The scenario:
We have 100 odd study guides, each require the creation of an overprint PDF containing course and faculty information, as well as a barcode and item number. The overprints are printed onto an already produced cover. It saves time, money and makes sense for us really.
The problem associated with that is, no one really has time to manually create 100 pages in InDesign, and copy and paste course information and barcode information from a number of sources, yuk! Even if we did have time, I don’t like the changes or stuffing up one of the barcodes, since you can’t even read what you’ve typed or pasted in.
The solution:
Pull the course, faculty and barcode information from a Database; create a simple XML file, and import into InDesign!
How the process went:
From what I’d read on the net, I assumed that when one imports XML into InDesign, all your pages are automatically created. Maybe I missed something but I found that I had to actually create the pages manually, which isn’t really a problem as it’s only a few mouse clicks.
The next subtle thing I found which seemed to be missing from all of the instructions and tips I read on the net, was that the pages didn’t actually take on the tagged structure of their master page! Okay, that was easy, all I had to do was tell the pages to Over-ride their master; and once I’d done that, DELETE the content of the master page (or else the imported xml goes in to the master page as well as your normal pages).
Despite everything looking perfect the XML wouldn’t import correctly; I ended up having some data missing on a page, then it’d be on the next page; basically stuff was all over the place.
I found out, after going around in circles for ages; that when I’d told my pages to over-ride the master page – they didn’t take on the XML structure exactly as it was on the master!!!! They all had their tags in the wrong bloody order!
So then all I did was just adjust the order of tags in my XML source, it still made sense so that was fine with me.
Once I’d done that.. it worked perfectly! XML in to InDesign does work, it’s just a little bit annoying sometimes!
R
Hi R,
I went trough exactly the same process, with the tags on the master page. But I’m not satisfied with all the tags being in the wrong order on the document pages. Did you (or somebody else) find a solution for this eventually? (So the question is: How can I make sure the structure on the document pages will automatically be exactly the same as on the master page?).
I would be so happy with a solution for this problem!
Gabriel Powell’s book, Instant InDesign has a useful chapter on XML where he discusses this very issue. You might also want to look at Jim Maivald’s A Designer’s Guide to XML in InDesign.
Hrmmm I never did find a solution for the initial problem, but then I was pretty happy just reordering my xml to suite InDesign : ) hehe. Sorry : )