Home Quick Start How To Demos List

How does INX2FO work?

How to work with INX2FO Plug-In

How to render static document

How to render document with dynamic data

You can render PDF file from INX document with data binding using INX2FO Plug-In.

To obtain PDF file you need to perform the following actions:

Prepare source InDesign Document

Static part of the document

Create a new document in InDesign and fill it with desired content (don’t use any data bound objects).

Dynamic part of the document

Select specific CSV file as data source to the document.(Menu Window -> Automation -> Data Merge). In opened window choose Select Data Source (see Fig.2) and select correct csv or txt data source file.

Fig.2 Select data source.

Data Merge window will contain all available data source fields. Use drag and drop to take necessary data source fields to corresponding text objects on current document. These fields will be displayed as <<field name>> (see Fig.3). After document is processed with INX2FO stylesheets, the fields will be replaced with values of corresponding records from data source.

Fig.3 Document with data source bound.

Choose the most suitable way to make document with data binding

It is important to know that there are several ways to make data binding with InDesign. After you have bound CSV file data with your InDesign document, you can choose data binding mechanism, from one of the following:

Use InDesign data merge

Make the document with data merged using InDesign, and then convert it to XSL-FO using INX2FO stylesheets. This variant is simpler but needs much resources - all generated pages (e.g., 1000, 10000 or more) need to be placed into the InDesign application and then to INX file. This needs a lot of memory and CPU time.

Use INX2FO data binding mechanism

Make only template in InDesign, and generate full document with data using only INX2FO Plug-In. This variant is more powerful, fast and scalable. But to do it, you should convert your InDesign data source file to XML-file (see INX2FO data source format section of the “INX2FO User Documentation Part II - Data Binding and Barcodes” for details). Then generate a resulting document with INX2FO Plug-In using data binding mechanism to make sure that it is an easy way to get perfect documents.

Rendering resulting document

After the document is prepared you may generate a preview – just click Preview to see first pages (the actual number of pages could be set up in settings dialog) with dynamic data embedded by clicking on a preview button on a plug-in panel. The resulting shortened document will be automatically opened with an associated viewer application. If you satisfied with the preview, you may run the resulting document generation, by clicking on Run transformation button.

How to render document with barcodes

Static Barcodes

Prior to insert a static barcode into the InDesign document, you need to create a barcode XML data definition file, using one of the predefined templates. The XML data definition file is used to extract data. The templates are available in the folder:

[INX2FO installation folder]\templates\barcodes\

Each template file corresponds to a specific type of barcode. It contains a single (sample) XML node that defines all possible tags for the barcode to be rendered by INX2FO stylesheets.


	Creating a XML data definition file for static barcodes
	To create a barcode XML data definition file:

1.	Copy the template file into your project’s folder.
2.	Open it in InDesign (using File -> Import XML command).
	Note: In InDesign you may copy the barcode XML node, and paste it as many times as the barcodes of that type you need (see Fig.4.).
	data source converter;
3.	When all the XML nodes are added, you need to set the appropriate attributes values by editing each of them (see Fig.5.).

Dynamic barcodes connected to a data source with template in external XML

This variant is quite similar to the previous. The whole procedure of the barcode embedding is all the same with only a few differences. There is one more XML file (in addition to the primary data source XML), which contains the secondary barcode parameters. The structure of the XML is the same as in template files, located at [INX2FO installation folder]\templates\barcodes.


	Fig.4. Multiply the XML node template.		Fig.5. Attribute value editing.

Dynamic barcodes connected to a data source

To create a dynamic barcodes with data-merging capabilities, you need to have a data source in XML format and a CSV representation of that data source (a first XML record in a CSV format) for the InDesign to be able to use it in its data-merging mechanism (at the document design time).

The XML data source should have all the barcodes parameters represented as attributes. The attributes names should be the same as in the corresponding type of barcode template (see [INX2FO installation folder]\templates\barcodes folder for templates).

The example of the valid XML data source with barcodes shows the barcode definition cells on the column level and on the row level (see the listing).

If a cell in a row has some attribute missing, the value will be taken from the corresponding column definition cell.

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?>
	<root>
		<columns>
			<cell1>RecordID</cell1>
			<cell2>Barcode1Description</cell2>
			<cell3 cellType=”barcode” type=”Interleaved2of5” module=”0.33mm” 
			height=”15mm” wide-to-narrow=”2.4”>Barcode1</cell3>
			<cell4>Barcode2Description</cell4>
			<cell5 cellType=”barcode” type=”Code128”>Barcode2</cell5>
		</columns>
		<row>
			<cell1>1</cell1>
			<cell2>This is a barcode #1</cell2>
			<cell3 cellType=”barcode” module=”0.35mm”
			height=”18mm” wide-to-narrow=”2.4”>12345678</cell3>
			<cell4>This is a barcode #2</cell4>
			<cell5 cellType=”barcode”>12345678</cell5>
		</row>
	</root>

Setting up the dynamic barcodes with external data source

To set up dynamic barcodes with external data source follow these steps:

1.	Generate a XML data source using your database engine in the form described above.

2.	Now you need to generate a CSV representation of the data source with a single record for the InDesign to be able to map the data fields. To do that you can create a CSV file manually with the columns names taken from the XML file columns node and the values - from the first row node.

3.	After the CSV file is created - you need to select it as a data source for Data Merge. By using command Select Data Source on the Data Merge panel (see Fig.2).

4.	When the data source is selected, all available data fields will be displayed in a list.

5.	You need to drag and drop each data field on the required text frames.

6.	Now you can generate the resulting document with external data source as was described earlier (see “How to process sample document with INX2FO data binding mechanism” section of the “INX2FO User Documentation Part II - Data Binding and Barcodes” for details)


	Setting up the dynamic barcodes with template in external XML
	To set up dynamic barcodes with external data source follow these steps:
1.	Follow 1-4 steps of the previous chapter (Setting up the dynamic barcodes with external data source).

2.	Now you need to run File -> Import XML command and import previously prepared XML template file. This file should contain a XML node for each barcode.

3.	In this step you need to create an association between the template and the data merged into the document. To do this, in XML view expand each barcode node and double click the dbFieldName attribute to edit its value. You need to specify a data merging field name as a value of the attribute (see Fig.6.).

4.	After the associations to all barcode producing data fields are set up, you may drag each barcode node (from XML view) and drop it to a required text frame where the barcode is expected to render.

Fig.6. Setting up the association between a data field in a text frame and a template XML node.

Prepare document for INX2FO transformation

Preview resulting document

Start INX2FO transformation process

Analyze transformation results