Comments on: InDesign and InCopy CS4 Trials Available

By: Dorothy Hoskins

Dorothy Hoskins — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:35:19 +0000

Generally, I would not recommend anything except light XML editing within InDesign itself. You will not be happy with XML editing in InDesign (Cs2-CS5) because there are no good controls to prevent making mistakes and you need XML experience to understand how to fix them. The best use of XML in InDesign is for beautiful printing of XML content, not for editing XML. If you can have a workflow where you edit XML externally then import it into InDesign for layout and formatting, that is the best general use case for XML content.
Sometimes you have to simplify XML that you get from other sources before you import it into InDesign, I write XSL transforms to use when improting the XML into InDesign for this kind of situation. In some cases, you can create a “back transform” to recreate the original XML structure on export from InDesign. Theoretically, this would be a “round trip” scenario, but in practice it is harder than you might expect to add back structure when exporting the XML.

By: Anne-Marie Concepcion

Anne-Marie Concepcion — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:19:36 +0000

Dan: You don’t have to “merge” anything; when you’re done, just unlink the InCopy stories from the layout. You can do this from the Assignments panel or the Links panel.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:33:28 +0000

We are working to finalize a catalog design in InDesign and currently use InCopy to update content changes.

Will we able to merge the InCopy files into the finalized InDesign Document without getting into issues or how should it be done?

Appreciate your response. Thank you very much.

Dan

By: Kathleen McGuinness

Kathleen McGuinness — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:45:30 +0000

IDCS4 Cross References disappear when exported in IDML Upon open in ID new file shows me ?s instead of page #s for “between file” refs. Same with inx. Have yet to find a work around so I can “clean” these older files which crash idd often.

By: Nadya Miloserdova

Nadya Miloserdova — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:25:34 +0000

I use XML tags to automatically import images with my text for a big catalog.
However, XML tags to be mapped to styles in large scale DON’T work. The text itself comes plain, but the pictures are already in.
I ‘mark’ paragraphs with some keywords, and after the import I find/change them into the real paragraph styles. Hundreds of thousands of consecutive replaces work as good as you can’t imagine: fast and very stable. The same words also apply to GREP changes.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:30:37 +0000

Can ID CS4 be used as an XML editing platform? — It depends how much editing has to be done. For industrial-strength XML editing, no doubt ID falls far short of Altove XML Spy, or whatever. However, I’m sure I’m not alone in finding myself constantly using ID with Grep for quick-and-easy XML editing. I spend much of my time with two ID documents open. There’s the real one I’m working on, and another one with typographer’s quotes switched off, purely for text/XML editing.

By: Nadya Miloserdova

Nadya Miloserdova — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:11:28 +0000

Cross-references cannot be transformed into XML in InDesign.
I have the similar book of about 1200 pages (a telephone directory), and it is full of cross references like “See section BOOKSTORES at page 963″.
For CS3 version I have purchased the plug-in InXRef (Virginia Systems).
It worked, but I couldn’t do the x-referencing automatically. Every single reference has to be entered and managed manually. Anyway, the plug-in did its job, although for this huge book it often was a narrow squeak (InD worked too slowly. TOO SLOWLY. And InD has often hung.)
Now in CS4 assuming I can use native Cross References Panel and preparing myself to relax and enjoy, I can’t even Copy-Paste the names of the References: I have to choose them from the long list of paragraphs of certain style.
My solution is: use the InDesign Tagged text. I want my X-Refs to be introduced into plain text BEFORE I import the text into InD document.
So far (hate to tell you), for this particular purpose you’d better stay with Frame Maker.

By: Mike McCluskey

Mike McCluskey — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:12:43 +0000

Hi, Not sure this is the correct thread for this question/plea for help, but heregoes…

Decisions were made, that’s all I can say, but I am left holding the bag on a Framemaker to InDesign conversion. That in itself is a daunting task, for a 1,200 page book loaded with xrefs and index markers, but manageable.

My main problem is that the content of this book also serves as a software product which, in the past, used Frame html run through a compiler. I am thinking XML is the way to go, so we can single source our content for web, print and software. Here are my questions:

-Can ID Cs4 convert xrefs and index markers to xml?
-Can ID Cs4 be used as an XML editing platform? If not, does anyone know the best way of “job sharing” b/t an xml editor and ID?

I know the likely answer is “run form the building screaming.” But I can’t. Any help, even advice in addition to my questions, is greatly appreciated!

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:27:13 +0000

Bridget, unfortunately InCopy doesn’t allow for that level of granularity. QuarkXPress’s synchronized text feature does, though. (You could synch just the raw text but not its formatting, for example.)

I do have some clients who are using InCopy just as you describe though. To have the same IC story appear with different formatting in 3 ID files, you use same-named styles in the “parent” ID file.

For example, each ID file has a paragraph style called Headline. In the first ID file, Headline is defined as bold red 24 pt.; in the second ID file, Headline is italic green 12 pt., and in the third, Headline looks exactly the same as Subhead.

Someone selects the first paragraph in the IC story and applies the Headline style to it. It makes no difference which of the 3 ID files it’s checked out from to apply the style. It could even be a standalone IC file that someone has created a Headline style in.

When that same IC story is viewed in each ID file (or exported/output to PDF), the first paragraph takes on the formatting of how Headline is defined in its parent ID file, since the ID file calls the shots where style definitions are concerned.

Does that get you any closer? You might want to come up with a specific naming convention for these sorts of “shared” styles to help people understand what’s going on.

By: Bridget

Bridget — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:46:00 +0000

We are trying to establish a process for using a single inCopy document with multiple inDesign documents. Basically we are presenting the exact same copy in three different ways.

Here is the problem. The paragraph styles need to be different in all three inDesign documents. Is there a way to turn off the paragraph sytle editability in inCopy and allow the paragraph styles in each individual inDesign document rule?

We are really, really trying to avoid having to make the same edits in three different documents every time.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks~Bridget