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• • September 28, 2010 at 9:46 am #57152
    Sarah H

    Member

    Once I get my document all styled, I apply tags using a combination of “map styles to tags” and manual tagging. Originally I was thinking the “map styles to tags” would continually keep the tags up to date as changes/additions are made in the document. But rather, it seems like it's a one-time deal. Is that right or am I missing something?

    What's the best practice for maintaining xml tags in a document that will be regularly revised? Am I left with manually applying tags for revisions? I'd be very hesitant to re-map everything since I think that would strip out all the hierarchy, parent tags, etc. that I manually applied after the initial mapping.

    Thanks for any suggestions.

  • September 28, 2010 at 4:21 pm #57154
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I think the main reason you would want to tag paragraphs of text (based on styles) in InDesign is to export the data out, right? But in general, I maintain that InDesign should not be the container from which you are publishing your XML. Instead, your XML should be coming from someplace else and being dropped into InDesign.

    But yes, as you noted, the map styles to tags is a one-time event, like Find/Change, that would need to be done repeatedly.

    You know what I always say: “If there is any sane way to do the job without XML, do it that way.”

  • September 29, 2010 at 8:01 am #57166
    Frederick Yocum

    Member

    @David But in general, I maintain that InDesign should not be the container from which you are publishing your XML. Instead, your XML should be coming from someplace else and being dropped into InDesign.

    Alas David, we don’t all have that luxury.

    The editors I work with think in Word and then they think in InDesign until they think in Web or Epub. Most of the publications are copy-edited in InDesign with the final print version becoming the imprimatur for all the other versions of the document.

    Once a document is tagged. I have ended up treating InDesign as an XML editor. Eg add your corrections in the Story Editor with Strucuture/Tag Markers turned on. If you are adding new content rather than simply correcting old content you are left (in my experience) with a tough question. Retagging the text can loose you all the kerning and other subtle alterations you have made to the text.

  • September 29, 2010 at 8:08 am #57167
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Yes, I understand the workflow; it's common in the XML world, unfortunately. I'm just saying that InDesign isn't really well designed to work that way.

  • September 29, 2010 at 8:24 am #57169
    Frederick Yocum

    Member

    Do you think this is on the horizon as far as InDesign development is concerned?

    There is such a emphasis on epub and xhtml export, which are both forms of xml. There appears to be an interconnectedness between how InDesign handles epub formatting/exporting and the way it handles xml, which gives me hope as well as frustration.

    I keep hoping I can push inserting xml in our/my workflow, because it often feels like the missing building block, but the tools used in publishing, at least at the ordinary meat and potatoes level, seem not up to the job.

  • September 29, 2010 at 8:37 am #57172
    Sarah H

    Member

    I understand what you're saying, in theory, David. But in practice, I have to agree with Frederick. I have not encountered an instance in my work when I could finalize all content in an XML editor before ever touching InDesign. Not realistic for me. Besides, I can't really believe I'm supposed to think of InDesign as just my print layout tool. It's trying to be more than that, right? With interactive features, XML, epub, etc. Why shouldn't it house my primary content which can then be output in these variety of ways. If it's not well designed to work that way, in my humble opinion, it should be. :-)

  • September 29, 2010 at 8:58 am #57173
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    @sarahchager: I think you're talking about two different things. InDesign is a layout tool — it's designed to let you lay objects on a page (whether it's a print or interactive page, setting the relationships between objects, and making it all look pretty). Exporting to EPUB, SWF, PDF, or print is one thing. Exporting to XML is very different. The fundamental concept of XML is that is breaks content and form into two different things.

    What you're wanting is for InDesign to be a page-layout tool, an XML editor, and an XML database (a place to hold all the XML content so that you can do stuff with it, such as give it different forms, export it, etc.). I don't argue with you that this would be cool, but that's not what InDesign IS. InDesign works best when you drop stuff into it, make it look pretty, and output to some format that people will see (print, pdf, swf, epub).

    There is no doubt that you can tag your content in InDesign, export it as XML, and then re-use that for Web, etc. I'm just saying InDesign isn't well designed for that.

    Will it be someday? I hope so! But I'm not holding my breath.

  • September 29, 2010 at 10:17 am #57175
    Frederick Yocum

    Member

    @David What you're wanting is for InDesign to be a page-layout tool, an XML editor, and an XML database (a place to hold all the XML content so that you can do stuff with it, such as give it different forms, export it, etc.). Yes please! If InDesign is only for visual display it shouldn't aspire to being a digital hub and may explain why it produces such kacky, kacky markup when it exports to HTML or EPUB. It is not alone, Word is equally grotty. What the world needs is a document processing tool that separates out content from display and holds it semantically so that we can move it from content type to content type effortlessly. I feel a song coming on . . .

  • September 29, 2010 at 10:31 am #57176
    Sarah H

    Member

    So, David, just curious… would you recommend a different workflow? My company is primarily a book publisher, but we also re-purpose content into software, apps, epub, mobi, pdf. Considering most of our content is currently in InDesign, does my approach make sense (tagging xml in InDesign)? Or should I look at XML editors? The thought of re-importing XML to InDesign every time we reprint kind of makes my head hurt. The layout's going to need tweaking or fine-tuning…a little more complex than the business card example always used to demonstrate importing XML.

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