[ID] How best to create a print/web version of alumni magazine

[John Kramer Design]

The 2015 edition of a print-only alumni annual I design for a university physics department is to be made available on the web. (The paper version will still be printed, but in a smaller quantity.) The timing is good because I've already been advocating for a redesign. It's usually around 72 pages, and has the usual assortment of magazine-like features, faculty and alumni news, student awards, etc.

Am I correct to think that this ought to involve xml as a way to generate both Indesign style sheets and html? If I am right about that, would love to know about favorite resources: books, online-tutorials, etc. I'm not expecting to learn xml myself, but want to be able to structure the Indesign document in the smartest way, and have a good sense of ideal workflows. The manuscript comes from multiple sources (some of whom like to work in LaTeX!), but I get good clean Word files (he said, oxymoronically) from a central source. 

If I'm wrong about xml, would love to hear about alternatives.

Thanks in advance.

John Kramer

http://www.johnkramerdesign.biz/

[David Blatner]

I know a lot of people who would disagree with me, but my philosophy is "if there is any way to do something in InDesign to avoid using XML, do it."

You can do all kinds of things with XML in InDesign, but rarely easily or happily. 

You can't lay it out in InDesign and export a PDF suitable for viewing on the web site? It needs to be actual HTML articles?

You can export HTML from InDesign (just text and graphics) and map styles to your own custom CSS.

There are also people working on InDesign to WordPress tools. And there are ways to export from InDesign to Markdown:

https://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/id-2-markdown/

I wish you could import HTML into InDesign! That way you could single-source with HTML.

Note that this is a topic that will come up a lot at PePcon in June (pepcon.com) and there will be lots of developers and folks working on it who you could talk to.

--david blatner

(co-host pepcon and indesignsecrets.com)

[Evans, Rebecca]

I second this . . . XML not easy to use in InDesign. You often have to use copyeditor view to accurately place the text cursor inside (or outside) XML tags, and (really importantly) changing an InDesign paragraph or character style does NOT change the XML tagging: you have to remember to do that as a separate step.

I mentioned this earlier for a different question, so pardon the repeat: Michael Murphy has on-line courses about creating one InDesign document that can be output to both print and web. The UDEMY link is:

https://www.udemy.com/draft/43145/

He probably also has courses on Lynda.com.

Rebecca

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[John Kramer]

Thanks so much, David and Rebecca.
Those resources and the xml warnings are greatly appreciated.

John

[William Adams]

My inclination would be to roll out the online version as a Drupal or other site in a suitable CMS, then export the stories for importing into the print version.

William

--
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.