InDesign

Paste or drag graphics

When you copy and paste or drag a graphic into an InDesign document, some attributes of the original object may be lost, depending on the limitations of the operating system and the range of data types the other application makes available for transfer, and the InDesign Clipboard preferences. Pasting or dragging Illustrator graphics lets you select and edit paths within the graphic.

Copying and pasting or dragging between two InDesign documents, or within a single document, however, preserves all of the graphics attributes that were imported or applied. For example, if you copy a graphic from one InDesign document and paste it into another, the new copy will be an exact duplicate of the original, even including the original’s link information, so that you can update the graphic when the file on disk changes.

Copy and paste graphics

When copying and pasting a graphic from another document into an InDesign document, InDesign does not create a link to the graphic in the Links panel. The graphic may be converted by the system clipboard during the transfer, so both image quality and print quality may be lower in InDesign than in the graphic’s original application.

  1. In InDesign or another program, select the original graphic, and choose Edit > Copy.
  2. Switch to an InDesign document window, and choose Edit > Paste.

Drag and drop graphics

The drag-and-drop method works like the Place command, with images appearing in the Links panel after they’re imported. You cannot set import options for the files you drag and drop; however, you can drag and drop multiple files at once (the files are loaded in the graphics icon when you drag and drop more than one).

Select a graphic from Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Bridge, Explorer (Windows), the Finder (Mac OS), or your desktop, and drag it into InDesign. The image must be in a format that InDesign can import.

After dragging and dropping a file from any location other than Illustrator, it appears in the Links panel in InDesign. Using the Links panel, you can control versions and update as necessary.

  1. Select the original graphic.
  2. Drag the graphic into an open InDesign document window.
Note: In Windows, if you try to drag an item from an application that does not support drag and drop, the pointer displays the Prohibited icon.
To cancel dragging a graphic, drop the graphic onto any panel title bar or the document title bar.