I have a client that has a large product catalog built in InDesign. It has static sections mixed with dynamic sections that need to be data-merged periodically from an XML file generated from their DB.
They want to be able to have a single workstation, without owning InDesign Server or having InDesign Desktop launched, automatically merge with the latest XML file and generate a PDF of the entire catalog with as few user interactions as possible (preferably automatically whenever the XML file changes, or at the very least by a click of a button outside of InDesign).
Is this possible with or without IDS? Can scripting be set up to do this?
Thanks in advance for any input you have!
I ended up creating a node.js gulp app that listens to an XML input folder, downloads images referenced in the XML, does some XSLT, and then launches InDesign desktop. An ID startup script takes over and does the XML import, exports a PDF, and then closes InDesign.
The node app takes over again, listening for the PDF being placed, and then uploads the file to a web server.
Thank you, everyone, for your feedback.