# M$ Publisher to InDesign



## Macn00b (Oct 2, 2004)

I've got my nice PB 15" 1.5. I used to use a PC therefore I have a number of publisher files I want to convert to Adobe InDesign CS, or QuarkXpress.

Can it be done?!

I really need help, any tips, tricks would be help also.

~ Macn00b


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## Natobasso (Oct 2, 2004)

You may very well be out of luck on the conversion end of things. But welcome to Mac OS X! Here's a few articles I found when I googled "InDesign convert Publisher files":

*InDesign converts quark 4 files, but not Publisher:
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=921587

*PageMaker (the predecessor to InDesign) does convert Publisher2000 files, though not painlessly:
http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/2110/2110article7.htm

PageMaker converts, but only on the PC. The plug in is not available for mac:
MS-Publisher: http://www.macdisk.com/dtpen.php3


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## mdnky (Oct 3, 2004)

Converting from MS Publisher to ID isn't a very common problem, since Publisher isn't very commonly used on the professional end.  

Your best bet is to just recreate the files you have to have in ID.  If they don't require a lot of changes (esp. text only), you might be able to export the publisher file to a PDF then place it in ID.  You could then place a textbox (with background color) over what you want to change.  That of course depends on the complexity of the original (backgrounds, overlays, etc.).


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## Macn00b (Oct 3, 2004)

Ah, okay then, I might as well just save them as a pdf.

Thanks anyway.

~ Macn00b


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## smogrady (Oct 4, 2004)

So, you need a PC to help though.
1st. Find the Publisher to Adobe Pagemaker converter. (Very picky on the Publisher version though) Somewhere @ Adobe's site. It's old and I haven't used it lately, but it may still exist somewhere.
2nd Convert Publisher files to Pagemaker files.
3rd Open them in InDesign.

You'll most likely succeed in converting the text, and graphics. But don't expect the layout to be intact. Pagemaker to Indesign usually is hit or miss on layout converting.

Later & Best of Luck
-Sean


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## Natobasso (Oct 4, 2004)

Ditto.  (see my post above)


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## mdnky (Oct 4, 2004)

I personally wouldn't bother converting PageMaker files to ID...all the ones I've tried in the past wound up requiring more time spent fixing them than it would take to just redo from scratch.  Sad part is most of the Quark files convert better than Adobe's own PageMaker files for me.


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## Natobasso (Oct 5, 2004)

Adobe acquired PageMaker from Aldus a while ago and with InDesign I think they definitely upated the programming, but not so that they were necessarily compatible. I think InDesign does do a great job with Quark files which is such a coup


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