Outside-In XML Publishing

Outside-in publishing considers the mature publishing application as the rightful tool for sophisticated XML publishing. You don’t have to struggle with XSL-FO when creating running headers and footers, varying column layouts, figure numbering and table formatting. But XML markup and validation aren’t the strong point for most publishing applications. The solution is to create valid XML and then load it into the publishing application for formatting and layout.

• Pull XML content into your publishing application and have it format itself on import.
• Map elements to paragraphs styles or in-line character styles.
• Create tables, insert graphics and create reusable content models.
• Design templates for catalogs, dictionaries and reference books
• Rearrange, sort and process XML with XSLT on import or export

While the tool that is demonstrated is InDesign CS3, the general principles could be applied for any publishing application that can import and format XML content. You just have to understand the application’s internal XML model and how to “speak its language”.

Besides demonstrating the inside-out publishing approach, some ideas for automating the processes by scripting InDesign will be covered.