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InDesign Automation Using XML and JavaScript

(5 days: £1,295, plus VAT)

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This one week course provides comprehensive coverage of using JavaScript to automate InDesign especially via the creation of XML workflows. Delegates will learn how to create JavaScript solutions with user-friendly interfaces which import and process XML, create and populate documents and much more.
JavaScript has the adavantage of being cross platform. The course is aimed at experienced users of InDesign CS5 and assumes little or no programming experience.

Basics

The Scripts panel, The ExtendScript Toolkit, Code Collapse, Organizing your scripts, Planning your scripts, Setting standards, Making scripts scalable, Writing scripts for your own use only, Writing scripts for other people

Scripting essentials

Comments, Variable data types, Declaring and initializing variables, Expressions and operators, The InDesign object model, The Object Model viewer, Essential object syntax, Creating new elements, Referencing objects, Targeting currently active objects, Counting objects, Working with object properties, Property values, Using enumerations, Working with object methods, JavaScript dialog windows, Array variables, JavaScript objects, What is an object?, InDesign objects and JavaScript objects

Conditional statements and looping

If else statements, Switch statements, For loops, Using a for loop to test whether a document is open, Looping in reverse, Break and continue, While loops, Avoiding endless loops, Looping through an array with a for loop, Looping through a JavaScript object, Using a for...in loop, Looping through InDesign object collections

Creating dialogs

Dialog controls, Layout controls, Text controls, Creating static labels and text boxes, Placing dialog objects inside variables, Self-validating text controls, Controls which offer the user a choice, Using self-validating controls, Button controls, Referring to controls, Displaying a dialog, The canCancel property, Creating radiobutton and checkbox controls

ScriptUI Dialogs

The Window object, Tabbed panels, panels and groups, Creating controls using the add() method, Using creation properties, StaticText and EditText controls, DropDownList, ListBox and TreeView controls, Using the ProgressBar control, Button controls, DefaultElement and CancelElement properties, Creating callback functions, OnClick and onChange events, The onClose event, Changing control properties dynamically

Working with Files and Documents

Difference between a file and a document, Creating a new document, Opening a document, Letting the user choose a file, Letting the user choose the file types shown in the dialog, Allowing multiple selections, Testing whether a document is already open, Testing whether an array of documents is already open, Saving a document, Testing whether a document has been saved, Saving the changes to a document, Using the saveDialog method, Closing a document, Reading from a text file, Testing whether a file exists, Writing to a text file, Working with folders, Creating, deleting and renaming folders, Reading all files in a folder, Reading files of a given type, Working with text files, Saving preferences in a text file, Reading preferences from a text file

Document Layout

Document and default Preferences, View Preferences, RulerOrigin, DocumentPreferences, Page attributes, Bleed and slug, Margin Preferences, Margin settings, Column settings, View Preferences

Working with text

Understanding text objects, Placing text, Finding and replacing text, Clearing Find/Change preferences

Working with Images

InDesign image objects, Images as page items, Images as graphic objects, The image object, EPS, Images as links, LinkMetadata, Identifying problems with images, Finding stretched images, Using actualPpi effectivePpi, imageTypeName, Embedded unlinked images

Working with Page Items

PageItems and allPageItems, Gauging the type of page items, Using constructor.name, Using the contentType property, Using the ID property, Identifying anchored objects, Creating a document explorer

XML Essentials

What is XML?, Structure of an XML document, Elements and attributes, Entity references, CDATA sections, Comments, Processing instructions, XML validation, Well-formedness and schema validation, DTDs versus XML schemas

XML InDesign Essentials

Overview, Importing XML, Creating tags, Matching tags to styles, Using inline objects, Working with images, Navigating XML structure

Working with DTDs

Using an internal and external DTDs, Declaring elements and attributes, Specifying the occurrence of child elements, Attribute data types, Defining entities, Validating an XML document against a DTD, Using DTDs in InDesign, Importing tags from a DTD

XSLT Essentials

Linking an XML document to a stylesheet, The structure of an XSLT document, The stylesheet element, The template element, Using XPath expressions, Examples of XPath expressions, Using <xsl:apply-templates>, Using <xsl:copy>, The <xsl:value-of> element, The <xsl:copy-of> element, Using <xsl:element> and <xsl:attribute>, Creating an XSLT stylesheet in Dreamweaver, Applying the XSLT stylesheet in InDesign

XSLT Processing-Control Elements

<xsl:if>, <xsl:choose>, <xsl:when> and <xsl:otherwise>, The <xsl:for-each> element, The <xsl:sort> element

XML Import

Setting XML import preferences, Importing XML, XML import maps, Working with the XmlStory object, Creating styles, Mapping tags to styles, Working with Tables, Using the ValidationError object

XML Export

Creating tags, Mapping styles to tags, Setting image options, Setting table options, XML export maps, Exporting XML, Exporting XHTML documents