Importing Word files

[Mike]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

My clients usually send Word files, which is a bit problematic (I strip out all the Word junk to create a plain text file). Then I place (not cut and paste) the text in the layout program, and format it.

Do you find it problematic? I generally place Word files into inDesign using inDesign's standard import filter then do a run of FindChangeByList followed a font search-and-replace to substitute those fonts I don't want.

Then I define a basic style and delete all the imported paragraph and character styles replacing them with by basic style. That generally leaves all the styles overides (italic and bold, etc) in place and generates a clean file.

If I were to convert the Word file to plain text I would loose all the stuff like italics which, in, say, a 500-page book, would be a PITA to replace.

What do others do to clean up authors' Word files?