Dorothy J. Hoskins - XML and InDesign

From Adobe InDesign CS2 to InDesign CS6, the ability to work with XML content has been built into every version of InDesign. Some of the useful applications are importing database content into InDesign to create catalog pages, exporting XML that will be useful for subsequent publishing processes, and building chunks of content that can be reused in multiple publications. XML is used widely with digital-first publishing workflows.

In this book, well play with the contents of a college course catalog and youll learn how you can use XML for course descriptions, tables, and other content. Underlying principles of XML structure, DTDs, and the InDesign namespace will help you develop your own XML processes. Ill touch briefly on using InDesign to skin XML content, exporting as XHTML, InCopy, and the IDML package. includes tips on using XSLT to manipulate XML in conjunction with InDesign.

In this book, I refer to InDesign CS6, and previous versions of the program back to CS3, generically as InDesign CS. When there are important differences in one versions XML features, I indicate for which version the screenshot or other information applies. Many features remain the same from one version to another. Generally, the screenshots are taken from InDesign CS6 for new content and CS5 for older content. I assume that you already know quite a bit about InDesign typographic styles and layout features because you want to use InDesign to do something with XML. In particular, I assume that you understand the role that paragraph and character styles play in consistent typography throughout an InDesign document or set of documents in the same InDesign template. (If you are new to these concepts, please refer to Adobes InDesign CS built-in HelpStyles or Peachpit Presss Real World Adobe InDesign CS6 .)

The power that XML brings to the InDesign world is summed up in the word interoperability , which means that the same content in XML format can be used in multiple applications or processesand not solely inside InDesign. XML is typically used for creating HTML for websites, but it can also be used to create rich text, PDF, or plain text files. XML does not inherently have presentation styles: the appearance of an XML file depends upon the way in which it is formatted and used by applications. The main purpose of XML is to provide a reliable structure of content so that it can be processed consistently once an application has rules for presenting the structure visually. (For more information on XML, see OReillys XML in a Nutshell , 3rd ed.)

For example, in a course catalog, there might be information that resides in a database in a set of tables (course descriptions, programs of study, faculty and staff directory, etc.). The information in the tables is the content; the way that it is organized in table columns, rows, and cells is its structure. If we save the data as XML, it becomes the structured content that we need, but now it is no longer bound to the database application. Its ready to use and reuse in other applications, including InDesign CS6.