Import the XML
On the Structure pane menu click on the icon on the top right to show the XML menu and click on
Import XML (or choose File > Import XML).
In the Import XML dialogue box make sure Show XML Import Options is selected and click on the
catalogue.xml file provided with your course materials.
The Import XML Options dialogue box will appear. This box contains a number of different options.
The first choice to make is between merging and appending content, as per the drop down list shown
below:
Merging content compares the incoming XML with any XML already existing in the InDesign layout.
Merging is a great way of importing content when you have an automated workflow set up or if you
want to overwrite XML in an existing InDesign layout. You’ll try both options for the Garden Guru
catalogue; content will be appended for Fruit and merged for Vegetables.
Appending content simply brings in the XML and adds it to the Structure pane without merging or
overwriting any existing XML in the layout.
Import XML using append
Select Append Content, leave all of the options blank (we don’t want our changes to affect the
source XML file, so don’t create link and don’t worry about XSLT, that’s an advanced styling tool) and
click OK.
You will now see the XML file added to the Structure pane.
Expand each product in the Structure pane by clicking on the arrows to the left of the product tags so
you can see the child elements of each product. If you also expand the image elements, you’ll be able
to see the image links and will know which products are fruit and which are vegetables by the link
names. For pages 2 and 3 you only need fruit.
In your Toolbar click on the Selection tool.
Select the ‘section_header’ element for the first fruit in the list and drag it on top of the section header
frame on your layout. You’ll notice a little frame symbol and a plus symbol while you are dragging the
element. If you don’t release it on top of an existing frame a new frame will be created for you. As the
frames in your layout are all neatly laid out you want to release the elements inside the frames you
have created. When you let go of your mouse the heading ‘Fruit’ will appear in the frame at the top of
the page and it will be styled using the ‘Slogan’ paragraph style because you mapped tags to styles.
Repeat for the ‘title’, ‘image’, ‘notes’, ‘sku’ and ‘price’ elements and drag them into their corresponding
text frames, making sure you keep all elements for the same product in the same group and don’t mix
up your mangoes and your strawberries! Note that you may get a pop up dialogue box asking you to
search for your image, that’s normal and just means that the image file path in the XML document
doesn’t match the actual image file path on your machine, this may vary from machine to machine.
Just search for your tutorial resources folder in the browse box and select the image from there.
Continue to drag and drop all of the fruit into the product frames provided until your layout resembles
the screenshot below.
This is a good chance to look at overset text. See the little red plus symbols on the bottom right of
some of the ‘Notes’ frames? The red pluses indicate that there is overset text, text that can’t fit inside
the text frame. To make it fit you will need to make your Notes frames a little bit longer. Ungroup your
product groups; you can select all of them at once by clicking and dragging over them with your
Selection tool or by shift + clicking to select all groups; then go to Object > Ungroup. Then select all
of the frames that you want to alter (as long as they are aligned already this is easy, so do the two at
the bottom of page 2 separately). A new frame will appear around all 4 frames to indicate the
selection area, if you hover over the anchor point (see red circle) at the bottom of the frame a little
symbol of an double-sided arrow will appear. When you see the symbol, drag the anchor point down
and all 4 frames will be resized together and exactly matching. You’ll probably need to shift the sku
and price frames down a bit so they don’t get covered up. Use your Align panel if you need to neaten
things up.