Publishing Workflow for InDesign Import/Export of XML Creating a Workflow Between Databases and Publishing Applications Dorothy J. Hoskins President, Textenergy LLC

Contents What’s XML Got to Do with It? The Problem Overview Current State Desired State Proposed XML Workflow Development Successes Challenges

What’s XML Got to Do with It? Like HTML, the “language” used to create web pages, XML is a “markup language” used to identify pieces of text. While HTML describes a limited set of structural elements such as the <h1> for a heading, <p> for paragraph, etc., XML tags can be used to describe any information structure. XML elements usually have names that make sense to people who work with the information, so XML is semantically rich markup. XML can be exchanged in various software applications and XML chunks can be reused across sets of information, such as web pages, Help files and printed documents. (For more information on XML, see the end of this presentation.)

XML for Course Catalogs Often, there are standards for XML that are used to describe information types used by large groups of people around the world. There are standards for financial information and business transactions, technical manuals and software interface designs, news and many more. There is no existing standard for course catalog information. The closest definition will be the tables and column heads of databases that hold the course information. Within an institution, home-grown XML structure can be used. If interchanging XML information with other institutions, some standards need to be developed.

Overview: The Workflow Problem The scenario: A college has 2 major sources of the content used in the course catalog: a database and InDesign documents. They would like to reduce the time and effort of publishing the content in the database that appears within the InDesign catalog. Simultaneously, they want to reduce the chance of discrepancies between the two sets of content. Knowing that XML can be imported into InDesign, they decided to try to export XML from the database.

Where XML Fits In The database contains information that can be extracted as a set of XML elements. The publishing application, InDesign, is capable of accepting XML as an import format. InDesign can also be used to mark up text as XML and export it. Thus XML can become a “medium of exchange” for information between the database team and the publishing team. Next we’ll consider what the production problems were and how XML could help solve them.

Overview: Workflow State at Start Before using XML, there was no way to get the content from the database into InDesign documents without time-consuming operations. When the publishing department got the content from the database, it came as a large .txt file that required extensive manual markup to get it formatted correctly in InDesign. Revisions also came as .txt or directly from reviewers as Word snippets, requiring cut & paste and also manual markup.

Overview: Desired Workflow What the college wanted to achieve: The database content would be exported as XML; then File -> Import would be used to get the XML content into InDesign. When the XML files were imported, they would be formatted correctly with paragraph and character styles in InDesign. Revisions could come as XML files also, which would be integrated into the main XML import. Some text in InDesign would be marked up as XML and exported to create new database tables.

Proposed XML Workflow In more detail, we would: Create content in Lotus Notes database tables for course descriptions and programs of study. Export these types of content as XML from the database, using its XML export capabilities. Take sample XML and import into InDesign to create placeholder elements and apply paragraph styles (to make each piece of content look as it should in print). Then import the entire XML into InDesign. Adjust layout in InDesign (column breaks, etc.).

Proposed XML Workflow continued Develop a new approval/revision process: Create review materials and circulate to reviewers (PDF of InDesign doc). Input revisions into database tables. (The database is to be the “single source” for all course descriptions and programs of study content.) Export revisions as XML. Import XML to make revisions in InDesign. Create XML export from InDesign to load some content into the database (bidirectional flow).

Tasks to Develop XML Workflow Identify the content types (course descriptions, programs of study) and their components (credit hours, prerequisites, course titles, descriptions, etc.) in the database. Model the content as XML elements. Research the InDesign paragraph and character styles to see how to match to the XML elements. Develop XML output from the database. Test XML content and refine paragraph styles. Import XML and verify results.

Development of XML Workflow People and job functions involved: Database developer: to create XML output from data tables and import XML created in InDesign XML consultant: to develop the XML import and export to/from InDesign Print publishing manager and print production specialist: to provide input on the InDesign requirements, test and verify the import process Project manager: to track progress against goals and schedule Web publisher: to provide input on web-related issues regarding the database

Using Adobe InDesign for XML Publishing Steps and Screenshots

XML in Adobe InDesign CS2 Paragraph and character styles were assigned to sample XML elements (via simple select-and-click).

XML in InDesign CS2 InDesign uses the Structure pane for XML import (left side of the layout for the page). This document already had its paragraph and character styles defined by the publications team.

XML in InDesign CS2 XML file imported into InDesign. The XML file was placed in a text frame. It flowed from frame to frame like other text. Multiple XML files can be in multiple text frames.

XML in InDesign CS2 Tables created with XML import also. Table import required special XML structures that map to table cells. Imported XML files may be linked to get updates, like other imported files (text or graphics)

XML in InDesign CS2 Imported XML can be viewed in the Structure pane in the InDesign file. Clicking on the + and - symbols in the Structure view will expand and contract the XML.

XML in InDesign CS2 InDesign has a mapping feature to assign a paragraph style to all XML elements of a given name. If you name XML elements exactly as your paragraph styles are named, (or vice versa) the process is very simple. XML element names cannot contain spaces or certain reserved characters like “&”.

XML in InDesign CS2 InDesign has a Story Editor view that makes it easier to edit text within XML elements. Color coding helps identify the different XML element types.

Successes with XML In a catalog of about 300 pages, over 130 pages are now created with XML import. This has reduced the manual markup process, speeding processes dramatically. Course descriptions flow into 70+ pages from one XML database output file. Programs of study flow into 20 pages from another database export (but require extra XML processing before import) Program requirements XML flows over 10 pages of 4-column table layout.

Challenges in Using XML The import process gets all the XML elements to format uniformly. However, there are “known issues” such as: Importing takes a few minutes and requires a computer with a lot of horsepower. Crashes are more likely than with non-XML files. Tables are less stable than other layout elements. Cleanup after import is needed to apply column or line breaks, kerning overrides and other copyfitting. Markup overrides do not affect the XML.

Challenges in Using XML continued Overrides have to be redone if the source XML file is reimported. In some cases, special files called “transforms” were required to make the database XML file into a structure that works well inside InDesign. Writing the transforms (XSLT files) required in-depth understanding of the information and XML processes. Marking up text as XML to export it from InDesign is painstaking work the first time it’s done.

For more ideas about XML for catalog publishing Contact Textenergy LLC www.textenergy.com dhoskins@textenergy.com 585 750-3118