importing xml via xsl for rich text formating

Report · Jul 02, 2009

Hi everyone. I've been looking for days now about a way to export the content of a website as XML and import it then into InDesign, involving some basic text formatting and maybe links, lists and tables. Getting a XML version of a website isn't actually the problem. But including some InDesign readable formatting structure caused me some headache.

First of all, I used InDesign from CS2 and read a lot about INX structure, XML Namespaces and Tagged Text. None of what I did seemed to result in any acceptable or properly working import. So I've read about CS3 having a new feature of applying XSL Stylesheets when importing a XML file and finally downloaded a trial version to test this out. Problem is, I can't find any helpful documentation on how to use this feature right. Neither in the web nor in your forums.

So how does a XSL file have to look like in order to import XML with some basic formatting?

Let's say the XML looks like this, very simple:

] <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
] <?xsl-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="style.xsl"?>

] <root>
] <text>
] <bold>This text is bold</bold> and <italic>this seems to be italic</italic>.
] </text>
] <underline>I'm under the line</underline>
] </root>

How does my XSLT code in "style.xsl" have to look like in order to tell InDesign that the content of <bold> has to be bold, the one of <italic> italic and leaving <underline> underlined?

Report · Jul 03, 2009

Hi,

Actually the XSLT file only transforms your XML data into another format. In order for InDesign to use that transformed data, it must in some structure that InDesign can understand.

Your options would be:

Create an InDesign template wherein the XML data you wish to import is mapped to InDesign styles (paragraph/character styles). Then upon importing your XML data (even without processing it via XSLT) you can apply text formatting to the imported data. Check this for details:

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting/pdfs/indesign_and_xml_...

Or, you can create an XSLT that would transform your original data so that you have inserted attributes in Adobe InDesign namespace that dictate what style a particular element will use for your content. The details about this can also be read in the document above.

Hope this helps,

-- Jeff