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cheluto2
Participating Frequently
December 4, 2009
Question

Newbie: How to use InDesign with ASP.Net site?

  • December 4, 2009
  • 2 replies
  • 1644 views

***Sorry for the double-post.  I posted this in the InDesign Server section, too.  Not sure if it belongs here, instead, so here it goes.

I'm a total newbie with InDesign, and have been tasked with developing a sample ASP.Net mini app to figure out if we can use InDesign to replace Quark in an existing site.  Here are the details, and I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction to get this going.


I will have InDesign templates available with text and image placeholders (can be one or many of each).

I need to create an ASP.Net web application where:

- Users can select one of the available templates

- Enter their own text to plug into the text placeholders

- Upload their own images to plug into the image placeholders

- Preview the resulting document on the screen

- Click a button to generate a PDF version of this document and view/save it.


It sounds simple, and I'm sure it is, but I can't find detailed information on how to do it and, since I'm completely unfamiliar with InDesign, I'm a little lost.  I know ASP.Net, I just don't know where to start to use InDesign Server (or client, I don't know) from .Net code.


Any help with this would be greatly appreciated and rewarded.


Thanks in advance!!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

C
cheluto2Author
Participating Frequently
December 10, 2009

Points well taken.  It seems like it's not an easy task to learn to develop with InDesign or get enough support to do so in a relatively short time.  Considering this, we'll probably end up using a solution provider to get this project up and running until we acquire some knowledge in-house.

Thanks for your replies.

C
cheluto2Author
Participating Frequently
December 5, 2009

Anybody? Please? Any help would be much appreciated.

Robert at ID-Tasker
Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
December 6, 2009

Anybody? Please? Any help would be much appreciated.

It would be easier for you if you create VBScript or JavaScript "on the fly" (in .Net as text file) and call it from system shell (VBScript) or from InDesign (VBScript and JavaScript) - sorry, but I don't have .Net so I can't give you examples - you need to search this forum - there should be something.

robin

www.adobescripts.co.uk

C
cheluto2Author
Participating Frequently
December 7, 2009

Robert-Tkaczyk wrote:

Anybody? Please? Any help would be much appreciated.

It would be easier for you if you create VBScript or JavaScript "on the fly" (in .Net as text file) and call it from system shell (VBScript) or from InDesign (VBScript and JavaScript) - sorry, but I don't have .Net so I can't give you examples - you need to search this forum - there should be something.

robin

www.adobescripts.co.uk

Thanks for the reply.

I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for by searching thesite, unfortunately.  I am trying to figure out if there's a way to "instantiate" ID Server from ASP.Net code on the IIS web server so that I can populate an ID template and render it as PDF programmatically so the web browser client can view/download it.  If I generate VBScript or JavaScript, that would need to run on the client or on the server on another process/thread, I think, so it probably wouldn't work.  I would think it's a common task to do, so I'm hoping someone has done it and can guide me.

If anybody else has ideas, they would be welcome.


Thanks!

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