InDesign CS5 Automation Using XML & JavaScript

InDesign is now regarded as the industry standard in desktop publishing and is very widely used by publishing professionals and non-specialists alike. Many users have a pressing need for automation of their workflows but have been reluctant to get started because of the lack of a simple internal mechanism for recording steps, like Photoshop and Illustrator actions.
Instead InDesign relies on scripting which, for many InDesign users, may seem a little too much like hard work. In fact, InDesign comes with all the tools necessary for creating scripts and scripting is not that difficult–it can even be fun!
This book is aimed at the general user and provides an introduction to scripting InDesign, using JavaScript to create simple cross-platform solutions. It also gives a general introduction to XML, DTDs and XSLT, before showing how to automate the importing and exporting of XML data.

• Learn proactively through step-by-step tutorials on creating JavaScript solutions: the “Try it for yourself!” approach allows you to see for yourself how scripts are put together.
• Create scripts that manipulate text and images, build documents automatically and output them as interactive PDFs.
• Become familiar with the InDesign object model: as you work through the book, you will make repeated use of the essential syntax for manipulating InDesign objects such as document, pages, text frames, graphics and preferences.
• Create user interfaces to make your scripts more flexible and user-friendly. Rather than just creating scripts which always perform the same steps, you will learn to user ScriptUI to provide users with the ability to make choices that determine what the script will do.
• Learn how to automate XML import and export and provide an interface which allows the user to filter import by supplying parameter values.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Scripting Essentials
Chapter 3. Conditional Statements, Loops And Functions
Chapter 4. Creating Dialogs
Chapter 5. Scriptui Dialogs
Chapter 6. Working With Files And Documents
Chapter 7. Document Layout
Chapter 8. Working With Text
Chapter 9. Working With Images
Chapter 10. Page Items And Layers
Chapter 11. Error Handling And Debugging
Chapter 12. Interactive Documents
Chapter 13: Xml Essentials
Chapter 14: Indesign Xml Essentials
Chapter 15: Working With Dtds
Chapter 16: Xslt Essentials
Chapter 17: Xslt Processing-Control Elements
Chapter 18: Working With Indesign Xml Objects
Chapter 19. The Javascript Xml Object
Chapter 20. Exporting Xml
Chapter 21. Conclusion