Miriam 

If yo work with InDesign you should only use PDF files for reference.  Always translate the IDML and always return a translated IDML.

Hello Paul,

I do not have InDesign, just the client uses it. So how can I convert the PDF file from the client to an IDML file, please?

Does something like this suffice? www.pdffiller.com/.../convert-pdf-to-idml-online.htm

Hi  Miriam,

Please ask your customer to provide the original InDesign file. He should export it into an IDML file. INDD files cannot be processed in Studio.

Hi, but I do not have InDesign (the programme). And as written, I read here about many cases of bad experience with opening the translated IDML file back in InDesign (crashing, changed formatting).

If I do not want to ask the client again, can I convert the pdf file from them to IDML myself with this, for example? www.pdffiller.com/.../convert-pdf-to-idml-online.htm

Hi, as long as you copy over all the existing tags to your target segments, you should be fine. I would never use a pdf file directly for translation but convert it to Word first (or let Studio, Adobe Acrobat or Abbyy Finereader do that for me). Then, the Word file needs to be "cleaned up" (multiple spaces, formatting, etc), which can be very time consuming. So, I would definitely recommend you get back to your customer and ask him for the IDML file. It will save you a lot of time and pain.

Hi, as long as you copy over all the existing tags to your target segments, you should be fine. I would never use a pdf file directly for translation but convert it to Word first (or let Studio, Adobe Acrobat or Abbyy Finereader do that for me). Then, the Word file needs to be "cleaned up" (multiple spaces, formatting, etc), which can be very time consuming. So, I would definitely recommend you get back to your customer and ask him for the IDML file. It will save you a lot of time and pain.