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How-to guide

How to map Google Docs headings to InDesign paragraph styles

Writers mark headings with Google Docs’ Heading 1, Heading 2 and Normal text. Map those to your own paragraph styles once, and new copy lands in InDesign already structured.

Updated 3 min read

How mapping works

Google Docs gives every paragraph a named style: Title, Subtitle, Heading 1 to Heading 6, or Normal text. DriveSync reads that name and applies the InDesign paragraph style you’ve chosen for it.

Mapping applies only to paragraphs the Doc adds. Paragraphs already in your layout are never restyled, whatever the mapping says. It’s how new copy arrives styled — a new frame on its first sync, or paragraphs a writer adds later — not a way to restyle pages you’ve already set.

Set up the mapping

  1. Open the InDesign document that contains your paragraph styles.
  2. On the DriveSync Connected tab, press Import Options… and open Paragraph.
  3. Under Style mapping, choose one of your paragraph styles next to each Google style you use — for example HEADING_1 to Article Head, HEADING_2 to Section Head and NORMAL_TEXT to Body Copy.
  4. Set Style for paragraphs the Doc adds.This is the fallback for any paragraph whose Google style you haven’t mapped. Out of the box it’s [Basic Paragraph].
  5. Close the dialog and sync.

No styles yet? Start with DriveSync’s

Press Create DriveSync styles and map them. DriveSync adds a plain set of paragraph styles — DriveSync Title, DriveSync Heading 1 to 3 and DriveSync Body — to the document and maps the Doc’s headings onto them, so a new frame arrives structured rather than as one flat block. Restyle them to suit your design. Any existing styles with the same names are left alone.

Bold and italic in new text

By default DriveSync brings in the words, not the writer’s character formatting. To keep the Doc’s bold and italic on text DriveSync adds, turn on Keep the Doc’s bold and italic on text DriveSync adds. Like mapping, it never touches text that’s already in your layout.

One mapping per template

If you design more than one publication, each template probably names its styles differently. Save each setup as a preset: on the Settings tab under Presets, type a name and press Save. When you switch templates, choose the preset and press Apply.

Help the mapping by writing with styles

Mapping follows the paragraph style name in Google Docs, not how the text looks. A line a writer has made large and bold by hand is still Normal text as far as Google Docs is concerned, so it arrives as body copy.

  • Ask writers to set headings from the style menu in the Google Docs toolbar — the one that shows “Normal text” — or from Format Paragraph styles.
  • Stick to the heading levels you’ve mapped. An unmapped level falls back to the style for paragraphs the Doc adds.

Mapping works by style name only. DriveSync doesn’t map paragraphs by their indent, size or alignment.

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