Reply To: How to create IDML package from an XML file input

Hi G,

If I were writing the script, I would have the script parse (read) the XML file that you have and generate an INDD file that represents the XML's contents. In other words, if you do not specifically need an IDML file, I would not bother creating one. 

That being said, if you have control over how the XML file is being created (I'm guessing the XML is being created from a database or a server of some kind), it might be possible to have the server generate an IDML file instead of an XML file. Having the server or database generate an IDML file would require a significant amount of work on the part of the folks that maintain the server or database (knowledge of InDesign and the IDML format will be necessary).

So, without more information about the content being converted to an InDesign document, and since XML is much easier to create than IDML, I would stick with the XML process and create an InDesign script that parses the XML and generates an INDD from it.

Feel free to contact me offline if you would like me to estimate the costs of such a script.

Cheers!

—

Jim Birkenseer
https://www.premediasystems.com