Customer Reviews

A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML: Harness the Power of XML to Automate your Print and Web Workflows

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Despite being an Adobe Certified Instructor in InDesign, I never really understood working with XML until I read this book. Maivald and Palmer have taken an otherwise mysterious language and made it clear and understandable for anyone. This book has no peer and is a must for those interested in harnessing the power of XML.

I nearly wept with joy when I read this book. It contains clear guidance to stuff I've been trying to get InDesign CS3 to do for months. They make it look easy - and it is with this book - but if I hadn't tried on my own for so long I wouldn't have appreciated how useful this book is. I would have paid $500 for this and would have considered it a bargain, let along $33.

This is an outstanding book. Finally, XML explained in terminology that meshes with the way a designer thinks! Get this book and learn how to use this! You'll see a dramatic increase in your production time! (People will think you are super human as well!) I didn't take time to figure out XML in InDesign prior to this book because it was so confusing. This book does a great job exlaining how it works and giving actual examples to learn from.

This is my textbook, there are many like it but this one is mine!

if your reading this it's most likely because you need it for a class and don't really care about a review of it.

I bought mine to use at Eastern Michigan University for a class.

Book shipped quickly and was as described.

This book is great if you need to import data into indesign for publication. Helpful if you're a programmer or designer. Not as helpful if you are trying to figure out XSLT.

This review is not about the content of this book, because, having just received it, I haven't read it yet. From the Introduction, the content would appear to be just what I need to solve my own perplexing work problem, which is why I bought this book. Unbelievably, however, the XML code is printed in 20% or at most 30% gray, providing virtually no contrast against the white paper! I can barely read it under good lighting! Ironically, the Acknowledgments thank their editors for making their "words look so beautiful on paper." No one thought twice about this stunning design error?! I can only hope that the supplemental project files that are to be downloaded from Peachpit will help overcome this problem.

Review: A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML: Harness the Power of XML to Automate your Print and Web Workflows

Reviewer: Len Zigante, Sr. Desktop Publisher, Norco Performance Bikes.

I have an interest in XML because I work in an environment that requires I regularly lay out catalogues and flyers that consist of several fairly standard formats with mostly just the text and images changing. As speed and accuracy with ever increasing volumes of data are always important issues, XML looked to me to be one possible answer as to how to address this dilemma. It does not disappoint tho there are better tools to achieve the same end in this writer's opinion if one is willing to pay dearly for them.

One nice thing about XML is that it is built in, integral part of Indesign although most users are completely unaware of it's existence. It does not require the expenditure of hundreds of dollars per copy of indesign or for clients to use. Even better, XML is found in many other standard office software packages so the probability is high that data existing in one can be quickly exported to XML useable by Indesign and visa versa.

The book starts off as a slow read for the first 25 pages or so due to the necessity to bring the reader up to speed with XML definitions, rules, and interfaces. It's a necessary evil as one would become quickly lost without this knowledge. However, the authors do a very good job of explaining and demonstrating things simply expecting most readers to be laymen totally unfamiliar with XML.

From that point onwards the authors lead the reader through how to use Indesign's XML and tagging features (using both the Story Editor or Layout modes) with example files downloaded from the book's website. These are practical examples and what is learned here can be directly transferred to real life uses. The book starts off with simple text and image examples and progressively moves into more complex concepts such as using variable data and creating web pages utilizing HTML and CSS.

Two very valuable features in this book are 1) that the authors take time to explain how to import to and export XML from several other popular software packages so the user does not have to struggle with them in order to get things working all around 2) the authors go the extra mile to demonstrate the "wrong" way to create an XML based layout that many users typically employ explaining and showing why it is "wrong" and the problems and difficulties one runs into if they choose to go that route.

Overall this is a very good, easy-to-understand manual for anyone who wants to learn how to use XML within Indesign to speed up and improve their accuracy within workflow situations where the information presented has a structured format and is rather repetitive in nature (eg. catalogues, flyers, cookbooks, business cards, reports, etc.). If you primarily do one-off jobs where the layout and structure of the information varies regularly then this book is not for you.

Book was delivered on time, was in described condition and there was no hassle whatsoever. Very nice, thank you

This book is the most valuable book to all production catalog designers alike! We are part designers and part programers. We like it done fast, efficiently, correct and printable. I am using Adobe Suite 4 and XML is still supported. There are programs that are out there that automatically create catalogs. But if you are savvy enough to learn xml, javascript and a few other small programs, you can be just as powerful. Great book!

all is on the title. I was looking for a first, professional book about XML and Indesign. I don't have seen an other book like this yet.
Really a good book, well done, filled with information to knowing and to keep with you.