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I am working on a platform, which should create from an inDesign file a low and high-res pdf, a png and maybe a new indesign file with the new data.

These steps are in my mind.

  1. User logins or create a new login with his personal data, for example: firstname, lastname, address, telephone and web.
  2. There is an indesign file for example a business card, with placeholders for firstname etc.
  3. The script / plugin / addon should open the file with the xml,csv and create these files and save it automatically in a dir.
  4. I can work with these files

When you guys know a software, plugin, ... which can handle it, it would be awesome when you could help me. I want to work with php, jquery, html etc. after it for a webbased portal.

TobiasHH
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1 Answers1

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This is totally doable with Adobe InDesign Server, which provides the core document composition functionality. Unfortunately this has to run on a Mac or Windows server, but you can call it from PHP via SOAP. The process would be, basically:

  1. Your web page captures the personal data.
  2. You send a SOAP message to the InDesign Server indicating what script to run (this is an ExtendScript script that sits on the server), what template to load, and the variables you want to pass to the script.
  3. InDesign Server receives the SOAP request and runs a script that puts the variables into the template, generating graphic files (these can be raster images like PNG or JPG, and/or PDF files conforming to a joboptions file indicating high/low res, etc.). It sends a response back to the PHP page indicating success.
  4. Your PHP page renders the preview image or a link to the PDF output.

You can download a trial version of Adobe InDesign Server from adobe.com

You can find InDesign scripting information and InDesign Server information here:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/indesign/sdk.html

You want the InDesign Server SDK and the InDesign Scripting SDK. Do not worry if these are "CS6" on the dev site but the server trial is CC, there has been almost no change to the product.

Jongware
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Max Dunn
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  • thanks for your answer, windows or mac server would be no problem, i have both here to test it before. do you know if i can create calenders with it? because indesign license is a big investment, what we will do, when it's able to create easy product catalogs – TobiasHH Dec 03 '14 at 18:30
  • "... for a webbased portal" *requires* InDesign Server. Adobe does not allow the desktop version to be used for something like that. – Jongware Dec 04 '14 at 20:52