When localizing catalogs, product manuals, or magazines into multiple languages, translation teams often face a difficult divide: translators do not use InDesign, while layout designers may not know the target language.
If designers manually copy text from an INDD file into Word or Excel for translators, then paste each translated segment back afterward, the process is labor-intensive and prone to critical errors such as lost formatting, missing text, and text pasted into the wrong location. Traditional CAT tools such as Trados or memoQ can also create challenges when processing IDML files, especially when translated content is reimported into right-to-left layout languages and causes RTL alignment or overset text issues.
This article explains how to use SimplifyAI to export InDesign (INDD) content to bilingual Excel, send it to translators or a CAT tool, and reimport the completed translation into the layout file with formatting and styles preserved where possible.
The problems with manual copy and paste
Many growing global businesses and small translation agencies still use a manual approach for InDesign files:
- It takes too long: Extracting text from a 50-page product catalog alone can take several hours.
- Formatting is easily lost: If one word in a paragraph is bold or red, that rich-text formatting can disappear after copying content into Excel. When the translation is pasted back into InDesign, the designer must manually recreate the styling.
- Text can be missed: Content on master pages, in complex tables, or within embedded charts can be easy to overlook.
The approach: structured extraction with formatting tags
SimplifyAI does more than perform simple OCR or copy whole paragraphs. It reads text from the layout file in the cloud and creates protective tags for special formatting.
Step 1: Upload the source file and extract text automatically
You do not need InDesign installed on your computer. Upload your .indd or .idml file directly to the SimplifyAI workspace. The system analyzes the document structure and extracts translatable text from body copy, headings, footers, and other text elements where possible.
Step 2: Export a structured bilingual Excel file (or XLIFF)
After processing, you can choose to translate with AI directly or download a bilingual Excel file.
The exported Excel file contains the source text and an empty translation column. Special formatting in the source text, such as a bold word, is automatically represented by protective markers that remain associated with the relevant text in the source column.
Step 3: Send the Excel file to translators
Translators or translation agencies can work in the Excel file as usual. When a term includes protective markers, they only need to place the complete marker pair around the corresponding translated word—for example, keeping the markers around the translated equivalent of “Red Button.”
Translators do not need to manage fonts, font sizes, or colors. They only need to ensure that the markers remain paired correctly in the translation.
Step 4: Import the translation and generate a previewable file
Once the translation is complete, import the filled-in Excel file back into the corresponding SimplifyAI project.
SimplifyAI writes the translated text back into its original InDesign text frames and uses the protective tags to restore applicable bold and red formatting. The system also generates a PDF for preview and provides a new .indd or .idml source file for download.
Advanced option: automatic reflow for overset text
Because languages vary in length—for example, German or Russian translations from English can be more than 30% longer—reimporting text into InDesign can often produce overset text ("Text Overset," commonly recognized as the red plus sign warning).
During file reconstruction, SimplifyAI applies automatic reflow. When text does not fit within its original text frame, the system can adjust character spacing, line spacing, or font size to reduce overset text where possible, helping prepress designers spend less time on layout revisions.
Conclusion
Whether you are an in-house marketing team or a language service provider (LSP), a workflow based on cloud processing, bilingual Excel collaboration, and automated write-back can reduce the time and error risk associated with copy-paste translation and manual reformatting.
Upload your first InDesign file to the SimplifyAI workspace to try an automated layout-preserving translation workflow without manual copy and paste.