PodoLay

User guide

How to use the PodoLay web portal and editor — the same content the help assistant (chatbot) reads.

User guide

Importing InDesign documents

How to move a document saved from InDesign as IDML into a PodoLay layout, and what comes across unchanged and what changes.

How to import

InDesign files (.indd) can't be opened directly. In InDesign, save an .idml with File › Export › InDesign Markup (IDML), then import that. To bring linked images and fonts along, choose the folder made by InDesign's File › Package (or a .zip of that folder) — the .idml, the linked images (Links) and the fonts (Document fonts) in the folder are read together.

  1. On the portal dashboard, click Import and choose InDesign (IDML).
  2. Choose the .idml (and its linked images) with Choose files…, or the package folder with Choose package folder…. The title is filled in from the IDML file name.
  3. Click Create. A new layout is created, and the editor opens in a new tab and builds the layout. Page size, page count and masters follow the IDML, so you don't choose them.

You can also import from the editor. In a new, empty layout, choose an .idml with Import Manuscript in the top bar's File menu (⌘D/Ctrl+D), or drag an .idml or a package folder onto the canvas. You can't import into a layout that already has content — an InDesign document always becomes a new layout.

If the package contains fonts (Document fonts), the The package contains fonts window opens first. Check I have a license that allows uploading and using these fonts in PodoLay. (Font licensing is the uploader's responsibility.) and click Upload as my fonts to upload the fonts as user fonts in your account, for use in this and other layouts (on plans that allow uploading user fonts). Click Import without uploading to replace missing fonts with similar ones.

While images and fonts upload, a progress notice is shown; Cancel in the notice stops the remaining uploads. An image that couldn't be uploaded is left as an empty graphic frame of the same size, and its name is listed in the report. If the imported layout has more pages than your plan allows per layout, it isn't imported and you are told so.

Related questions

  • Can I open an INDD file?
  • How do I convert an InDesign file to PodoLay?
  • How do I export IDML from InDesign?
  • Can I upload a packaged folder with links and fonts?

Report and comparison PDF

When the import finishes, the InDesign document imported window shows Imported, Changed and Not imported separately — the number of pages, masters, objects, stories and styles, the list of replaced fonts, the effects that were approximated, and the elements left out with their page numbers. It can't be shown again after you close it, so check it then if you need to.

If you export the same document as PDF from InDesign and choose it together with the .idml (the file names must match, e.g. book.idml and book.pdf), the pages of that PDF are laid semi-transparently on a hidden InDesign original level. Turn that level on in the Layers tab to overlay the original and find differences in line breaks and positions. When you're done, hide or delete that level before exporting a PDF.

Related questions

  • Can I see what changed after the import?
  • How do I compare against the original InDesign layout?
  • What is the InDesign original level?

What comes across

  • Layout and pages: page size, bleed, spreads (left and right binding), page numbers and sections (numbering style, start number, section marker), masters and master items overridden on pages, layers (→ levels, with hidden, locked and non-printing), guides.
  • Objects: rectangles, ellipses, polygons, paths (including compound paths), lines and arrowheads, groups, rotation, shear and scale, fill and stroke (weight, alignment, cap, join), gradients, swatches (including spot colors and tints), opacity, drop shadow, outer glow, inner glow, feather, bevel and emboss, text wrap, type on a path.
  • Text: text frames and threading, the primary text frame, frame columns, inset and vertical justification, paragraph and character styles (with their based-on chain), character and paragraph formatting, tabs, drop caps, lists, paragraph shading and borders, keep options and breaks, footnotes and endnotes, the table of contents, the index (including cross-references), text variables (page number, section marker, running header), conditional text (visible conditions only).
  • Tables: inline tables, merged cells, repeating header rows, cell fills and strokes, alternating fills from table styles, graphic cells (as cell background images).
  • Images: linked images (JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDF, AI) with their position and scale in the frame, embedded images.
  • East Asian typesetting: vertical text and right-to-left binding, ruby, emphasis marks (kenten), tate-chu-yoko, warichu, Roman text rotated in vertical text, kinsoku (including custom kinsoku sets) and mojikumi, composite fonts, frame grids.

Nested styles and GREP styles are applied as fixed character formatting — the text looks the same, but they aren't reapplied when you edit it. If a font used in InDesign isn't available, it is replaced by a font of the same kind (serif, sans-serif and so on), and line breaks can change accordingly. Upload the same font as a user font and the text is set almost exactly as in the original.

Related questions

  • Do parent pages (masters) come across?
  • Are my paragraph styles preserved?
  • Can I import vertical text and ruby?
  • Line breaks differ from InDesign

What changes or is not imported

  • Margins and columns that differ by page, and pages of different sizes, are set to the layout's single value.
  • Masters with three or more pages keep only their first two pages; a master based on another master gets the parent's objects copied in.
  • Object styles come across as object styles (only the enabled categories among fill, stroke, transparency, effects, text wrap and text frame options). Table and cell styles come across as table and cell styles with the same names, and their formatting is applied to the tables and cells too.
  • Images flipped or skewed inside their frame, the flip of a flipped frame, separate opacity on fill, stroke or content, inner shadow, satin, directional and gradient feather, and stroke styles (double lines, hash marks) are approximated or dropped.
  • Hyperlinks, cross-references, buttons, multi-state objects and media come in as their visible text or initial appearance only. Notes are dropped, and tracked changes come in as accepted.
  • PSD and EPS images, and linked images missing from the package, are left as empty graphic frames. Save a PSD as TIFF or PNG in InDesign or Photoshop and relink it.
  • Span Columns and Split Column come across. PodoLay balances the text before a spanning paragraph across the columns itself, so lines may break between columns at slightly different places than in InDesign.
  • .indd files, books (.indb), snippets (.idms) and data merge aren't imported.
  • To go the other way and open a PodoLay layout in InDesign, create an IDML with InDesign (IDML) export in the File menu (see "Exporting to InDesign (IDML)" in the "PDF export" document). Exporting to .indd isn't available.

Related questions

  • What do I do with images that weren't imported?
  • My PSD images are empty
  • Do object styles come across?
  • Can I export to IDML and open it in InDesign?