Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML:

A Technical Reference
TABLE OF CONTENTS Adobe® ­InDesign® CS3 enables the design and production of professional page layouts.
1 Overview of XML syntax Built for demanding workflows, InDesign integrates smoothly with the Adobe tools you
2 Integrating XML into a publishing workflow use every day, streamlines repetitive tasks, reliably outputs pages, and offers powerful
4 XML tagging features in I­ nDesign features for creating richer, more complex documents. Additionally, InDesign CS3 has
10 Planning an XML workflow extensive XML and scripting capabilities to better support the varied needs of today’s
multichannel publishers.
11 Importing XML files
17 Formatting XML text content manually Combining the predictable structure of XML files with InDesign’s page layout capabili-
18 Formatting XML text using style mapping ties lets you automate design and production tasks. You can associate InDesign format-
18 Using Find/Change to format XML text
ting with XML content, so that when you import an XML file, content is automatically
laid out on your pages. If you lay out many documents that have similar formatting,
19 Formatting text using namespace attributes
in import and export
you can set up your design for the first document and then automate subsequent
publications.
23 Using anchored objects for repeating
elements XML also serves as a useful interchange format to move information among different
24 XML rules applications. For example, if you create content in InDesign that will be published in
27 Exporting XML other media (such as on the web), you can export the InDesign file as XML to reuse the
28 Using InDesign Interchange (INX) files in content.
XML workflows
Together, the powerful layout engine in InDesign and the inherent benefits of XML
28 Where to go from here
structures let you establish a publishing workflow that reduces production effort with-
29 Appendix A: XML syntax out compromising your design standards.
31 Appendix B: InDesign-to-XML
character mapping This white paper assumes an intermediate level of XML knowledge and provides de-
tailed technical information about XML support in ­InDesign CS3.

Overview of XML syntax

Extensible Markup Language, or XML, is a text-based file format managed by the
World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org). The Consortium describes XML as follows:
“Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is
also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on
the Web and elsewhere.” A basic XML file is readable, as shown in the following sample:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Article author="CJM" date="2008-07-17">
<Dateline>Anytown, Anywhere</Dateline>
<Title>Traffic is Worse than Ever</Title>
<Para>Complaints about traffic are on the rise. A recent survey shows
that commuting time is increasing.</Para>
...
</Article>

Like Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), XML uses angle brackets to indicate
markup tags (for example, <Article> or <Para>). HTML has a predefined set of tags;
in XML, you describe content more precisely by creating custom tags. The preceding
example uses descriptive tags, such as Article, to label the information.

For more details about XML syntax, see Appendix A on page 30.
Integrating XML into a publishing workflow
XML is widely used for data exchange, such as e-business transactions. For creative professionals, PDF versus XML
who mainly work with content, XML is also becoming a critical technology. XML provides some PDF and XML support the publishing workflow in
exciting new opportunities for your publishing workflow: different, but complementary, ways. PDF is designed
to preserve the exact appearance of a document
• Layout automation. When the content structure is predictable, you can automatically process from one medium to another. PDF documents can
be printed without reformatting. A PDF file may also
it to produce a consistent look and feel in your final output. For example, you can import
contain structured information, enabling it to adapt
XML into I­ nDesign and lay out documents automatically. You can also export content from to different display devices and to interact with XML
a database file to XML, and then use the XML file to produce the final content (for example, workflows. XML preserves the structure, but not the
to publish a directory). To ensure that content is organized consistently, you can define the appearance, of content, as well as metadata about
required structure using a document type definition (DTD) file. elements. XML is easy to edit and can be displayed
differently for different viewing media, making it an
• Reusing content. You can use XML as an intermediate format to exchange information between excellent choice when you need to share content that
otherwise incompatible applications. This process lets you reuse information without tedious will be edited or reprocessed into another output
format.
manual reformatting. XML provides extensive support for metadata, so you can provide
additional information about your document and about elements within the document.

The following sections provide more detail about how InDesign supports XML-based publishing.

Layout automation with ­InDesign

XML lets you set up workflows with layout automation. For example, you can create content
in an XML file, and then import the XML file into ­InDesign. Instead of applying formatting
paragraph by paragraph, you define the look and feel and associate XML tags with formatting.
To ensure that information in the InDesign file changes automatically whenever the XML file is
updated, you can create a link to the XML file in InDesign.

If the information you need to publish is stored in a database, you can export from the data-
base to XML, and then import the XML file into InDesign, where InDesign formats the content
automatically.
InDesign

<XML>
Database

XML-based database publishing with ­InDesign

When publishing from a database, you often have a structure pattern that needs to be laid out
identically from page to page. ­InDesign lets you define the page layout once, and then clone that
layout for additional information. You can set up your layout using sample content or a typical
set of information and then repeat that layout as many times as required for all of the content.
For details on cloning layouts and other XML import options, see Importing XML files on page 11.

XML file
Title Sample Upside Down Chocolate Cake
<Recipe>
Ingredients
<Category>Desserts</Category> Ingredients
• SampleIngredients • 1 cup Flour (all-purpose)
<Recipe_Title>Upside Down Chocolate
• SampleIngredients • 1 ¾ cup Sugar
Cake</Recipe_Title>
• SampleIngredients • 1 cup Brown sugar
<Ingredients>1 cup Flour (all-purpose) • SampleIngredients • 2 tsp. Cocoa
1 3/4 cup Sugar • SampleIngredients • 2 tsp. Baking powder
1 cup Brown sugar • SampleIngredients • 1 sq. semi-sweet Chocolate
2 tsp. Cocoa • SampleIngredients • 2 tbsp. Butter
2 tsp. Baking powder • ½ cup Milk
Instructions Sample. Instructions Sample. Instructions Sample In-
1 sq. semi-sweet Chocolate structions Sample. Instructions SampleInstructions SampleInstruc-
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
2 tbsp. Butter tions SampleInstructions SampleInstructions SampleInstructions Mix flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and baking powder and place in a Py-
1/2 cup Milk SampleInstructions SampleInstructions Sample rex dish. Melt 1 square chocolate with butter, and milk until thick.
1 tsp. Vanilla</Ingredients> While hot, add vanilla and then pour over first mixture. Bring 1
<Instructions>Mix flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, and cocoa to a
and baking powder and place in a Pyrex boil. Pour over mixture in Pyrex dish. Bake at 375° for 40 minutes.
dish. Melt 1 square chocolate with butter, Serve with whipped cream.

and milk until thick. While hot, add

vanilla and then pour over first mixture.
Bring 1 3/4 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup
brown sugar, and cocoa to a boil. Pour
over mixture in Pyrex dish. Bake at 375°
for 40 minutes. Serve with whipped
cream.</Instructions> Notes Notes
<Notes></Notes> Sample Sample
</Recipe>

XML file with repeating structured content Tagged InDesign layout Page design and formatting can be cloned automatically.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 2

E­ nforcing structure and organization
Using XML, you can spell out the rules for your documents and ensure that they are followed.
Consider the example of a cookbook. In a cookbook, each recipe needs to be organized con-
sistently—ingredients first, followed by instructions, notes, and perhaps a picture. If you have
multiple authors contributing recipes, you want to make sure that all recipes are organized the
same way. You can specify the required organization, and then validate a document to ensure
that it follows the required structure.

Use a DTD to validate the structure of your imported XML. On the left, the DTD identifies an error for you to
fix—the Notes element must occur before the Number_of_Servings element. On the right, the structure is valid.

Structure rules are stored in a Document Type Definition (DTD). The structure rules need not be
rigidly defined. For example, a DTD could declare that a recipe must have pictures or a bulleted
list, but it can also specify that these items are optional. With InDesign, an imported XML file
can specify the DTD, or you can load it into a document separately. Once you have associated
a DTD with XML content, you can validate the content. Alternatively, you could use an XML
generation and editing application to do this validation separately from InDesign. In addition,
InDesign does not require you to use a DTD, so you can also work without validating.

Reusing content from ­InDesign

Perhaps you create a weekly newspaper using ­InDesign. You have been asked to create a web-
based version of the newspaper. You need to continue publishing the printed version, but you
also need to extract stories from the newspaper and post them on your website. XML provides an
XML versus HTML versus XHTML
excellent platform for setting up this type of content exchange. You can publish the newspaper as
XHTML is a combination of HTML and XML. It uses
usual, then tag the content, export it to XML, and generate the HTML you need for the website HTML tags, but requires strict adherence to XML
from the XML file using Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transformation. syntax rules. Like HTML, you can display XHTML in a
browser.
From InDesign, you can export content to XHTML
InDesign

(File > Cross-Media Export > XHTML). The Export to

<XML> <html> XHTML feature requires no knowledge of scripting
Export XSL or XML. It provides a quick and easy way of reusing
transformation content from an InDesign document and is especially
useful if you plan to edit the output in an HTML editor
Tagged content XML file with tags Formatted HTML file created such as Adobe Dreamweaver. If you need additional
laid out in InDesign but no formatting by translating XML tags control over the output, exporting to XML and using
an XSL transformation is a useful and powerful
Specifying metadata approach.
Metadata is information about content. You can include metadata in an XML file and even assign
metadata to specific document components. In a newspaper, for example, it would be useful to
know the author and editor of each story. You can create metadata that provides that information
as part of the XML structure:

<Newspaper>
<story author="CJM" editor="SSO">story goes here</story>
<story author="MDM" editor="SSO">story goes here</story>
Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 3
</Newspaper>
Metadata is embedded at the location of the content it refers to as an attribute of that content,
ensuring that it always stays with the described element. Later, you could use the metadata to filter
information; for example, to locate all of the stories a particular author has written.

InDesign provides additional support for metadata in any InDesign file with the Extensible You can find additional XMP resources at
www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting
Metadata Platform (XMP) standard. The XMP standard, created by Adobe, lets you store docu-
ment information, such as the author, copyright information, and keywords, in a file. The XMP
information is accessible to other users even if they do not have the application in which you
­created the file. All Creative Suite 3 applications automatically embed certain XMP metadata.
For example, ­InDesign files include XMP metadata about the swatches and fonts used in a docu-
ment, as well as any linked files. You can view, search, and edit metadata using Adobe Bridge
(available from any CS3 application). You can also embed metadata in ­InDesign files by choosing
File > File Info and editing or adding metadata. The XMP metadata is saved as XML in a special
section of the application file.

XML tagging features in ­InDesign

I­ nDesign offers several different ways of working with XML. This flexibility lets you set up a
workflow that is compatible with your publishing environment.

Use the Structure pane and the Tags panel to work with XML structure in InDesign. The
Structure pane shows you the document structure and lets you make changes to it. The Tags
panel lists the XML tags that are available in the document. Just click the tag you want to apply it
to selected content. (If you don’t want to tag items manually, you can use the automated tagging
techniques described later in this document.)

Add an attribute
Validate Add an element Structure menu

The Structure pane and Tags panel give you control over XML content. To display the Structure pane,
choose View > Structure > Show Structure. Choose Window > Tags to open the Tags panel.

XML and InDesign documents

An InDesign document consists of pages that contain text, images, and even motion graph-
ics (for embedding in interactive PDF files). Text stories can flow through one or more linked
frames. Associated XML files reference the external images or other media types that can be
placed in InDesign.

In contrast to this, an XML file consists of elements, attributes, and text. An XML file does not
usually provide any font, page positioning, or other formatting information. You must specify
how you want XML content to flow into your InDesign document.

An XML document is required to have a single root element. The root element contains all of
the elements in the document, and is shown near the top of the Structure pane. In the art in the
preceding section, the root element is Recipe.

You can associate XML with different ­InDesign objects. Most often, you associate XML with
stories, paragraphs, text ranges, graphics, and other media. When an XML element is associated
with a text frame, InDesign tags any frames that are linked to that text frame.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 4

Viewing XML tags
To help you manage XML tags in an InDesign file, you can set up the file to show tags. In the
main document window, tags appear as colored brackets. In the Story Editor, the entire tag name
appears. To display XML tags, choose View > Structure > Show Tag Markers.

Tags visible in the Story Editor

You can also set your text frames to indicate the tag they are associated with by choosing View >
Structure > Show Tagged Frames. InDesign displays the frames in the document window with a
background color, which matches the color for the tag in the Tags panel.

XML tagging techniques: Manual, automatic, and style mapping

You can assign XML tags to any text and graphics content. To assign a tag manually, select the
content and then click a tag in the Tags panel. (If the content already has a tag assigned, make
sure that Retag is selected at the top of the panel.)

For text frames, tables, and table cells, ­InDesign lets you specify the tags to be used when ­InDesign
automatically tags those objects. If you tag a range of text or other item in an untagged story,
InDesign tags the story automatically with the default text frame tag. Similarly, if you tag some text
inside a table cell, InDesign tags the table cell, table, and containing story using the specified tags.

To use automatic tagging for text frames and tables:

1 In the Tags panel menu or the Structure pane menu, select Tagging Preset Options. By default,
text frames are mapped to the Story tag, tables are mapped to the Table tag, and table cells are
mapped to the Cell tag.

2 Make any changes to the settings, and then click OK.

Tagging Preset Options dialog box

3 Select a text frame, table, table cell, or image and then click the Autotag icon ( ) in the
Tags panel.

You don’t have to select paragraphs one at a time and tag them if you’re using paragraph, char-
acter, and nested styles. Instead, you can map style names to tags, so InDesign can automatically
tag the specified content.

In addition, if you can control style names or tag names, consider matching them so that you
can automate the mapping process. For example, if your XML content has a Caption tag, you can
create a matching Caption style in your document. The Map By Name button lets you associate
Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 5
those styles automatically.
To assign tags automatically using style mapping:

1 In the Tags panel menu (or the Structure pane menu), choose Map Styles to Tags. The Map
Styles to Tags dialog box opens.

Map styles for automatic XML tag assignment.

2 For each style you want to map, click the Tag list to display a pop-up menu and choose the
­appropriate XML tag from the list. If your style names match the XML tag names, click Map
By Name.

Note: To use mappings you set up in another I­ nDesign file, click Load and select the file.

3 Specify whether you want to map styles that occur in special locations by checking the appro-
priate items.

4 Click OK. The new XML tags are applied throughout the document.

Loading a DTD into a document

To use I­ nDesign structure validation features, you must either load a DTD into InDesign or
validate against a DTD that is defined and referenced in the imported XML file. To load a DTD,
it must be available on the system.

To load a DTD into an InDesign file:

1 Click the Structure pane menu, and then click Load DTD.

2 Locate the DTD file and select it.

Note: When you load a DTD file, it is embedded in the ­InDesign file (not linked). If you make
updates to the DTD file, you must reload the DTD into ­InDesign.

3 Click Open.

I­ nDesign checks the DTD as it is loaded. If any problems are found, InDesign displays an error
message. To correct errors, open the DTD in a text editor, make the appropriate changes, and
then try loading it again.

Validating documents against a DTD

Once you load a DTD, you can validate the InDesign file.

To validate the document:

1 Click the Validate button ( ) in the Structure pane.

2 ­InDesign reports any structure errors at the bottom of the Structure pane and provides sug-
gestions on how to fix the problem. Click a suggestion to try that correction. When InDesign
identifies invalid structure, it displays a warning icon on the element icon and highlights it in
red in the Structure pane.

When the document is valid, ­InDesign tells you that no validation errors were found.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 6

Managing attributes
Attributes provide additional information about an element. In a cookbook, you could use
attributes to provide metadata, such as the course type, the recipe source, and whether a recipe
is low in fat. I­ nDesign displays attributes in the Structure pane only. Attributes cannot be placed
into the document or used as content.

The Recipe element has three attributes.

To add a new attribute:

1 In the Structure pane, right-click (Ctrl-click for Mac OS) the element that you want to add an
attribute to and then choose New Attribute from the pop-up menu.

Pop-up menu resulting from the Structure pane.

2 Specify the name and value of the attribute, and then click OK.

New Attribute dialog box.

The new attribute is shown underneath its element in the Structure pane.

Note: Some attributes, such as table and image attributes, are created automatically when you
export content to XML. You do not need to define these attributes in the Structure pane. For more
information, see “Table attributes” on page 21 and “Images” on page 9.
To edit an existing attribute, double-click the attribute in the Structure pane, make any needed
changes, and then click OK.

Note: DTDs may contain specifications for attributes. When you validate a document, ­InDesign
notifies you about any required attributes that are missing, as well as attribute values that are not
allowed by the DTD.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 7

Inserting comments
XML comments are similar to HTML comments. They let you embed information in the XML
file. An XML comment looks like the following:

<!—- This is a comment. -->

To insert an XML comment:

1 In the Structure pane menu, choose New Comment. Or right-click (Ctrl-click for Mac OS) an
element and select New Comment.

2 In the Value field, type the text you want for the comment. Omit the beginning and ending
indicators (<!-- and -->, respectively). That is, if you type This is a comment the result in the
XML output is:

<!-- This is a comment -->

The Structure pane shows comments.

Inserting processing instructions

Processing instructions let you embed special commands in an XML file. These commands
are usually application-specific; for example, you can use processing instructions to embed
stylesheet references.

<?xml-stylesheet href="formatting.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>

To create a processing instruction:

1 In the Structure pane, click where you want to insert the processing instruction.

2 Click the Structure pane menu, and then choose New Processing Instruction.

3 Enter values in the Target and Data fields. For example, to create the processing instruc-
tion shown in the preceding example, type xml-stylesheet in the Target field and
href="formatting.xsl" type="text/xsl" in the Data field.

Note: To apply the stylesheet in the processing instruc-

tions, see page 12 or page 28 for details on applying XSLT
on import or export of XML.

Inserting a processing instruction

4 Click OK. The new processing instruction appears in the Structure pane.

A processing instruction in the Structure pane

XML and tables

­InDesign tables must conform to a specific structure. When you import an XML file, any table
that follows either the CALS table model or the InDesign table model is automatically rendered
as a table in InDesign. When you export to XML, you can export tables using either the InDesign
or the CALS model.

Note: For details about the CALS table specification refer to OASIS (www.oasis-open.org/specs/
tablemodels.php).

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 8

I­ nDesign tables consist of a single Table tag, which contains Cell tags. You can use different
names for the tags, but all of your tables must match that basic structure, as shown in the follow-
ing example:

<Table>
<Cell>first cell content</Cell>
<Cell>second cell content</Cell>
<Cell>third cell content</Cell>
<Cell>fourth cell content</Cell>
<Cell>fifth cell content</Cell>
<Cell>sixth cell content</Cell>
</Table>

Use attributes to specify the number of columns, cell widths, and other information. When you
export a table from ­InDesign to XML, some of these formatting attributes are created automati-
cally in the XML file. Because the information is specific to ­InDesign and provides formatting
information, the table attributes use the aid namespace. The namespace lets you easily identify an
attribute as being part of the table formatting. For details, see “Table attributes” on page 21.

Images
XML generally handles images with a linked reference. When you tag an image frame, InDesign
assigns an href attribute that points to the referenced (linked) image file. The href attribute shows
the file path and filename and appears in the Structure pane as follows:

The href attribute indicates the file path and file name.

InDesign can then export these href attributes in an XML file (as shown below), and can also
process them correctly on import.

<Image href="file://path/images/testfile.jpg"></Image>

To ensure that InDesign exports images correctly, the images must be linked, not embedded.
They must also be properly tagged. Only tagged content is exported, while content that is not
tagged is ignored on export.

Note: The recommended workflow is to work with linked, not embedded, graphics, so that InDesign
can better handle collecting the images in a subfolder during export.

To set up images for export to XML:

1 Choose Window > Links to open the Links panel and verify that all of your graphics are
up‑to‑date.

2 Use the Tags panel to assign an XML tag, such as Image, to each image. If the tag is not
available in your Tags panel, create it.

When you export images to XML, the images are automatically collected in a subfolder to make
it easier to move the XML file and its linked graphics. The file references in the exported XML
file are then updated to point to the images in the subfolder. On export, you control the final file
format of the images and whether certain images are exported.

To configure image options:

1 Choose File > Cross-media Export > XML.

2 Specify a file name for the exported file and choose XML as the format.

3 Click Save.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 9

4 In the Export XML dialog box, click the Images tab.

Control the format of your exported images, and whether InDesign includes the original image as well.

5 Set the image options. For detailed instructions, see ­InDesign Help.

6 Click Export.

Understanding entity processing

When you import an XML file into InDesign, it may contain entities for special characters. For
example, the ampersand uses the &amp; entity. When you import an XML file, the entity is
translated into the appropriate special character.

Text entities refer to text defined in the XML file or in the DTD. For example, an XML file might
contain a reference to a shared copyright statement:

<WhitePaper>
<!ENTITY copyright "Copyright (c) 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated The entity definition is in the <!ENTITY ...> section
All Rights Reserved." >
white paper content...
&copyright; The entity reference starts with an ampersand (&).
</WhitePaper>

When you import XML, text entities are expanded. You do not see the &copyright; placeholder
in your ­InDesign document. Instead, you see the copyright entity text.

XML files can also contain entity references that point to other files. Entity references look
similar to the copyright example above, but the entity definition specifies a file instead of text.

<!ENTITY copyright SYSTEM "copyright.txt">

These entities are also expanded on import. ­InDesign does not preserve the link to the original
entity file.

Note: Unparsed entity references are not processed by ­InDesign. For images, use an href attribute
that contains the file name instead. If necessary, transform the XML file with XSLT to create the
required structure.

Planning an XML workflow

When you import an XML file, the file structure appears in the Structure pane, but the content
may not initially appear in your document. You must explicitly assign XML tags to placeholder
text frames to automate flowing XML content into layouts on import. Assigning XML tags to text
frames after importing an XML file will not cause the content to appear in those frames.

I­ nDesign provides several different ways of working with XML content. The best approach de-
pends on your workflow:

• For a one-time project, create a blank ­InDesign document, import the XML file, and then
format the content as needed. This approach is suited for small, unique projects.
Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 10
• To lay out the same type of XML content repeatedly, import the XML file into an ­InDesign
document that contains paragraph, character, and table styles. Then, associate the XML
tags with the styles in the InDesign document. This approach is faster than applying styles
manually, but requires more planning. If you have several documents that require the same
layout, this workflow will save you time.

• If the XML content contains repeating elements that need to be formatted identically, format
a sample element set and then clone that formatting for the remainder of the XML file.
This approach is very efficient for highly structured content, such as directories or variable data
publishing.

• Instead of associating XML tags with styles using the ­InDesign mapping feature, embed style
names directly into the XML file using attributes. When you import the XML file into an
InDesign layout that includes those defined styles, ­InDesign associates the XML tags with
the specified styles automatically. If you control the content of the XML file, this approach
provides additional automation.

• On import, attach an XSL transformation file to the XML file. This new feature in InDe- Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is a powerful
sign CS3 allows you to filter, rearrange, and reorganize the XML structure as you bring it into transformation language designed for processing
XML files. You can find more information about trans-
InDesign.
forming XML with XSL at www.adobe.com/products/
• For complex layout requirements, use the new XML rules feature to assign XML formatting indesign/scripting.

using scripts written in JavaScript, VBScript, or AppleScript. For details, see “XML rules” on
page 25.

Importing XML files

InDesign offers a number of XML import options that enable you to more finely control how
XML content is placed into your documents. When you import an XML file into ­InDesign, the
Structure pane displays the XML content. You can then drag and drop the content into frames
or directly onto the page, depending on how you’ve set up your layout. Alternatively, if you have
prepared the InDesign document with tagged text and graphics frames that match the structure
of the imported XML, I­ nDesign displays the XML content in the Structure pane and flows it into
the tagged layout automatically.

You can exclude certain elements by name, which allows you to filter XML information and
display only what you need in the ­InDesign file. You have the option of linking or embedding the
XML content.

To control how XML content is imported:

1 Choose File > Import XML.

2 Navigate to and select the XML file you want to import.

3 If necessary, select Show XML Import Options, and then click Open.

Control the behavior of XML import with these options.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 11

4 Select the import options you want.

• Create link. Sets up a pointer to the source XML file, which is useful if the XML
file is updated regularly and you want to ensure that your ­InDesign file remains
up‑to‑date.

Links to an XML file behave like other text and graphics links—if the linked file is
updated outside of InDesign,
­­ InDesign refreshes it. There is, however, one compli-
cation: Because you control how information is displayed by associating the XML
tags with ­InDesign formatting, changing the structure of the XML file may have
unexpected results. For example, if a new XML tag appears in the linked file, you
may need to modify the ­InDesign file to accommodate that tag.

• Apply XSLT. Lets you assign a Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation file
to the XML content, either by browsing for a file or by using the stylesheet file refer-
enced in the XML file as a processing instruction (see page 8 for an example). XSLT
stylesheets let you filter, rearrange, and perform other transformations on the XML
content. For details about XSLT, refer to the World Wide Web Consortium, which
manages the XSL and XSLT specifications (www.w3.org/Style/XSL/).

• Clone repeating text elements. Select this option to replicate the formatting in the
current file for several elements.

­InDesign lets you clone a layout for repeating text elements. You can create a single
formatting instance (in this example, for a recipe), and then reuse that layout to
create pages for all of the other content.

Automatically generate repetitive layouts and populate it with your content using the efficient cloning import option. Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 12
 • Only import elements that match existing structure. If the XML file contains elements
that you do not want to show in your layout, and your tagged InDesign file does not
use elements of the same name, select this option. Any elements that do not match
a tag used in the InDesign document will not be imported into InDesign.

The XML source file contains several items that are not needed in the InDesign document (as indicated by the
red arrows calling out lines in the XML source above).

The additional items appear in the InDesign document. Items that do not match InDesign structure are removed.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 13

 • Import text elements into tables if tags match. If your XML file contains a table
whose tagging matches the table tagging in the InDesign document, select this op-
tion. I­ nDesign inserts the content of the XML table into the ­InDesign table, even if
the XML table is missing table-specific attributes. For details on table attributes, see
page 21.

The XML file contains a basic table.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 14

On import, InDesign can automatically generate a basic table from the XML content, which you can then style.
Or you can import the content into a preexisting styled table (shown here on the right).

• Do not import contents of whitespace-only elements. If you want InDesign to ignore

empty elements in the XML file, select this option. This option allows you to insert
text, carriage returns, and anchored objects—and even to preserve these items
when you update a linked XML file—providing they are inserted into elements that
did not have any content in the imported XML file.

The “Ingredient” and “Instructions” labels are embedded in the template file. In the Story Editor, you can see
that the labels are positioned outside the tags that have content.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 15

 When whitespace-only elements are imported, the Content of whitespace-only elements is not imported.
labels are deleted and extra tabs and paragraph returns “Ingredients” and “Instructions” labels are preserved.
appear in the document.

• Delete elements, frames, and content that do not match imported XML. If your XML
has elements that occur in only some parts of the content, and are shown in the lay-
out, select this option. On import, if there is an InDesign element or frame associ-
ated with an element that does not appear in the incoming XML file, the InDesign
items will be deleted.

The template contains a placeholder for notes.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 16
When you import XML content, the Notes text frame is deleted from the second recipe page because that recipe
does not contain a Notes element.

• Import CALS table as InDesign tables. Tables in the XML source file that follow the
CALS specification are converted to InDesign tables during import.

When the XML file is imported, InDesign displays it in the Structure pane. Depending on
whether your layout includes tagged frames that match the imported XML, the content may also
appear automatically in the layout.

Imported XML content appears in the layout window only if you’ve set up tagged frames that match the
XML structure.

Formatting XML text content manually

After importing an XML file, you can lay out text elements by dragging and dropping them onto
the page, which creates and fills the frames on the fly, or by dragging and dropping them into
existing frames. You can then format those text elements manually just as you would any other
text content. Options for automatic formatting are discussed in the sections that follow.

Manual formatting is most useful if you rarely receive XML content, or if the structure of the
XML files is unpredictable. It requires very little setup or planning, and you can format the
content at the paragraph or character level. If you link to the XML file, you can preserve any
formatting you’ve applied if you need to update the linked content.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 17

To lay out and format XML text content manually:

1 In the Structure pane, locate the element you want to lay out.

2 Drag and drop the element to a frame inside your document. If you drop the content on a
blank page, a default text frame is created for it.

Content that is visible on the page has a special icon in the Structure pane. Note that placed content shown here
uses a different icon than unplaced content (shown in the previous image).

The selected element and all of its descendant elements are displayed in the text frame. You
can now apply text formatting to the XML content using the Character, Paragraph, or Control
panels, just as you would to any other text in InDesign. For information about applying text
formatting, see InDesign Help.

Formatting XML text using style mapping

Instead of formatting text manually, you can map XML elements to paragraph, character, and
table styles. This approach works well when you have predictable element names in the XML con-
tent, and have created a template that contains the required paragraph and character styles.

To map XML elements to paragraph and character styles:

1 Import the XML file and lay out the elements you want in your document.

2 In the Structure pane menu, select Map Tags to Styles.

Map tags to apply formatting automatically

3 You can map tags in three different ways: Note: Mapping tags to style names, and vice-
versa, is exacting. For example, the process
• If the XML tag names match the ­InDesign style names, click Map by Name.
is case sensitive, so a tag called Body (with a
• If you have an existing InDesign document with the desired style mappings set up, capital B) will not automatically map to a style
click Load and select that file. called body (with a lowercase b).

• If you need to map tags individually, click the corresponding style field (the default
value is Not Mapped) and then choose a style from the pop-up list.

4 Click OK. The mappings you specify are applied to your document.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 18

Using Find/Change to format XML text
The Find/Change feature gives you a powerful way assign XML tags. You can, for example,
search for a specific text string that uses a particular paragraph style. When you map tags to
styles, InDesign assigns your mappings globally; the find/change approach lets you restrict the
tag mappings to a subset of a particular style.

To use the Find/Change feature to format XML text:

1 Choose Edit > Find/Change to display the Find/Change dialog box.

Find/Change gives you complete control over your search

2 If the Find Format/Change Format options are not shown, click More Options to expand the
dialog box.

3 Specify what you want to find. You can search for text, paragraph styles, characters styles, and
much more. The GREP tab lets you search for a text pattern using wildcards; for details, refer
to InDesign Help and to www.adobe.com/go/learn_id_grep.

4 The Find Format and Change Format fields let you specify that you want to match on styles,
XML tags, or specific formatting. (For example, you can search for text that uses a specific
font and font size.) To assign an XML tag to the found content, click the Specify attributes to
change icon ( ) next to the Change Format field.

You can change the selected text to the specified XML tag.

5 Choose XML in the list of style choices, and then choose an XML tag from the Tag drop-down
list. (If you do not see the tag you want, use the Tags panel to create the tag. You cannot type in
an arbitrary tag name in the Change Format dialog box.)

6 Click OK.

7 Click Find and use the Find/Change options as usual.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 19

Formatting text using namespace attributes in import and export
I­ nDesign supports special formatting attributes, which let you embed a reference to a paragraph,
character, table, or cell style in an XML file. When the XML file is imported and laid out, InDe-
sign uses the referenced style to format that element.

S­ pecial-purpose attributes in InDesign use either the aid: or aid5: prefix. These prefixes indicate
a namespace.

Note: For an explanation of namespaces, see the W3C Recommendation at www.w3.org/TR/

xml‑names11/.

To use paragraph or character styles, your XML file must declare the aid namespace. To use table
or cell styles, the file must declare the aid5 namespace. The following excerpt shows a file that
declares both namespaces:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

The Recipe element contains the namespace
<!DOCTYPE Recipe SYSTEM "recipe.dtd">
declarations, starting with xmlns.
<Recipe xmlns:aid="http://ns.adobe.com/Adobe­
InDesign/4.0/"
xmlns:aid5="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/5.0/">
...
</Recipe>

Inside the XML file, you must reference the style you want to use with an attribute:

• aid:pstyle for paragraph styles

• aid:cstyle for character styles

• aid5:tablestyle for table styles

• aid5:cellstyle for cell styles inside a table

Paragraph and character style attributes

For text formatting, you use the aid:pstyle and aid:cstyle attributes to specify paragraph and
character styles, respectively. The following example shows these attributes:

...
<Recipe _ Title aid:pstyle="title">Country Captain&apos;s Chicken The aid:pstyle attribute indicates that the
</Recipe _ Title> Recipe_Title element uses the title paragraph style.
<Ingredients aid:pstyle="ingredients">1 sOven Bag, large size (14” x 20”)
2 tbsp. Flour
2 can Stewed tomatoes
1/4 cup Raisins, <Emphasis aid:cstyle="italics">if desired</Emphasis> For character styles, use the aid:cstyle attribute.

2 tbsp. Packed brown sugar

1 tsp. Curry powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 lb. Skinless, boneless chicken cut into 1” pieces</Ingredients>
...

When you import this content, ­InDesign applies the specified paragraph and character styles.
You can define the style’s attributes either before or after importing the XML content. If your
document does not contain the specified styles, InDesign creates and applies default styles
using your specified style names when you import the XML, and you can then edit those
styles afterwards.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 20

One advantage of this approach is that a single XML element does not have to be formatted with
a single style for the entire document. In complex structures, a single element (such as Title)
may use different paragraph styles when it occurs in different positions in the structure. Use
the aid:pstyle attributes to specify which style is required in each location, as shown in the
following example:

<topic>
<title aid:pstyle="h1">Topic title</title>
<para>This first-level topic uses an h1 paragraph style for the title.</para>
...
<topic>
<title aid:pstyle="h2">Subtopic title</title>
<para>This second-level, nested topic uses an h2 paragraph style for the
title.</para>
...
</topic>
</topic>

Table and cell style attributes

For table formatting, you use the aid5:tablestyle and aid5:cellstyle attributes to specify paragraph
and character styles, respectively. The following example shows these attributes (other table at-
tributes have been removed for readability):

<Table xmlns:aid5="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/5.0/"
aid5:tablestyle="MyTableStyle">
<Cell aid5:cellstyle="MyCellStyle">A</Cell>
<Cell>B</Cell>
<Cell>C</Cell>
<Cell>D</Cell>
</Table>
Table attributes
The aid and aid5 namespace attributes for tables are described in the following table:

AT T R I B U T E VA LU E D escriptio n
aid:table table Specifies a table-type element. A value of “table” indicates
the container table element; a value of “cell” indicates a cell
cell
element.
aid:trows Numeric Specifies the number of rows in the table. Used only in the
Table element.
aid:tcols Numeric Specifies the number of columns in the table. Used only in
the Table element.
aid5:tablestyle Text Specifies the table’s style. Equivalent to the pstyle attribute
for paragraphs.
aid:theader Empty If present, the theader attribute indicates that the current
cell is part of a table header row.
aid:crows Numeric Specifies how many rows the current cell spans. The
default is 1.
aid:ccols Numeric Specifies how many columns the current cell spans. The
default is 1.
aid:ccolwidth Numeric Specifies the width, in points, of the current cell.
aid5:cellstyle Text Specifies the style of the current cell. Similar to the cstyle
attribute for character styles.
aid:tfooter Empty If present, the tfooter attribute indicates that the current
cell is part of a table footer row.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 21

A typical table looks something like the following example.

Sample table. The XML code for the table is shown below.

Notes: The code example that follows uses line breaks and whitespace to improve readability.
Important sample code is shown in bold. In your text editor, the XML may look different.

The pstyle, cstyle, tablestyle, and cellstyle attributes are not shown here. They are not included
when you export XML from InDesign; they are available only to support automatic formatting
when you import XML content into InDesign.
The aid:trows and aid:tcols attributes specify the num-
<Table xmlns:aid="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/4.0/" aid:table="table" ber of rows and columns in the table.
aid:trows="6" aid:tcols="4">
The empty aid:theader attribute indicates a heading
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:theader="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
cell. Footing cells use a similar aid:tfooter attribute.
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table header 1</Cell>
Regular table cells do not have an attribute to indicate
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:theader="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" what type they are.
aid:ccolwidth="59">Table header 2</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:theader="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table header 3</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:theader="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table header 4</Cell>

<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"

aid:ccolwidth="130">A</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="59">B
</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">C
</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">D
</Cell>

<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="2">E straddles two The aid:ccols attribute indicates that the current cell
columns</Cell> spans the specified number of columns. The default,
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">F 1, indicates no column spanning. The aid:crows
attribute indicates row spanning.
</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">G
</Cell>

<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">H

</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="59">I
</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="2" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">J
straddles two rows</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">K
</Cell>

<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">L

</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="59">M
</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1" aid:ccolwidth="130">N
</Cell>

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 22

 <Cell aid:table="cell" aid:tfooter="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table footer 1</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:tfooter="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="59">Table footer 2</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:tfooter="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table footer 3</Cell>
<Cell aid:table="cell" aid:tfooter="" aid:crows="1" aid:ccols="1"
aid:ccolwidth="130">Table footer 4</Cell>
</Table>

If you are importing XML tables and want ­InDesign to format your table automatically, you need
to create XML content that contains the aid and aid5 namespace attributes or that uses the CALS
model.

Note: If your XML content uses a table model other than the two supported by InDesign, consider
using Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transformations to modify the content before or during
import. For details about XSL, see www.w3.org/Style/XSL/

Ruby attributes (for Japanese)

For Japanese text, a ruby attribute is available. InDesign stores ruby (pronunciation guides) in
the aid:ruby attribute. In the InDesign file, ruby are displayed next to the kanji characters for
which they provide pronunciation cues. You can set up ruby one character at a time, using the
MonoRuby tag, or in a group with the GroupRuby tag.

A MonoRuby example is shown below:

<MonoRuby>

<aid:ruby xmlns:aid="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/4.0/"> The namespace declaration is required.

<aid:rbc> The aid:rbc element contains aid:rb elements.
<aid:rb>夏</aid:rb> Individual kanji are stored inside the aid:rb elements.
<aid:rb>目</aid:rb>
<aid:rb>漱</aid:rb>
<aid:rb>石</aid:rb>
</aid:rbc>
<aid:rtc> The aid:rtc element contains aid:rt elements. Ruby
<aid:rt>なつ</aid:rt> text is stored inside the aid:rt elements.
<aid:rt>め</aid:rt>
<aid:rt>そう</aid:rt>
<aid:rt>せき</aid:rt>
</aid:rtc>
</aid:ruby>
</MonoRuby>

<aid:ruby xmlns:aid="http://ns.adobe.com/AdobeInDesign/4.0/">
<aid:rb>諸行無常</aid:rb>
<aid:rt>しょぎょうむじょう</aid:rt>
</aid:ruby>

Using anchored objects for repeating elements

In XML publishing, publishers often need to lay out pages of data accompanied by repeating
elements, such as headings or graphics. However, those repeating elements may need to vary
their position page to page depending on their relationship to the actual content on the page. For
example, in the cookbook layout used to illustrate concepts in this document, an Instructions
title is designed to appear next to the instructions on each page. The positioning of the instruc-
tions varies page to page depending on the length of the list of ingredients included at the top of
each page.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 23

Use anchored objects to set up repeating layout elements.

To automate the flexible creation of repeating XML elements within InDesign, you need to use
anchored objects in your XML workflow. Anchored objects are items, such as graphic images or
text boxes, that are attached—or anchored—to specific text. The anchored object travels with the
text containing the anchor as the text reflows. (Another alternative is to use XML rules to create
the effect you want. See page 25 for more details.)

Here are a few tips to keep in mind in setting up anchored objects for repeating XML elements:

• You can use anchored objects to handle both text and graphics content that is repeated.

• To automate this workflow, you must set up one story with anchored objects and then clone
the results as you import the full XML data. You do this by creating a frame, pasting it into the
content flow, and then adjusting the position of the newly created anchored object to suit your
layout. (See InDesign Help for tips on positioning anchored objects.) Then, when you import
the XML file, choose Clone Repeating Text Elements.

• When you set up an anchored object be careful about where you position the anchored object
relative to the XML tags to produce the layout you want. For example, the following example
shows the anchored object correctly positioned between the Ingredients end tag and the open-
ing tag for Instructions.

Anchoring position is very important in structured documents.

To position repeating XML content using anchored objects:

1 Choose View > Structure > Show Tag Markers and View > Structure > Show Tagged Frames to
make the frames easier to see.

2 Choose File > Import to import an XML file.

3 Create the initial layout by dragging and dropping XML elements from the Structure pane
into text and graphics frames on the page (or use tagged frames to automatically flow the
XML content).

4 Create an untagged text or graphics frame using the type, frame, or drawing tools.

5 Drag and drop the appropriate XML element onto your new text or graphics frame.

6 Select the frame and choose Edit > Cut.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 24

7 With the Type tool, click an insertion point in the tagged text where you want to anchor the
object. Then choose Edit > Paste.

Note: Make sure your cursor is positioned at a point in the text that maps to the point in the
Structure pane where you would like the XML element to be inserted.

8 In the Structure pane, note that InDesign created an extra element when you pasted the
frame. Delete the original element and keep the newly created element, which is now properly
anchored. To find out which element maps to the newly created element, right-click one of the
elements in the Structure pane and choose Go To Element. InDesign will then select that ele-
ment in the layout. When you have the right one selected, delete it.

9 Choose Object > Anchored Object > Options to specify the positioning for the anchored frame.

10 Save the resulting InDesign document as a template for automating this layout. Then, when
importing XML content into the template, choose Clone Repeating Text Elements in the XML
Import Options dialog box.

XML rules
XML rules are InDesign script components that allow you to apply actions based on the XML
tags in your document. An XML rule has two components:

• An XPath matching expression that determines which XML tags are processed by the rule.

• A function, which is applied to the tags that are selected by the matching expression.

Note: This discussion of XML rules assumes that you have basic familiarity with InDesign script-
ing. For background on scripting, refer to one of the InDesign CS3 Scripting Guides (www.adobe.
com/products/indesign/scripting) for AppleScript, VBScript, or JavaScript. The examples in this
document are written in JavaScript

In addition to the XML rules, a script that executes XML rules has two other pieces:

• XML rules processor (a scripting object) — Locates XML elements in an XML structure using
XPath and applies the appropriate XML rule(s). A script can contain multiple XML rule pro-
cessor objects, and each rule-processor object can be associated with a given XML rule set.

• Glue code — A set of routines provided by Adobe to make the process of writing XML rules
and interacting with the XML rules-processor easier.

The following example shows a simple InDesign script that contains a single XML rule:

// DESCRIPTION: Sample script for XML Rules Processing

app.scriptPreferences.version = 5 ;
//Locate and run the glue code.jsx file.
var myFilePath = app.filePath + "/Scripts/xml rules/glue code.jsx";
if(File(myFilePath).exists == false){
myFilePath = File.openDialog("Locate the file: glue code.jsx");
}
if(myFilePath != null){
var myFile = File(myFilePath);
app.doScript(myFile);
main();
}

function main(){
if (app.documents.length != 0){
var myDocument = app.documents.item(0);
var myRuleSet = new Array (new AddIngredientLabel); The AddIngredientLabel XML rule is declared here.
with(myDocument){
var elements = xmlElements;
_ _ processRuleSet(elements.item(0), myRuleSet); processRuleSet is part of the glue code that Adobe
} provides to help you with XML processing.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 25

else{
alert("No open document");
}

function AddIngredientLabel(){ The AddIngredientLabel function is defined here.

this.name = "AddIngredientLabel"; The //Ingredients expression selects all Ingredients
elements in the structure.
//Match the Ingredients elements.
this.xpath = "//Ingredients";
this.apply = function(myElement, myRuleProcessor){
with(myElement){
insertTextAsContent("Ingredients:\r", XMLElementPosition. The insertTextAsContent function inserts the speci-
ELEMENT _ START); fied content at the beginning of each Ingredients
} element.
return false;
}
}
}
Running this script inserts some text into the content. Before you run the script, you have the
following:

Cookbook example before running the AddIngredientLabel script.

To run a script:

1. Select a script in the Script panel (Window > Automation > Scripts).

2. Right-click and select Run Script from the pop-up menu.

Run scripts from the Scripts panel

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 26

The result of the script is that “Ingredients:” and a return character are added to the beginning of
the Ingredients list.

The result of the AddIngredientLabel script

C h oosi n g bet w ee n X M L rules a n d X S LT

Both XML rules and XSLT let you manipulate XML structure. Generally, XSL transformation is more appropriate
when you need to rearrange, filter, or modify the XML structure; XML rules are more appropriate when you
want to integrate XML tags with InDesign layout features.
For example, given a <sidebar> element in your XML content, you could use XSLT to move the <sidebar> ele-
ment to the end of a section. XML rules would useful to move the <sidebar> content from the main text flow
into the empty column on the right and to add a box with a drop shadow behind the sidebar information.
XSLT would be useful to sort recipes in a cookbook alphabetically; XML rules would be handy to create a drop
capital for the first letter in each recipe title.
In many cases, XSLT or XML rules can accomplish the same thing, and you can use the either approach.

Exporting XML
You can export XML from any I­ nDesign file. ­InDesign exports only the information that is
tagged in the Structure pane. Content in untagged text frames, embedded images, and untagged
images are not exported.

To export XML:

1 Make sure that all of the information you want to export is tagged. (If necessary, use the Tags
panel to assign tags.)

2 (Optional) If you want to export only information below a specific element, select that element
in the Structure pane.

3 Choose File > Cross-media Export > XML.

4 Specify a file name and location and select XML as the file type. Click Save.

5 Set the export options:

• To include a reference to your DTD in the XML file, select the corresponding
­option.

• To display the XML after it is created, select View XML Using and specify the
editor of your choice.

• To export starting with the element you selected in step 2, select Export From
Selected Element.

• To export untagged tables as CALS tables, select the corresponding option. If you
do not select this option, any untagged tables are discarded on export. Tagged
tables are exported using the InDesign table model.

• To use decimal character entities for breaks, whitespace, and other special char-
acters, select the Remap Break, Whitespace, and Special Characters option. For
details on InDesign’s mapping for special characters, see Appendix B on page 32.
Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 27
 • To apply an XSL transformation during export, select the Apply XSLT option and
then specify a stylesheet. You can browse for a file on your system. If the structure
contains a processing instruction with a stylesheet reference, you can use that
stylesheet. See “Inserting processing instructions” on page 8 for an example.

• Choose a text encoding method. The default is UTF-8.

The export options provide control over XML output.

Note: For information about image export options, see “Images” on page 9.

5 Click Export.

XML files use Unicode encoding. If you try to open the XML file in an editor or viewer that does
not support Unicode, you may see error messages or character substitution in your output XML,
so be sure to use a Unicode-compliant editor. If you plan to transform the XML files into HTML
for display on the web, be to use the remapping option for special characters. XML and ­InDesign
support a wider range of characters than HTML does.

Using InDesign Interchange (INX) files in XML workflows

The InDesign Interchange format is an external representation of the InDesign document object
model. It preserves complete document information, including content, formatting, geometry,
and XML tagging, for transparent interchange. This format supports a number of InDesign
CS3 features, including backwards compatibility with InDesign CS2, InDesign snippets, and
the assignments workflow with InCopy CS3. This section focuses on how the InDesign snippets
feature can support your XML publishing workflows.

A snippet is an InDesign object or group of objects that have been exported from a document to
share with others or re-use in your workflow. These files might be comprised of text, imported
graphics, native InDesign objects, styled tables—whatever you can lay out on an InDesign page.

You create a snippet by selecting the objects you want to reuse and then dragging and dropping
them onto your desktop, into Adobe Bridge, or into a Library panel, or by choosing File > Export
and choosing InDesign Snippet for Format. When you place or drag a snippet back into a layout,
InDesign recreates the original objects, their formatting, their relative positioning on the page,
and any XML tags that have been applied. (A snippet is an XML wrapper on a series of InDesign
scripting calls that direct InDesign how to reproduce the file.)

You can integrate snippets into an XML workflow to achieve more production efficiency. Here
is an example of how this might work: Imagine that you update and publish tables of data daily
or weekly. For example, you might publish sports scores, top 10 lists, or weather information in
tables. The basic design of those tables doesn’t vary, though you might freshen the color scheme
regularly. One way to streamline this process would be to use snippets.

You simply design and tag the tables, link them to the XML data you publish, and then export
each of them as a snippet. The snippet preserves the XML tags and the linked data. When you
drag and drop one of the snippets into another InDesign layout, you can then tweak the design,
Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 28
update the link to the XML data, and publish the results. The entire process can happen in a few
quick steps.

For more information about working with InDesign snippets, see the InDesign online Help system.

Note: The INX format is not intended to be human readable or to be used as a long-term archiving
format. We do not recommend trying to create or edit INX files using a text editor or storing snippets
in a database.

Where to go from here

The combination of XML and InDesign offers you the best of both worlds—the structure, FOR MORE INFORMATION
predictability, and automation of XML along with the powerful InDesign layout engine that For a comprehensive overview of InDesign,
lets your creativity shine. With strong support for XML as an input or output format, InDesign please visit www.adobe.com/products/
indesign/
provides you with many possibilities for automating layout and reusing content.

To start, you may want to experiment with a small amounts of content. You might, for example,
export some articles to XML for reuse on a website or consider whether some database informa-
tion could be linked into your publication automatically.

Once you have configured the basic publishing system, you can use scripting to further auto-
mate and streamline your XML publishing. Virtually everything in ­InDesign is scriptable. You
can write scripts in JavaScript (for cross-platform compatibility), VBScript, or AppleScript. For
details about scripting, see the InDesign Scripting Guides and sample scripts on your installation
DVD. You can also get more information on the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/products/­
indesign/scripting.

The ­InDesign area on the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/products/­indesign/ provides compre-

hensive information on InDesign CS3, links to additional white papers, customer success stories,
training and consulting resources, third-party plug-ins, user groups, and other useful resources.

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 29

Appendix A: XML syntax
XML files are required to follow certain syntax rules. When a file follows the rules, it is well-formed.

The syntax rules include the following:

• All tags must be opened and closed.

<p>This paragraph has a closing tag.</p>

<p>This is not allowed.<p>The second paragraph starts without a closing tag

for the first.</p>

• Empty tags must include a closing slash before the end of the tag, as shown in these examples:

<br/>

<img src="file.gif"/>

• Tags must be properly nested.

This text is <b><i>bold and italic</i></b>.

This text uses <b><i>crossed</b></i> tags, which are not allowed.

• All attribute values must be quoted.

<p align="center">This paragraph has a center attribute</p>

<table border=0>This table needs quotes around the border value.</table>

• Tag names cannot contain spaces or special characters and must start with an alphabetic character.

Legal tag names: <Sect1>, <Para>,<Long _ Element _ Name>

Illegal tag names: <1Sect>, <Long Element Name>, <Asterisk*>

Note: For a complete discussion of XML syntax, see the XML Recommendation at www.w3.org/
TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/.

All XML files must follow the basic syntax rules.

Enforcing structure rules

XML gives you the option of specifying a set of rules for content. Files that follow the structure
rules are valid. You declare structure rules in a document type definition (DTD).

Working with structure rules and valid files gives you the ability to define and enforce document
organization. With a DTD or Schema file, you can set up requirements for your content. Concep-
tually, this process is similar to creating a formatting template, but with structure rules, you can
require that documents must follow the rules you establish. You could, for example, specify that a
story must begin with a title and a byline. For an academic journal, you could require an abstract
at the beginning of an article. You can require that bibliographic information must be organized
a certain way. Structure rules let you ensure that documents are consistent.

I­ nDesign lets you work with or without a DTD, but you must provide a DTD if you want to
validate your documents.

In XML, the DTD is declared at the top of the file, as shown here:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE Recipe SYSTEM "recipe.dtd">
<Recipe>...</Recipe>

Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML: A Technical Reference 30

The DTD is shown here:

<!ELEMENT Recipe (Recipe _ Title, Ingredients, Instructions, Notes?,

Number _ of _ Servings? ) >
<!ELEMENT Recipe _ Title (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Ingredients (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Instructions (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Notes (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Number _ of _ Servings (#PCDATA) >

For each element, the DTD specifies what information is permitted.

E leme n t Name E leme n t D efi n itio n D escriptio n

Recipe Recipe_Title, Ingredients, Must contain one Recipe_Title element,
Instructions, Notes?, followed by one Ingredients element, followed
Number_of_Servings? by one Instructions element, followed by zero
or one Notes elements, followed by zero or one
Number_of_Servings elements.

The question mark (?) indicates that the

Notes and Number_of_Servings elements
are optional.
Recipe_Title #PCDATA #PCDATA indicates that the element
contains text.
Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Number_of_Servings

Where to get a DTD

If you have a client who requires delivery of XML files, the client may already have a
DTD and will provide it to you. You can also create your own DTD, but before you do
so, consider whether one of these standard DTDs meets your requirements.

• NewsML (www.newsml.org)

• Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) (www.prismstan-

dard.org) for magazine content

• SportsML (www.sportsml.org)

• Technical documents:

• DocBook (www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=docbook)

• Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) (www.oasis-open.org/

committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita)

• Chemical Markup Language (cml.sourceforge.net)

• Other DTD examples (www.service-architecture.com/xml/articles/specific_xml_

vocabularies.html)
Appendix B: InDesign-to-XML character mapping
The following table describes how special characters in InDesign are mapped on export
to XML when the Remap Break, Whitespace, and Special Characters option is selected.

S y mbol I n D esi g n c h aracter n ame X M L e q uivale n t

Special characters
• Bullet &#8226;
© Copyright &#169;
… Ellipsis &#8230;
¶ Pilcrow (paragraph) &#182;
® Registered trademark &#174;
§ Section &#167;
™ Trademark &#8482;
— Em dash &#8212;
– En dash &#8211;
“ Double left quotation mark &#8220;
” Double right quotation mark &#8221;
‘ Single left quotation mark &#8216;
’ Single right quotation mark &#8217;
Discretionary hyphen None (discarded during export)
‑ Nonbreaking hyphen - (standard hyphen)
Autopage number * None (discarded during export)
Next page number * None (discarded during export)
Previous page number * None (discarded during export)
Section marker * None (discarded during export)
Tab * None (discarded during export)
Right indent tab * None (discarded during export)
End nested style here * None (discarded during export)
White space characters
Em space Standard space character
En space Standard space character
Flush space Standard space character
Hair space Standard space character
Thin space Standard space character
Figure space Standard space character
Narrow Nonbreaking (0x202F) space Standard space character
Punctuation space Standard space character
Break characters
Page breaks None (discarded during export)
Column breaks None (discarded during export)
Frame breaks None (discarded during export)
Odd page break None (discarded during export)
Even page break None (discarded during export)
Paragraph returns (CR) Standard space character
Forced line break (LF) Standard space character
* These characters result in a warning during export that content contains characters that cannot be
encoded.

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