InDesign CS5 Automation Using XML & JavaScript

InDesign is now regarded as the industry standard in desktop publishing and is very widely used by publishing professionals and non-specialists alike. Many users have a pressing need for automation of their workflows but have been reluctant to get started because of the lack of a simple internal mechanism for recording steps, like Photoshop and Illustrator actions. Instead InDesign relies on scripting which, for many InDesign users, may seem a little too much like hard work. In fact, InDesign comes with all the tools necessary for creating scripts and scripting is not that difficult-it can even be fun! This book is aimed at the general user and provides an introduction to scripting InDesign, using JavaScript to create simple cross-platform solutions. It also gives a general introduction to XML, DTDs and XSLT, before showing how to automate the importing and exporting of XML data. Learn proactively through step-by-step tutorials on creating JavaScript solutions: the Try it for yourself! approach allows you to see for yourself how scripts are put together. Create scripts that manipulate text and images, build documents automatically and output them as interactive PDFs. Become familiar with the InDesign object model: as you work through the book, you will make repeated use of the essential syntax for manipulating InDesign objects such as document, pages, text frames, graphics and preferences. Create user interfaces to make your scripts more flexible and user-friendly. Rather than just creating scripts which always perform the same steps, you will learn to user ScriptUI to provide users with the ability to make choices that determine what the script will do. Learn how to automate XML import and export and provide an interface which allows the user to filter import by supplying parameter values. Please note that the work files for this book can now be downloaded at the following URL: http: //www.grantgamble.com/downloads/indesigncs5js1.zip