Clean Up Imported Word Documents in InDesign

This post comes straight from InDesign Magazine, but it’s a common problem and I wanted to share it. The link to the original tip is here.

If you’ve imported a Microsoft Word document that’s riddled with problems (for example, two hyphens instead of an em dash, or tabs instead of paragraph indents), don’t repair your file line by line. Instead, use Edit > Find/Change and correct the problems with a single mouse click.

In the Find/Change dialog box, on the Text tab, first define the scope of your search with the Search dropdown menu. Then use these Find What/Change To pairs to solve common problems:

Replace two hyphens with an em dash.
Find what: —
Change to: ^_

Multiple spaces after punctuation or used for indent.
Find what: [space][space]
Change to: [space]

Replace multiple tabs with a single tab.
Find what: ^t^t
Change to: ^t

Replace three periods with an ellipses.
Find what:…
Change to: ^e

Space before a carriage return.
Find what: [space]^p
Change to: ^p

Space at beginning of paragraph.
Find what: ^p[space]
Change to: ^p

Tab before a carriage return.
Find what: ^t^p
Change to: ^p

Tab after a carriage return.
Find what: ^p^t
Change to: ^p

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