Reply To: XML to InDesign in tabulated form

Then do not use the template. Just use the data file and place your placeholders and run the merge to a new document.

You’ll need a different script for in-line merges because with multiple records per page, you will have one text frame per record and these frames are not linked. There are free scripts that will link those frames. Then you would need to delete all pages but the first page, delete all the frames except the first frame, increase its size to the page margins top/bottom, then autoflow onto a new page.

The problem with not using tables is you will find some/many of the descriptions are too long to fit the space from your screen shot.

The XML is also not well-formed. The minimum you need to do is to encode the ampersands to their html counterparts. That will likely allow ID to use the XML.