Importing Multiple XML Documents

[Jason_Shah@adobeforums.com]

Hi, I am attempting to lay out a book for our Non-profit organization. The publication will be a print version of the multiple topics posted on our website. These topics are in XML format. How do I import these multiple XML documents into Adobe InDesign in a consistent, manageable way? There are a total of approximately 400 topics, each about 500-1000 words long. Embedded within the XML are page markup tags such as foreign-lang which indicate a word is from a foreign language and thus should be italicized. It also has tags like BR to mark line breaks between paragraphs and lists.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks,

Jason

[pjredman@adobeforums.com]

Jason,

InDesign doesn't offer any automation for multiple-XML file import via the GUI. You would need to use scripting to automate the XML file import process. InDesign does include tools for mapping XML tags to styles so you may be able to convert some of the markup as you describe above to styles. Again, scripting would be helpful in this area.

Phil Redman

[Jason_Shah@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Phil,

I was able to accomplish the majority of what I was trying to do with an XSLT and InDesign's own tagged text format. There are some manual elements to the approach and it is not easily re-purposeable, but I think it will fit the current need.

Thanks for your help,

Jason