How to import a PDF into InDesign – Step By Step Tutorial

November 22, 2022

November 22, 2022 Karolin Koestler, Senior Marketing Manager EMEA

InDesign is used by graphic designers, artists, publishers, and marketing professionals all over the world. They use this software program to create flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, posters, business cards, postcards, and many other types of documents for any number of organizations.

Yet, although InDesign is an Adobe product, and while Adobe created the PDF format in the nineties, it wasn’t until recently that they included native support for them in InDesign. While graphic designers will probably have used plugins or other tricks to get it to work, this recent development makes it possible to use PDFs in InDesign directly.

InDesign’s older versions required you to use a plugin to open PDF files. You can now import them and use the Place command to add them to a design. You can either place the entire PDF in an InDesign file, or just a few pages.

Note that InDesign will remove any links, audio or video embedded in a PDF. Otherwise, everything works perfectly. To make the process work correctly, your PDF must not be password protected. Here’s all you need to do.

Open your project in InDesign. Choose File and Place. Now check the Show Preview box. Select Show Import Options, and then choose the PDF file. Choose the page or pages, or, if you wish, choose an entire document that you wish to place. To open the PDF in InDesign, select Open.

A preview should appear in the Import Options window. This will show you how the PDF will look inside your design. InDesign imports at the highest resolution by default, so you can make any adjustments later.

You can choose to import a single page or a range of pages. You can crop, select individual layers and set them as placeable art, trim, bleed to print, and add media restrictions to preserve the PDF’s original format and size.

InDesign is designed for desktop publishing and images. It will not work well with large PDF files. Splitting large PDF files into pages is a better option. Then you can add each page to InDesign. Although it takes some time, this makes the process much more manageable.

How to Convert PDF to InDesign with High Quality

There are a lot of reasons that make you want to convert PDF to InDesign. And one of the reasons is to manage your digital files and print them into books, reports, magazines, and more. But, before you convert PDF to InDesign, you may need to edit your PDF works. One PDF editor is a great option for this purpose. PDFelement ProPDFelement Pro is an All-in-one PDF solution which can help you edit PDF and convert PDF to most editable formats. Here, you can find how to use PDFelement to edit PDF files without or before converting PDF to Indesign and convert PDF to InDesign.

Method 1. How to Convert PDF to InDesign Support Format

If you convert PDF to INDD file only to edit it, to buy one PDF to InDesign converter is not recommended for its high cost, and PDF to InDesign converter is only with a simple function. It is a great choice to choose PDFelement, which can edit PDF files and have other functions such as converting PDF to Excel, Word, PPT, etc., creating PDF fillable forms, editing scanned documents, etc. It has an affordable price. Below are the steps about how to edit PDF files without or before converting PDF to InDesign.

Step 1: Install PDFelement Pro

Download PDFelement, which can help you to edit PDF files and convert PDF files into Word, Excel, PNG, TIFF, and more.

Step 2: Import PDF to PDFelement Pro

Open PDFelement Pro, click on "Open" to choose the PDF file you want to convert to InDesign.

Step 3. Edit PDF Files

Click the "Text" icon; then a toolbar will show in the top window, select a text field on your PDF file, then you can choose to change the text font, font style font size, font color, and more.

You can also click "Image" to add images, rotate images, crop images, and so on according to your needs.

Step 4. Save PDF After Editing

Click "File" > "Save" to save PDF files after finishing all editing work. Alternatively, you can press "Command + S" to save your editing work.

Step 5. Convert PDF to InDesign Supported Files

After finishing editing PDF files, you can convert PDF to InDesign supported files. Go to the "Tool" option, then choose "PDF Converter," and a pop window will show up. Drag and drop the PDF file into this window, then choose "To Image" and select the converted format like TIFF, GIF, and JPEG. Click the "Apply" button then you can get the converted file. Moreover, you can also convert PDF to Word on Mac easily.

Method 2. Convert PDF to InDesign Using PDF2DTP

PDF2DTP is a plugin which can help convert PDF to INDD (InDesign) easily and is compatible with InDesign CC 2020, InDesign CC 2019, InDesign CC 2018, InDesign CC 2017, InDesign CC 2015, InDesign CC 2014, CC, and InDesign CS6, on macOS. Once installed, a new item appears in the menu of InDesign. Open InDesign, choosing "Markzware" > "PDF2DTP" > "Convert PDF..." and choose the document you want to convert to InDesign, click the "Open" button. Then, the PDF is converted to InDesign easily.

Price: $199/Year.

Operating System: Mac only.

Download Now >>

Method 3. Convert PDF to InDesign Using PDF2ID

PDF2ID is created by Recosoft, and it supports exporting PDF to InDesign, convert XPS files to InDesign, and convert Illustrator to InDesign. It can also support batch convert PDF to InDesign files. You only need to download PDF2ID, open InDeisgin after downloading PDF2ID.

Choose "Recosoft" > "PDF2ID-Convert PDF/XPS File...". Select and open the PDF file you need to convert to InDesign.You can customize your options for the output InDesign files, then click "OK" to start to convert PDF to InDesign.

Price: €199/year

Operating System: Mac.

Download Now >>

Method 4. Directly Import PDF to InDesign

Many users may need to place PDF content within their InDesign document but not necessarily convert it. They may place an existing PDF file in InDesign.

Open InDesign, go to "File" > "Place" tool. Use the Place tool to specify the pages you want to import from a multipage PDF or Illustrator file. You could find more details in how to open a PDF in InDesign without hassle>>

Tips: InDesign Supported File Formats

InDesign has specific file formats that it can work with. InDesign is compatible with:

PDF;

EPUB;

JPEG;

PNG;

ESP;

HTML;

XHTML.

The InDesign software is also compatible with QuarkXPress (xqx) and QuarkXPress Passport (xqx). However, it can import files in other formats to place images and graphics in the file. InDesign can import files including .PDF; .JPEG; .BMP; .DOCX; .GIF; and .MOV, among others. There are also various export file formats to choose from, so you can save your work in the specific file type that you want.

More Tips about PDF vs. InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a great program to use for many types of formats and documents. Using this software, you can create beautiful and unique brochures, letterheads, newsletters, business advertisements, and even books. When using InDesign, the output is usually saved in PDF format. The PDF format preserves the original layout and secures the file, making it easy to share. However, once the project is saved in PDF format, it cannot be easy to edit in InDesign if necessary. While this is very beneficial, editing a PDF is the one task that can be a challenge, and it is pretty much impossible to do in InDesign. You’ll need a PDF editing program.

Make It Look Like a Book in the Acrobat PDF

Make It Look Like a Book in the Acrobat PDF

Editor’s note: Since this post was first published in 2009, Adobe has added the Publish Online feature to InDesign, which could be an improvement on this client proof workflow for some designers. New information below also includes links to other Creative Pro posts about this feature.

Sandra wrote:

With book documents, chapters usually start on a right page. If I want to make a pdf, the spread option does not work for the last page from one document and the first page from the next document. I get single pages for these two. (This is not for final print, but only to show clients what their pages look like.)

Making a PDF of a book actually look like a book isn’t as straightforward as you might hope. It is tempting to turn on the Spreads checkbox (in the Export PDF dialog box) in order to show what the book will look like, but I encourage you not to.

First of all, as you found out, InDesign cannot merge the two pages (last page of one chapter and the first page of the next) together into a single spread. But second, all you’re really doing is telling InDesign to pretend that the whole spread is a single page — and that the document is made up of single-sided pages. Of course, you’d also need to draw your own line in the document to show where the spine is… Blech.

Instead, give this job to Acrobat.

After opening the PDF in Acrobat, you can adjust the view (View > Page Display) to show the spreads. Make sure the Show Cover Page During Two-Up is selected, too, or else page 1 will become the left-hand part of a two-page spread.

But you don’t want to have to tell your client to do this. So open File > Properties (Command/Ctrl-D) and, in the Initial View tab, set the Page Layout to “Two-Up (Cover Page).”

(You might be tempted to click a check box underneath that menu which says, “Open in Full Screen Mode.” Don’t! If you do, your work will display in Acrobat without any of the user interface. It also will display as single pages, all other instructions to the contrary.)

You can set up a PDF Preset to directly export PDFs for your clients that will automatically have this attribute. Go to File > Adobe PDF Presets … > Define. In Layout (in the Viewing section), select Two-Up Continuous (Cover Page). (You can also use this preset in Publish Online. We’ll get to that.)

Then click OK and save the document. That way, when you client opens it, it will open just the way you intended—if they’re using Acrobat or Acrobat Reader.

If your client is using another PDF viewer—at least the programs that come preinstalled on today’s operating systems—it probably won’t read the Initial View tag properly. If that’s the case, you will need to figure out the instructions for setting the reader for two-up pages.

If your client is using the MacOS Preview application, they will need to select View > Two Pages. Preview presumes the file starts on a recto (right-hand) page.

If your client is using Microsoft Edge in Windows, they will need to navigate to the Page View icon in the toolbar. Once they select Two Page to view spreads, an option emerges that will let them see the cover page starting on the right.

Publish Online might be better!

Since this post was originally published in 2009, Adobe has introduced Publish Online as a service along with a license to InDesign. For some designers, this option will give you more control over how a client will view your work and will actually provide a better solution for this problem.

Publish Online works only with single files, so if you are using the Book feature, there’s no good way to present the whole project. It does automatically start odd page numbers on the right hand page, and if your file uses a Section Start to force the document to start on a left-hand, even-numbered page, that works as expected, too.

To present your document in this manner, go to File > Publish Online…. Under Export As, select Spread.

If you want your client to be able to download a PDF that will read as spreads in Acrobat Reader, click to the Advanced tab and under Download PDF Settings, select your special preset.

For more on Publish Online, check out these Creative Pro posts: