SimpleIDML 0.91.5

Dependencies

• Python >= 2.6

• lxml >= 2.3

• unittest2 if Python < 2.7

• suds (SOAP client)

Architecture

These applications are web-applications. The communication is done by web-services feeding a task queue (RabbitMQ/Celery).

The performances are quite good. Composing a document require a fraction of a second.

Package exploration

You can discover the structure of your IDML files:

>>> from simple_idml import idml
>>> my_idml_package = idml.IDMLPackage("/path/to/my_main_document.idml")
>>> my_idml_package.spreads
[u'Spreads/Spread_ub6.xml', u'Spreads/Spread_ubc.xml', u'Spreads/Spread_uc3.xml']
>>> my_idml_package.stories
[u'Stories/Story_u139.xml', u'Stories/Story_u11b.xml', u'Stories/Story_u102.xml', u'Stories/Story_ue4.xml']

Some attributes are lxml.etree Elements or Documents:

>>> my_package.font_families
[<Element FontFamily at 0x1010048c0>, <Element FontFamily at 0x101004a50>, <Element FontFamily at 0x101004aa0>,
    <Element FontFamily at 0x101004af0>]
>>> [e.get("Name") for e in my_package.font_families]
['Minion Pro', 'Myriad Pro', 'Kozuka Mincho Pro', 'Vollkorn']

>>> my_package.xml_structure
<Element Root at 0x101004910>
>>> from lxml import etree
>>> # print my_package.xml_structure_pretty() is a shortcut for:
>>> print etree.tostring(my_package.xml_structure, pretty_print=True)
<Root Self="di2">
  <article XMLContent="u102" Self="di2i3">
    <Story XMLContent="ue4" Self="di2i3i1">
      <title Self="di2i3i1i1"/>
      <subtitle Self="di2i3i1i2"/>
    </Story>
    <content XMLContent="u11b" Self="di2i3i2"/>
    <illustration XMLContent="u135" Self="di2i3i3"/>
    <description XMLContent="u139" Self="di2i3i4"/>
  </article>
  <article XMLContent="udb" Self="di2i4"/>
  <article XMLContent="udd" Self="di2i5"/>
  <advertise XMLContent="udf" Self="di2i6"/>
</Root>

xml_structure attribute is a representation of the XML Structure of your InDesign XML-ready document (The one you want to use to populate the content with data from an external XML file having the same structure).

Build package

There is a convenient script to create a IDML package from a flat directory called simpleidml_create_package_from_dir.py which should be in your PATH.

Compose document

>>> from simple_idml import idml
>>> idml_main = idml.IDMLPackage("/path/to/my_main_document.idml")
>>> idml_module = idml.IDMLPackage("/path/to/my_small_document.idml")

>>> idml_main = idml_main.prefix("main")
>>> idml_article = idml_module.prefix("article")

>>> idml_main = idml_main.insert_idml(idml_article, at="/Root/article[3]", only="/Root/module[1]")
>>> idml_main.stories
['Stories/Story_article1u188.xml', 'Stories/Story_article1u19f.xml', 'Stories/Story_article1u1db.xml',
 'Stories/Story_mainu102.xml', 'Stories/Story_mainu11b.xml', 'Stories/Story_mainu139.xml', 'Stories/Story_mainue4.xml']


>>> print idml_main.xml_structure_pretty()
<Root Self="maindi2">
  <article XMLContent="mainu102" Self="maindi2i3">
    <Story XMLContent="mainue4" Self="maindi2i3i1">
      <title Self="maindi2i3i1i1"/>
      <subtitle Self="maindi2i3i1i2"/>
    </Story>
    <content XMLContent="mainu11b" Self="maindi2i3i2"/>
    <illustration XMLContent="mainu135" Self="maindi2i3i3"/>
    <description XMLContent="mainu139" Self="maindi2i3i4"/>
  </article>
  <article XMLContent="mainudb" Self="maindi2i4"/>
  <article Self="maindi2i5">
    <module XMLContent="article1u1db" Self="article1di3i12">
      <main_picture XMLContent="article1u182" Self="article1di3i12i1"/>
      <headline XMLContent="article1u188" Self="article1di3i12i2"/>
      <Story XMLContent="article1u19f" Self="article1di3i12i3">
        <article Self="article1di3i12i3i2"/>
        <informations Self="article1di3i12i3i1"/>
      </Story>
    </module>
  </article>
  <advertise XMLContent="mainudf" Self="maindi2i6"/>
</Root>

>>> edito_idml_file = IDMLPackage("magazineA-edito.idml")
>>> courrier_idml_file = IDMLPackage("magazineA-courrier-des-lecteurs.idml")

>>> # Always start by prefixing packages to avoid collision.
>>> edito_idml_file = edito_idml_file.prefix("edito")
>>> courrier_idml_file = courrier_idml_file.prefix("courrier")
>>> len(edito_idml_file.pages)
2

>>> new_idml = edito_idml_file.add_page_from_idml(courrier_idml_file,
...                                               page_number=1,
...                                               at="/Root",
...                                               only="/Root/page[1]")
>>> len(new_idml.pages)
3

# The XML Structure has integrated the new file.
>>> print etree.tostring(new_idml.xml_structure, pretty_print=True)
<Root Self="editodi2">
  <page Self="editodi2ib">
    <article Self="editodi2ibif">
      <Story XMLContent="editoue4" Self="editodi2ibifi1f">
        <title Self="editodi2ibifi1fi1"/>
        <subtitle Self="editodi2ibifi1fi2"/>
      </Story>
      <content XMLContent="editou11b" Self="editodi2ibifi1e"/>
    </article>
  </page>
  <page Self="editodi2i10">
    <advertise XMLContent="editou1de" Self="editodi2i10i23"/>
  </page>
  <page Self="courrierdi2ib">
    <title XMLContent="courrieru1b2" Self="courrierdi2ibi34"/>
    <article XMLContent="courrieru1c9" Self="courrierdi2ibi33"/>
    <article XMLContent="courrieru1e0" Self="courrierdi2ibi32"/>
    <article XMLContent="courrieru1fb" Self="courrierdi2ibi31"/>
    <article XMLContent="courrieru212" Self="courrierdi2ibi30"/>
  </page>
</Root>

>>> edito_idml_file = IDMLPackage("magazineA-edito.idml")
>>> courrier_idml_file = IDMLPackage("magazineA-courrier-des-lecteurs.idml")
>>> bloc_notes_idml_file = IDMLPackage("magazineA-bloc-notes.idml")

>>> edito_idml_file = edito_idml_file.prefix("edito")
>>> courrier_idml_file = courrier_idml_file.prefix("courrier")
>>> bloc_notes_idml_file = bloc_notes_idml_file.prefix("blocnotes")

>>> packages_to_add = [
...     (courrier_idml_file, 1, "/Root", "/Root/page[1]"),
...     (bloc_notes_idml_file, 1, "/Root", "/Root/page[1]"),
... ]

>>> new_idml = edito_idml_file.add_pages_from_idml(packages_to_add)
>>> len(new_idml.pages)
4
>>> new_idml.spreads
['Spreads/Spread_editoub6.xml', 'Spreads/Spread_editoubc.xml', 'Spreads/Spread_editoubd.xml']

Import/Export XML

Exporting as XML:

>>> idml_file = IDMLPackage("path/to/file.idml")
>>> print idml_file.export_xml()
... <Root>
...     <module>
...         <main_picture/>
...         <headline>Hello world!</headline>
...         <Story>
...             <article>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, ...</article>
...             <informations>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,</informations>
...         </Story>
...     </module>
... </Root>

You can as well import XML file into your InDesign® documents. The following rules applies:

• A node having the attribute simpleidml-setcontent=”false” will not impact the corresponding element into the idml document (but its children will be) ;

• images references are passed by the href attribute. An empty value will remove the corresponding page items into the document ;

• nested tag will be created if they are mapped with a character-style ;

• the style applied to the newly created tag is a combinaison of the parent character-styles and the mapped one.

Please take a look into the tests for in-depth examples.

Use InDesign server SOAP interface to convert a file

This require an InDesign Server and a directory that it can access in read/write. The formats parameter is a list of formats you want your file to be exported into. The supported formats are jpeg, idml, pdf, indd and zip (this one returning a zipped InDesign package).

Here some snippets:

from simple_idml.indesign import indesign

response = indesign.save_as("/path_to_file.idml", ["indd"],
                            "http://url-to-indesign-server:port",
                            "/path/to/indesign-server/workdir")[0]
with open("my_file.indd", "w+") as f:
    f.write(response)

response = indesign.save_as("/path_to_file.indd", ["idml"],
                            "http://url-to-indesign-server:port",
                            "/path/to/indesign-server/workdir")[0]
with open("my_file.idml", "w+") as f:
    f.write(response)

response = indesign.save_as("/path_to_file.indd", ["pdf"],
                            "http://url-to-indesign-server:port",
                            "/path/to/indesign-server/workdir")[0]
with open("my_file.pdf", "w+") as f:
    f.write(response)

The response is a list of string because you can pass a list of formats and so generate several exports in a row (if performances matter):

from simple_idml.indesign import indesign
pdf_response, jpeg_response, zip_response = indesign.save_as(
                                "/path_to_file.indd",
                                ["pdf", "jpeg", "zip"],
                                "http://url-to-indesign-server:port",
                                "/path/to/indesign-server/workdir")

0.91.3

New features

Add a SOAP client to call a InDesign server to get INDD file and export in various formats.

0.91.2