Indesign and XML - how to auto flow into multiple pages with differing styles?

Question

Hi guys,

I've got a bit of a problem at the moment. I'm trying to work with indesign (cs3) and xml.

Basically i have a template which is has 1 master dps, both pages have the same data (fields 1-5) but one is left aligned, one right - hence mildly different paragraph styles. What i want to be able to do is import xml and have indesign flow the data from the individual nodes into many pages.

eg xml format:

root
  day
    field1
    field2
    field3
    field4
    field5
  day
    field1
    field2
    field3
    field4
    field5
  day
    ...

I can almost make this work by tagging the frames on the master pages, then creating pages and importing the xml, however it only flows the first 2 nodes into the pages reptitively for the total count of all the nodes.

I can also almost make it work by creating a page from the untagged masters and then tagging the frames with the field1-5 tags then importing the xml. This populates the first page, however i then can't find a way to make the rest of the data flow into new pages...

Am I missing something? Am I being a complete dumbass? If anyone can offer any help it will be greatly appreciated...

Answer 1

Did you ever get an answer to this? I'm having a similar problem...

Answer 2

Quote from "A Designers Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML":

... Without scripting or third-party plug-ins, there’s no way (that we know of) to get InDesign to create multiple pages automatically from the structured layout as it appears after step 4 in Lesson 4-17. It is possible to create all six cards, just not automatically as you did in our other method.

It's based on CS3 though, so there might an an option in CS4 or CS5. I guess that means the only alternative is to use IDML. That seems rather complicated, but it might get the job done.

Quote from "Adobe InDesign CS3 and XML:A Technical Reference"

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.

... which suggests that it can be done.

But then again, from "Create placeholders for repeating content"

A key point, however, is that Adobe® InDesign® CS2 will never create new frames or add pages to accommodate new XML elements.

So, what's the final verdict? Reading and rereading everything carefully, I get the impression that this is what they are saying:

• It's not possible to have your design automatically replicated (new page) with the occurrence of a certain element.
• However, if you order your tags properly, then - using styles - you can make the contents of the XML document float into a text frame, which has the effect of having several parts of your XML document layed out in a similar way, over and over ago.
• However, in order to make sure that all text is floating into that text frame and tags are used over and over again, you will need to check the "Clone repeating text elements" option while importing. Otherwise (at least that's the impression I get; I haven't actually tried it myself) it will just apply the layout of the first occurence of the tag, and then ignore all consecutive occurences.

So, if you truly want to instantiate multiple pages, I think there is no other option than to export your design to IDML and have some sort of processor modify the contents of the IDML files.