About import filters – Adobe InDesign CS4 User Manual
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USING INDESIGN CS4
Text
2 Do one of the following:
•
To create a new frame for the placed text, make sure that no insertion point is present and that no text or frames
are selected.
•
To add text to a frame, use the Type tool
to select text or place the insertion point.
•
To replace the contents of an existing frame, use a selection tool to select the frame. If the frame is threaded, a loaded
text cursor appears.
If you accidentally replace a text file or graphic using this method, choose Edit > Undo Replace, and then click or drag
to create a text frame.
3 Choose File
> Place.
4 Select Replace Selected Item if you want the imported file to replace the contents of a selected frame, to replace
selected text, or to be added to the text frame at the insertion point. Deselect this option to flow the imported file
into a new frame.
5 Select Show Import Options, and then double-click the file you want to import.
6 Set import options, and then click OK.
If you haven’t already designated an existing frame to receive text, the pointer becomes a loaded text icon, ready to flow
text wherever you click or drag.
If you receive an alert that the requested filter wasn’t found, you may be trying to place a file from a different word-
processing application or from an earlier version of Microsoft® Word, such as Word 6. Open the file in its original
application and save it as RTF, which preserves most formatting.
If the imported Microsoft Excel document displays red dots in cells, adjust cell size or text attributes so that overset
content becomes visible. You can also place the file as unformatted tabbed text, and then convert the tabbed text to a
table.
See also
Flow text manually or automatically
Link or embed imported text files
Convert Word styles to InDesign styles
Open QuarkXPress files in InDesign
About import filters
InDesign imports most character and paragraph formatting attributes from text files but ignores most page-layout
information, such as margin and column settings (which you can set in InDesign). Note the following:
•
InDesign generally imports all formatting information specified in the word-processing application, except
information for word-processing features not available in InDesign.
•
InDesign can add imported styles to its list of styles for the document. A disk icon
appears next to imported
styles. (See “
Convert Word styles to InDesign styles
•
The import options appear when you select Show
Import Options in the Place dialog box, or when you import an
Excel file. If Show Import Options is deselected, InDesign uses the import options last used for a similar document
type. The options you set remain in effect until you change them.
Updated 18 June 2009