Indesign Import XML into Automatic Page generation, data merge
- by taudep
I've created some InDesign Pages that I want to use as templates. I've created an XML file with all the appropriate data. I want to merge the XML data with the InDesign page and have a few hundred pages automatically generated.
I've been reading online and working with InDesign's "Import XML" features without any luck. The documentation has been pretty poor for me. And Google searches haven't returned much fruitful.
Here are my present steps:
I create a Master Page of my template
I add a bunch of text frames where I want the imported data from the XML file to be places
I open the "Tags" window and Import and XML file
I mark my text frames in the Master Document with the appropriate tags
I then add a lot of pages (like 200) to the document
Then I use "Import XML" to try and get the data brought in and filled across all 200 pages.
This is where I fail. There's something I'm missing. It might be that InDesign doesn't work as I'm expecting...
Does anyone have any good tips for mail-merge like functionality with an XML document and auto-generation of InDesign pages?
By the way, here's an example of Adobe's great documentation for merging repeated XML elements. There's got to be more... InDesign CS4 Docs: XML-Importing XML-Working with Repeating Data
Here's some of the sample XML, notice the ITEM will repeat. I've also truncated the data in the "desc" tag:
<output>
<item>
<user_name>taude</user_name>
<date>2009-02-21</date>
<title>Wishful Thinking</title>
<desc>Skiing up in Vermont on a beautiful day. This photo of</desc>
<thumbnail>http://www.blipfoto.com/thumbs/5371/2009/big/color/96104200949a162672e1996.15963073.jpeg</thumbnail>
</item>
<item>
<user_name>taude</user_name>
<date>2009-02-22</date>
<title>Skiing Self Portrait</title>
<desc>I was inspired by ML's self-portrait while </desc>
<thumbnail>http://www.blipfoto.com/thumbs/5371/2009/big/color/36547696749a2c5782308e0.91477014.jpeg</thumbnail>
</item>
</output>
Here's what my imported XML looks like with the InDesign Structure:
