word. Cheers.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Thank you so much for your recommendation of Nitro PDF Pro. It’s some truly remarkable software.
I did test conversions of a .pdf created via InDesign, containing text, images and tables with columns, with both Acrobat 9 and Nitro to .doc. The one converted by Acrobat was terribly mixed up – the columns were gone, the tables layered on top of each other, the images with huge table cells around them that had nothing to do with their dimensions. It would have taken hours to fix, considering I had about 5 tabloid-sized 3-column 2-pagers of these to do. But the one converted by Nitro was almost *perfect*. I just had to fix some paragraph spacing, which is trivial compared to the hours of work I would have had to do with the Acrobat-converted .doc.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Tweak PDF To Word 3.0 is a little program to convert PDF to editable Word for easier editing. The converter enjoys an exact conversion with the output Word retaining intact of all the original features of the PDF, including layout, image positioning, text font, graphics, hyperlinks, etc.
Encrypted PDF files can be converted to Word, too.
http://www.tweakpdf.com
December 8th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
What about equations that have been created in an InDesign plugin? I get requests all the time from engineers to resave a printed manual or standard in Word and I want to scream.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Any ideas how coocooforcocoapuffs can convert the Word file to InDesign format?
January 10th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Hi! There are various converters available, some may avoid it but may not avoid other formatting.
You can just try different converters. Try this easy and cute pdf converter, may be nemo pdf converter, click here. http://www.nemopdf.com/products/all_to_pdf.html
February 19th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
My client needed her book, designed in InDesign, converted to a Word file so she could sell it as a digital book. This was the format that the company required, unfortunately. So I tried pdf to Word online converter. It destroyed my layout – all formatting was lost and all the photos disappeared.