Printmaster is a project mainly written in ..., it's free.
Markdown and InDesign in unholy communion
Printmaster is an attempt to automate my writing workflow. I'd like to go from Markdown-formatted plain text to a nicely set InDesign document, all with the press of a button.
Since Markdown easily formats to HTML, I'm using InDesign's ability to import XML text and apply it to a previously designed InDesign template.
I have CS4. If this works with any other version, let me know.
Open up Printmaster.scpt in the AppleScript editor and change the paths. There are two: one for your template file (I've included a sample file) and another for your source.
Run the applescript file and InDesign should open and create a new doc for you. Drag the XML from the sidebar over to the page, and your markdown text will propagate. This works best if you've set up your template's master pages in any sane way.
The source file needs to be XML in order for InDesign to work with it. For my example, I exported a markdown file to HTML and used only what was within the <body>. I wrapped that within a <root> tag and put an XML declaration on top. The goal is to eventually do all of that automatically.
If you are running Snow Leopard, you may see an error about the Adobe Unit Types scripting addition file:
Error loading /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osaxApparently, the addition file installed with CS4 is 32-bit, while AppleScript expects 64-bit. There is an Adobe Knowledge Base article on the topic witch lists a number of suggestions to work around the issue, including a 64-bit scripting addition file.
I'm always looking to automate this process further. If you have any interest on taking on the TODOs I've left, please let me know.
You may be interested in reading up on Adobe's documentation on the topic. This page has a great variety of resources, including user guides and links to the InDesign Scripting User Forum. Who knew.
Authored by John Finley, September 2010. Released to the public domain.