XML-import in InDesign

[QuadBlade@adobeforums.com]

Hi!
I am software developer for visual basic in a company producing disposition software for theatres. One of our customers requested some database content to be exported to a format, InDesign is able to read.

After i read some documentation about InDesign, i decided to choose XML as my format of choice. Is there any point that militates against that choice?

The data to be imported into InDesign belongs to a report which shows, which actors play in a performances at night. So this report has to be done every day for the evening performance. The report is then printed and put into a leaflet all theatre guest get a the entrance.

So, now to my question. I have some data occuring once (e.g. title of the play, date, composer) and some data occuring multiple times (first and last name of the numerous actors/actresses, names of their roles, staff with their functions, etc.).

I have already built a template in ID, with text and images boxes all around, being able to store all the importet values. The data which i want to be displayed together (first and last name) is grouped under a tag called "name" so that i can assign this "name" tag to a text box.

This works already, the central window is displaying the data. But how can i process the reocurring data so that i get one line for each dataset? The line has to look like "first name, last name, role" where first and last name are right-aligned and role is left-aligned, both meeting in the middle. Hmm, i hope, i have cleary stated, what my problem is..

It has to look like this:




................DATE-OF-PLAY..............
...............TITLE-OF-PLAYY.............
..............NAME OF COMPOSER............
..........................................
* ..........NAME NO1 | ROLE NO1..........
* ..AND.NOW NAME NO2 | AND NOW ROLE NO2..
* ......NOW NAME NO3 | NOW ROLE NO3......
* ....LAST NAME HERE | LAST ROLE HERE....

..........................................
.................OTHER TEXT...............
..........................................

* difficult lines


Can anyone plz help with this problem?

Kind regards
QuadBlade

[QuadBlade@adobeforums.com]

Hmm, thats not much response.. :-/

No InDesign-Crack who can help me with that problem?
Any hint is greatly appreciated :-)

[Greg_Gaspard@adobeforums.com]

Seems to me the best way to do this is:

In your XML file, create a tag called "Cast". Create a child tag within "Cast" called "Actor" and one called "Role". Assign the tags to the appropriate elements. Save your XML file for use as a tag template in ID.

In your ID template, create a paragraph style with two tab stops: a right aligned stop for the actor name and a left aligned stop for the role. Make the center point between the tab stops the center of the text frame. Apply all other text formatting in this Paragraph Style. Name this style "Cast". Now, in your template, set dummy text (John Doe : John Smith) in the "Cast" style with one tab character before "John Doe" and one before "John Smith".

Open your "Tags" pallete in ID and select "Import Tags" from the flyout menu. Select the XML tag template you saved earlier. Now, you should have the "Cast", "Actor", and "Role" tags available. In the "Tags" pallete, select "Map Styles to Tags" from the flyout menu. Click on the "Map By Name" button to assign the styled text to the appropriate tags. Using the text tool, select the words "John Doe" (not the tab character). Click on "Actor" in the Tags pallete to assign that text to the "Actor" tag. Repeat with the "Role" text, assigning "John Smith" to the "Role" tag. Save as an ID template. Now, when you open the ID template and import XML, your dummy text should be replaced with the appropriately tagged text from your XML file.

(Caveat: this is mainly theoretical from my viewpoint, since I haven't actually tried the importing process :). I have done the tagging, though. You might need to repeat the dummy text into several lines, because I'm not sure if ID will automatically add lines as needed. Experimentation may be in order.)

[Jan_Tosovsky@adobeforums.com]

Where are data stored? In database or in .xml? If in database, I would skip .xml export (via VB) and replace it by export into Tagged Text. Try to export some text from ID into this format and then have a look at its source. There is possibility to specify paragraph styles, formating and many other things. Generated file can be in next step imported into text frame. Tag specification you can find in TaggedText.pdf file on installation CD.
If data are stored in .xml, they could be transformed into tagged format by proper XSLT transform template.

[theano_mouratides@adobeforums.com]

Please report on how this works for you! After working with XML import and tag-to-style mapping in InDesign for over a year now, I still have numerous issues, although I'm still trying. (The payoffs for getting it working will be huge.) I have solicited and gotten help here on the Forums from time to time, but basically have concluded that although it "should work," nobody actually does this in a production environment.

Thanks,
Theano