Importing XML into InDesign

Question

I am trying to create a template for XML data using InDesign. Basic Structure is:

<page>
<section1>
<product><title></title></product>
<product><title></title></product>
...
</section1>
<section2>
....

Each section has a variable number of products. Each template will be created with the correct number of sections (although repeating sections with child products would also work).

Is this scenario supported using the Import XML functionality? Can anyone point to a tutorial showing how to set this up?

I have tried some examples, but cannot get InDesign to even repeat the products after adding placeholders and re-importing the file as all tutorials suggest..

Thanks

Answer 1

A solution by batch processing (a lot of articles)

... The only way that I can use today (2013) is this (semi-automatic) procedure:

1. [manual, prepare] Check my InDesign "template" file, that will be used as "importer": styles with legible names must by defined. They are all visible (listed) in a HTML+CSS exporting.
2. [manual, prepare] Adapt a XSLT to convert convert your XML files to XHTML ones, expressing all relevant styles with the attribute class and consistent (with item 1) class names;
3. [automatic, batch processing] Convert automatically all XML to XHTML by the XSLT;
4. [automatic, batch processing] Convert automatically all XHTML files to DOC, using Python OpenDocument Converter.
5. [InDesign assisted, final processing] Import each DOC from a "template" (item 1) file clone at InDesign. The classes (item 2) will be automatically transformed by InDesign styles.

This procedure is better than IDML because use directaly the XHTML as content source for InDesign. It is not perfect for all applications, but avoids use of non-standard conversion by IDML, avoid to learn IDML, avoid IDML limitations, and avoids risks of IDML bugs... So, I think is faster than try and try IDML procedures.

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Another procedure — better, because it allows to express things like footnotes — is to prepare a direct convertion from XML to MS-Word, by a XSLT that transforms XML into DOCX or RFT... Do you have a link or clue for this kind of procedure?

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MANIFEST

Adobe products are "closed" for universal standards (!) importation, like to import XHTML.

How to PROTEST against Adobe?!

The biggest problem arises when we have many files...

Answer 2

Once you've converted your XML to HTML or DocBook XML, you can use Pandoc to get it into InDesign.

Pandoc has lots of importers (for example from HTML or DocBook XML) and can now export to Adobe InCopy's ICML format. The resulting file can then be placed in InDesign like any other external dependency.

pandoc --standalone -t ICML -o output.icml input.html