At the InDesignSecretsLive Print and ePublishing Conference this week I did two presentations: “XML and InDesign Demystified” and “Data Publishing with InDesign”. I was amazed by the interest in these topics from many in the sold-out conference crowd.
At the conference David Blatner told me about a new book he had just received: InDesign CS5 Automation Using XML & JavaScript by Grant Gamble. I eagerly downloaded the eBook (Kindle only) edition to read on my iPad on the trip home.
Though I think the title should contain “JavaScript & XML” instead of “XML & JavaScript”, this ambitious book fills a large hole in the InDesign how-to book landscape. The book covers a LOT of ground. The first twelve chapters include an introduction to scripting, how to use InDesign’s script editor, and a thick section on understanding InDesign’s unique JavaScript object model. The next seven chapters delve into XML: what XML is, where it comes from, how to import it into InDesign, an extensive section on XSLT, and then a thick section on automating XML workflows via scripting.
The book is equal part lessons, reference, examples, and “try it for yourself” tutorials. While the size and scope may intimidate some, if you want to learn about automation or XML and InDesign you’ll benefit by reading at least parts of this book.
I prefer to purchase this type of book as an eBook, so I can easily search for terms and concepts. One shortcoming of the eBook version of this title is that some of the screen shots and illustrations are so low-res as to make them unusable. Aside from that, the eBook version works well with the Kindle app on my iPad.
This article was last modified on December 21, 2021
This article was first published on May 27, 2011
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