Chicago InDesign User Group Home Meeting Summary Archive

Meeting Summary

Document Automation with Data Merge and XML
Tue, Mar 10th, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Ascend Training & Consulting
Event Details

Our March 10th InDesign User Group meeting was an outstanding success. Over 50 attendees enjoyed pizza and a lecture/demonstration of Document Automation techniques in InDesign using Data Merge and XML hosted by Ascend Training & Consulting at their downtown facility. The speaker was our own Jim Maivald, group leader and resident expert of InDesign's XML features.

The meeting started off with a description and demonstration of the Data Merge feature in InDesign, which compared and contrasted it to InDesign's XML features. Jim loaded a comma separated values (CSV) file, inserted data placeholders into an InDesign document and then generated several pages of mailing labels.
We learned that Data Merge has an advantage over XML in that you can use any individual placeholder any number of times within the layout, something that can't be done with XML placeholders. Data Merge in fact does an excellent job in simple mail-merge type documents, like mailing labels, business cards, letterhead and so on. However, Jim explained how XML workflows blow away Data Merge when you need to flow data over multiple pages, something that XML shines at.

We got a quick overview of XML, which stands for Extensible Markup Language, including a demonstration of how XML can be created using TextEdit, Notepad, MS Word, Excel, Access, and Filemaker Pro. Then, Jim showed how InDesign can use XML to create all type of data-rich projects. He demonstrated several typical XML workflows, including business cards, cookbooks, catalogs, and variable data mailers. We also saw how XML can be used to import and format hundreds of pages of data quickly and easily. But the magic doesn't stop with importing XML data.

Jim demonstrated how to use XML to export the content of any document to quickly create other documents. The highlight of the evening was watching how Jim took a normal newsletter, added XML tags to the layout and then exported it to an XML file to create an instant Web page. Jim showed how to apply an XSLT during the XML export and how an XSLT can transform XML into almost any other type of document, creating amazing results.

Finally, we got an overview on a new feature added to CS4 called InDesign Markup Language (IDML), which Jim explained was similar to the InDesign Interchange (INX) file format. Basically, we learned that IDML is a new file format that saves an InDesign file in an XML-based format that will be easier to work with than INX for developers.

The meeting ended with a question and answer period and a raffle of a full-copy of InDesign CS4.

Upcoming Industry Events

Jim announced that Ascend Training & Consulting was offering a in-depth 2-day hands-on workshop in InDesign's XML features on May 18 & 19, 2009. IDUG members receive a $200 discount for this class. If you are interested in getting more information on this workshop, check this link: http://www.ascendtraining.com/outline.php?id=61

Next Meeting

The next Chicago meeting is being planned for the beginning of June.