XML and InDesign

Chapter 12. Brief Notes

A Brief Note about InCopy and XML

According to James Maidvald,

InCopy can:

Open an InDesign document to edit or add XML structure.

Open an InDesign assignment or InCopy .INCX file to edit or add XML structure.

Open an XML file directly.

Create an XML file from scratch.

Maidvald’s 2007 book is Designer’s Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML: Harness the Power of XML to Automate your Print and Web Workflows (Adobe, 2007).

Note

Since version CS4, the .icnx file format has been replaced by the .icml file format, for interchanging InCopy files with CS4 and CS5. See A Brief Note about IDML and ICML.

InCopy files externalize InDesign text flows for copy editing without using InDesign. The licenses for InCopy are much cheaper than the ones for InDesign.

A designer assigns an InDesign text flow to an editor or writer as an assignment file. The writer or editor checks out and opens the assignment in InCopy, where the InDesign layout for the text flow can be seen, but not changed, by the person working on the text. Typically, the writer or editor can apply color swatches, make text bold, italic, bulleted, and so on, and apply approved paragraph and character styles.

It gets interesting when you want to create XML files but you don’t want to have all the writers trying to make XML content in the same InDesign file. In this case, you can create XML files using a DTD in InCopy just as you would in InDesign. So each writer can create XML in their assigned text flow using the Story editor ...