From Adobe InDesign CS2 to InDesign CS5, the ability to work with XML content has been built into every version of InDesign. Some of the useful applications are importing database content into InDesign to create catalog pages, exporting XML that will be useful for subsequent publishing processes, and building chunks of content that can be reused in multiple publications.
In this Short Cut, we’ll play with the contents of a college course catalog and see how we can use XML for course descriptions, tables, and other content. Underlying principles of XML structure, DTDs, and the InDesign namespace will help you develop your own XML processes. We’ll touch briefly on using InDesign to “skin” XML content, exporting as XHTML, InCopy, and the IDML package. The Advanced Topics section gives tips on using XSLT to manipulate XML in conjunction with InDesign.
Dorothy Hoskins is an XML evangelist, always learning new things to help her play with XML (like podcasting and AJAXian web development), but her true love is the development of processes that tie together various applications for publishing XML to both print and web.
From her initial career as a graphic artist and designer/illustrator, she has been lead far afield by her interests in holography, interactive multimedia and all things XML. Besides creating server-side XSLT for a global corporation's website, she has created publishing workflows for importing database-derived XML into Adobe's FrameMaker and InDesign CS2 products. She has presented numerous times on XML and XSL for the Society for Technical Communication and SUNY/Higher Ed groups.
She resides with her family in western New York, where she finds the weather a refreshing change from her native Florida.
