Operation Manual
Working with XML
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About XML
XML tools
About DTD files
XML rule sets
Preparing XML files for K4 or InCopy workflows
Adobe InDesign CS5 is one of many applications that can produce and use XML. After you tag content in an InDesign file, you save and export
the file as XML so that it can be repurposed in another InDesign file or another application. Similarly, you can import an XML file into InDesign and
instruct InDesign to display and format the XML data any way you want.
About XML
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a way to repurpose data in a file or automate the process of replacing the data in one file with data from
another file. XML employs tags to describe parts of a file—a heading or a story, for example. These tags mark data so it can be stored in an XML
file and handled appropriately when it is exported to other files. Think of XML as a translation mechanism for data. XML tags label text and other
content in a file so that applications can recognize and present the data.
Gabriel Powell provides a video tutorial about using XML in InDesign at Creating a Basic XML-ready Template.
Extensible language
XML is considered an extensible language because individuals create their own XML tags—they can create one tag for each type of information
that they want to repurpose. XML tags don’t carry information about how data is supposed to be displayed or formatted. XML tags are strictly for
identifying content.
In InCopy , for example, you can create a Heading1 tag and assign it to each first-level heading in a document. After you save the document as an
XML file, the Heading1 content can be imported and put to use—by any application that can read XML—as a web page, printed catalog, directory,
price list, or database table.
Adobe InCopy is one of many applications that can produce and use XML. After you tag content in an InCopy file, you save and export the file as
XML so that it can be repurposed in another InCopy file, InDesign file, or another application.
In InCopy , you can create XML tags and tag parts of a document even if you’re not experienced with XML. InCopy handles XML programming
behind the scenes and creates the XML for you when you export a document in XML format.
Important: Do not confuse XML tags with InCopy tagged text. For more information about tagged text, which is a different method of exporting
and importing InCopy content, view the Tagged Text PDF at www.adobe.com/go/learn_id_taggedtext_cs5_en (PDF).
XML data structure
The element is the building block of XML data; an element is data that has been tagged. In XML files, elements are nested within other elements
to create a hierarchical structure for the data.
You can see the structure of XML data in the Structure pane, which displays the hierarchy and sequence of elements. In the XML structure, child
elements are contained by parent elements, which in turn may also be child elements. Or, seen from the other direction, parent elements contain
child elements, and these child elements may in turn be parent elements to other child elements.
For example, in the following image, you can see a chapter element that contains (is the parent of) a recipe element. The recipe element, in turn,
is the parent of elements called recipename and ingredients. All elements are contained inside the Story element, which always appears at the top
of the Structure pane.
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