Q: The FTP and SQL database transfer tools contained in the BatchXSLT for InDesign package can not connect to our servers on the Internet. Any solution?
A: Until today, this problem was reported when the internal network was protected by a proxy server. BatchXSLT currently can not connect through a proxy.
SOLUTION: Ask your web team to open the Proxy server (for you only) to allow a direct connection to your servers.
We are working on this to be able to provide a better solution in a next release.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
FAQ: Incredibly slow flipbook load
Q: When publishing the XML file of an exported InDesign document the load time is unacceptable slow. What is wrong?
A: Nothing is wrong. BUT NEVER publish the XML file on the Internet. BatchXSLT for InDesign exports a publication to XML (which is media-neutral) and also creates a human readable version as an HTML flip book at the same time - both look and act the same in a browser.
Publish this HTML file instead of the XML.
Usually it can be found directly beside the XML file in the 'Export' folder structure.
Some more info: Browsers can not display XML directly as a flipping pages eBook. The exported XML contains a transform XSL to convert it to HTML. This means that the browser has to open the XML file, make the transform and then display the resulting HTML. And exactly this transform is the time consuming task - not the load time of a (200kb) XML file.
Always serve your readers the html flip book!
A: Nothing is wrong. BUT NEVER publish the XML file on the Internet. BatchXSLT for InDesign exports a publication to XML (which is media-neutral) and also creates a human readable version as an HTML flip book at the same time - both look and act the same in a browser.
Publish this HTML file instead of the XML.
Usually it can be found directly beside the XML file in the 'Export' folder structure.
Some more info: Browsers can not display XML directly as a flipping pages eBook. The exported XML contains a transform XSL to convert it to HTML. This means that the browser has to open the XML file, make the transform and then display the resulting HTML. And exactly this transform is the time consuming task - not the load time of a (200kb) XML file.
Always serve your readers the html flip book!
FAQ: Direct access to article in flip book
Q: We have a huge catalog exported to XML using BatchXSLT for InDesign. Now we should be able to send out direct links to an item of interest. This link should open the catalog, flip to the page and show the desired article. Possible?
A: Yes, possible: the information on article id and page number is needed.
This information can be obtained from the html flipbook file. Search for your article text and get the 'id' attribute of its container div element. Should look like this: id="Art65_13". This means article id 65 on page 13. You also can get this information from the XML file.
Now build a link like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/path/to/flipbook/html/bookfilename.htm?p=13&a=65
A: Yes, possible: the information on article id and page number is needed.
This information can be obtained from the html flipbook file. Search for your article text and get the 'id' attribute of its container div element. Should look like this: id="Art65_13". This means article id 65 on page 13. You also can get this information from the XML file.
Now build a link like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/path/to/flipbook/html/bookfilename.htm?p=13&a=65
FAQ: Extracting articles for archive database
Q: The articles from our Newspaper must be pushed into the database of our web site. We do not need a flip page e-Book like exported from BatchXSLT for InDesign. Is such an export mode available?
A: YES - indeed! The standard export created by BatchXSLT for InDesign shows up in a browser as an eBook. This is one out of many possible view modes only!
This exported XML also can be used directly - it is 'all purpose XML' - to retrieve article by article.
Open the XML file in plain text editor and locate the elements <article>....</article>.
All articles are exported page by page and are enclosed by an 'article' element.
A: YES - indeed! The standard export created by BatchXSLT for InDesign shows up in a browser as an eBook. This is one out of many possible view modes only!
This exported XML also can be used directly - it is 'all purpose XML' - to retrieve article by article.
Open the XML file in plain text editor and locate the elements <article>....</article>.
All articles are exported page by page and are enclosed by an 'article' element.
FAQ: Articles positions on a page
This is a frequent question from system integrators creating their own epaper solution.
Q: We have our own ePaper solution based on PDF pages. Does BatchXSLT for InDesign's XML export provide article/box positions so it can be mapped on a PDF page?
A: Yes. The page numbers, positions and size of articles/boxes are reflected in the exported XML.
Q: We have our own ePaper solution based on PDF pages. Does BatchXSLT for InDesign's XML export provide article/box positions so it can be mapped on a PDF page?
A: Yes. The page numbers, positions and size of articles/boxes are reflected in the exported XML.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
FAQ: Adjusting eBook fonts
Q: I need to change the appearance of fonts in the flip book exported by BatchXSLT for InDesign. How can I do this?
A: An external CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) can be found within the Export folder structure in the folder 'XSLCSS'. It was created automatically during export procedure to represent the original InDesign styles as close as possible. Its name is similar to the original document's name. Example: If your InDesign document's file name is 'News Today' you will find the corresponding CSS named like 'News Today.css'.
Open this CSS file with a plain text editor and adjust the font names (font-family:) and font sizes (font-size:) or what ever needs to be adjusted.
A: An external CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) can be found within the Export folder structure in the folder 'XSLCSS'. It was created automatically during export procedure to represent the original InDesign styles as close as possible. Its name is similar to the original document's name. Example: If your InDesign document's file name is 'News Today' you will find the corresponding CSS named like 'News Today.css'.
Open this CSS file with a plain text editor and adjust the font names (font-family:) and font sizes (font-size:) or what ever needs to be adjusted.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
FAQ: Media-independent XML
Q: I need a media-independent XML output, DocBook, from my InDesign documents. However, reading the XML file exported by BatchXSLT for InDesign shows class attributes for paragraph and character styles.
A: The exported XML always is media-independent. A class attribute is nothing more than 'information'. It says: 'this text part originally was styled with this style sheet'. It does NOT style the text in XML. However, this style information is important and can be used to extract certain elements from the document to create elements in the target format.
Example for DocBook: Assume an Element <citation> must be created:
The created XML output of text marked like this could be:
Using XSLT to select the correct text parts through its style class attribute now is easy and the <citation> element can be created.
In other words: style names is the only thing contained in InDesign documents which lets us determine the meaning (not formatting) of text parts.
A: The exported XML always is media-independent. A class attribute is nothing more than 'information'. It says: 'this text part originally was styled with this style sheet'. It does NOT style the text in XML. However, this style information is important and can be used to extract certain elements from the document to create elements in the target format.
Example for DocBook: Assume an Element <citation> must be created:
<citation>
<authorname type="first">Andreas</authorname>
<authorname type="last">Imhof</authorname>
<year>2010</year>
<title>Amazing XML</title>
<publicationname>My Blog</publicationname>
</citation>
The one and only way to be able to identify and extract names or dates from an InDesign document is through styles. Each text part to associate to a DocBook element must be marked with its own style.<authorname type="first">Andreas</authorname>
<authorname type="last">Imhof</authorname>
<year>2010</year>
<title>Amazing XML</title>
<publicationname>My Blog</publicationname>
</citation>
The created XML output of text marked like this could be:
<span class="AuthorFirstName">Andreas</span> <span class="AuthorName">Imhof</span>....
<div class="publicationYear">2010</div>...
<div class="articleTitle">Amazing XML</div>...
<div class="publicationName">My Blog</div>...
Using XSLT to select the correct text parts through its style class attribute now is easy and the <citation> element can be created.
In other words: style names is the only thing contained in InDesign documents which lets us determine the meaning (not formatting) of text parts.
Press Release - Publishing InDesign Documents
AiEDV.ch and ePaperArchives.com announce the next version of a tool in the category "XML Export and ePaper Software" for publishers.
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» converts InDesign documents to understandable 'all purpose' XML and HTML with a mouse click. Exported data can be viewed and navigated as a flip page e-book website in any Browser.
Cost-efficiency, quality, flexibility and speed are most important to all editors when publishing InDesign document content on the Internet.
BatchXSLT for InDesign's main purpose is to significantly reduce or to completely eliminate manual work needed to create text and image content suitable for web and database applications. «BatchXSLT for InDesign» knows without additional configuration how to merge a newspaper's text elements to articles, how to convert high resolution EPS and TIFF images to JPEG and how to associate them to articles.
"All-Purpose-XML" simply means, that it is suitable for almost any further application and purpose. The very rich tagged XML output contains enough information for any web, e-paper, database or CD application.
In addition, the created XML and HTML data can be viewed and navigated in a browser as a flipping page eBook. Such an eBook is based on plain XML (or HTML) and Javascript and therefore is more flexible compared to eBooks based on flash.
Many options are available for example to set the size of the flipping book, to create active links from www-addresses and from hyperlinks. Stories, spread over multiple pages, may automatically be split at a page boundary. This enables consumers to read novels, scientific papers and any other story in a page per page mode. Furthermore, the Javascript and XSL source code may be edited to change the behavior and the functionality of an e-Book.
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» is a powerful, flexible and expandable XML Transformer.
According to requirement, XML programers may create their own target format from the intermediary well structured XML file format. Virtually any number of output formats may be created to match a user's needs. Starting at dedicated HTML, XML, RTF, DocBook and any other text based format up to a direct transfer into a database. Own XSL transforms as well as external Java or Javascript functions and libraries can easily be added.
And the answer is: It does. However, in almost all cases this is by far not enough: labor- and cost-intensive and too slow.
Explained on a real world example when a daily newspaper has to be published on the Internet:
The starting position is always identical: Any number of document pages containing images attached to articles have to be converted.
The demands of subsequent applications is identical in most cases: An XML file representing the document's content - the articles - including to articles attached images as JPEGs. Furthermore, according to requirements, all pages as JPEGs and as PDFs.
InDesign provides the tools to create JPEGs and PDFs from pages, and, with a lot of work for each document, the textual information can be exported to XML.
InDesign does not provide the tools to export a document as a whole. This is absolutely essential – especially for web applications.
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» exports a document as a functional unity.
The resulting XML and HTML output file contains information about articles content (text styled by an external CSS), to articles attached images, article positions on the page (most important for ePaper applications), linked page JPEGs and page PDF, a linked and editable external Cascading Style Sheet.
For OSX: «BatchXSLT for InDesign» Disk image
For Windows: «BatchXSLT for InDesign» Installer
The manual as a flip page eBook with "Tips and Tricks" and a reference section on exported elements and attributes.
The software package also contains image converters, database and FTP transfer tools and a Full-Text Search module based on PHP5 and MySQL5.
More information is available at the «BatchXSLT for Indesign» Product Site at www.aiedv.ch
Price: Euro 580.–
«BatchXSLT for InDesign»
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» converts InDesign documents to understandable 'all purpose' XML and HTML with a mouse click. Exported data can be viewed and navigated as a flip page e-book website in any Browser.
Cost-efficiency, quality, flexibility and speed are most important to all editors when publishing InDesign document content on the Internet.
BatchXSLT for InDesign's main purpose is to significantly reduce or to completely eliminate manual work needed to create text and image content suitable for web and database applications. «BatchXSLT for InDesign» knows without additional configuration how to merge a newspaper's text elements to articles, how to convert high resolution EPS and TIFF images to JPEG and how to associate them to articles.
Configurable and flexible
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» creates standardized "All-Purpose-XML"."All-Purpose-XML" simply means, that it is suitable for almost any further application and purpose. The very rich tagged XML output contains enough information for any web, e-paper, database or CD application.
In addition, the created XML and HTML data can be viewed and navigated in a browser as a flipping page eBook. Such an eBook is based on plain XML (or HTML) and Javascript and therefore is more flexible compared to eBooks based on flash.
Many options are available for example to set the size of the flipping book, to create active links from www-addresses and from hyperlinks. Stories, spread over multiple pages, may automatically be split at a page boundary. This enables consumers to read novels, scientific papers and any other story in a page per page mode. Furthermore, the Javascript and XSL source code may be edited to change the behavior and the functionality of an e-Book.
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» is a powerful, flexible and expandable XML Transformer.
According to requirement, XML programers may create their own target format from the intermediary well structured XML file format. Virtually any number of output formats may be created to match a user's needs. Starting at dedicated HTML, XML, RTF, DocBook and any other text based format up to a direct transfer into a database. Own XSL transforms as well as external Java or Javascript functions and libraries can easily be added.
How to distribute such XML data
There are an endless number of ways to deliver XML and HTML data to end-consumers. One possible way is as an ePaper (e-book) and is shown at the ePaper demo site at www.ePaperArchives.com. This site shows several on-line publications including active shop connections, full-text-search over multiple objects and custom-made solutions by system integrators worldwide.Considerable advantages for users
A widely held belief expresses, that InDesign already provides the tools and software to create XML, JPEGs or HTML.And the answer is: It does. However, in almost all cases this is by far not enough: labor- and cost-intensive and too slow.
Explained on a real world example when a daily newspaper has to be published on the Internet:
The starting position is always identical: Any number of document pages containing images attached to articles have to be converted.
The demands of subsequent applications is identical in most cases: An XML file representing the document's content - the articles - including to articles attached images as JPEGs. Furthermore, according to requirements, all pages as JPEGs and as PDFs.
InDesign provides the tools to create JPEGs and PDFs from pages, and, with a lot of work for each document, the textual information can be exported to XML.
InDesign does not provide the tools to export a document as a whole. This is absolutely essential – especially for web applications.
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» exports a document as a functional unity.
The resulting XML and HTML output file contains information about articles content (text styled by an external CSS), to articles attached images, article positions on the page (most important for ePaper applications), linked page JPEGs and page PDF, a linked and editable external Cascading Style Sheet.
More Information and Download
The fully functional 30-days demo package is available online.For OSX: «BatchXSLT for InDesign» Disk image
For Windows: «BatchXSLT for InDesign» Installer
The manual as a flip page eBook with "Tips and Tricks" and a reference section on exported elements and attributes.
The software package also contains image converters, database and FTP transfer tools and a Full-Text Search module based on PHP5 and MySQL5.
More information is available at the «BatchXSLT for Indesign» Product Site at www.aiedv.ch
System requirements
«BatchXSLT for InDesign» runs on any computer like Windows, Unix, Mac OSX with Java 1.5 or newer and with InDesign CS4, CS3 and CS2Price: Euro 580.–
Friday, January 01, 2010
BLOG restarted for 2010
Thought to restarted this BLOG to have up to date content for the new year.
Feel free to send me an email when you have problems, need a special solution or simply want to say that everything works fine for you.
HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
Andreas
Feel free to send me an email when you have problems, need a special solution or simply want to say that everything works fine for you.
HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
Andreas
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