Reply To: XML – InDesign to be replaced by Framemaker?

Interesting discussion I didn't see before.

I think that ID and FM have two completly different apprach to XML, so they'll continue to go in different direction and for different kind of users.

I mean that with FM you can build what you could call an “XML application” that can produce a PDF or a FM document as output.

In ID you can use XML to import data into a structured template and it's very useful to buld catalogs, price lists and any kind of repetitive documents, but you need to build a lot of JavaScript code or a custom plug-in if you want to have a complete XML environment.

I use a lot the ID structured templates for my customer that need to build documents with data, you don't need to know everything about XML, like you might do to build a custom app with FM.

In conclusion I've noticed that ID support of XML data is very undestimated in the designer's world.