Is IDML format into Publisher ever likely to be error free?

[Kryten]

Even with latest InDesign (Mac) and Publisher 2.2 there are considerable text re flow issues across lots of documents.

[MikeTO]

Publisher doesn't have InDesign's paragraph composer so you'll never get hyphenation to exactly match which can have a ripple effect on long documents. Until Publisher has at least an equivalent paragraph composer, we should expect text to flow somewhat differently.

I'd regard a successful import as one that imports the pages, objects, text, styles, and colours without losing anything. If all that comes in successfully, the text flow can be tweaked although that does take effort. The biggest limitations of IDML import now are footnotes and cross-references which aren't imported at all.

[Kryten]

Yes, thanks Mike. I never use hyphenation in any of my brochures/flyers etc., anyway. But all other objects come in okay. Do you have any experience or knowledge of Markzware IDMarkz  as being more successful? Quite pricey if it doesn't work fully.

[Old Bruce]

"Is IDML format into Publisher ever likely to be error free?"

No, never ever, of course not.

There is no way Affinity/Adobe/Corel/AnyBigCompany is going to make life easy for its competitors by making their document specifications public.

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Publisher doesn't have InDesign's paragraph composer so you'll never get hyphenation to exactly match which can have a ripple effect on long documents. Until Publisher has at least an equivalent paragraph composer, we should expect text to flow somewhat differently.

I'd regard a successful import as one that imports the pages, objects, text, styles, and colours without losing anything. If all that comes in successfully, the text flow can be tweaked although that does take effort. The biggest limitations of IDML import now are footnotes and cross-references which aren't imported at all.

That aside from the fact that one cannot guarantee there won't be text reflow issues between disparate versions of ID using .idml because the paragraph composer--how it works in conjunction with other things--is one of the items Adobe is always updating between versions.

As regards Markzware's IDMarkz, all it does is automate the conversion, especially if one doesn't have access to CC. However, renting (subscribing) ID for a month and using a batching Javascript that is freely available is a less expensive option. The .idml files are identical whether generated from ID or IDMarkz.

With .idml, some applications do a better job translating particular .idml than others. So for instance, APub might do the best job on .idml A, versus other applications, but with .idml B, one of the others may be more faithful. In general, APub does a decent job of it, with the exception of oddness when it come to weird font size changes too often. I blame that on the difference in how both handle document DPI-ID does not use such a thing but Publisher does (and shouldn't).

[Kryten]

Thanks gentlemen, good posts.

[MikeW]

Because I got work done that was due this afternoon last night and I'm somewhat bored, I made this little comparison.

I grabbed an InDesign sample brochure and packaged it along with an .idml file. The sample filed used a certain free font. For ID, the font doesn't actually need to be installed if these fonts reside in a folder named Document Fonts.

The Viva Designer sample opened the InDesign file (versus the .idml, but the results are the same as opening the .indd version in this case). The main font used was reported as missing. VD handles these missing, uninstalled fonts different than ID or QXP (more on QXP's handling later). With VD, one can just drag and drop such fonts onto the open file and they become available for that publication. Neat feature, but I would prefer the folder method of ID and QXP.

VD handled this publication better than either APub and QXP. Mainly for one reason: VD can/does include ID's method of using the custom underline property as a text highlight method. With APub or QXP, the white text that should be highlighted shows with a normal underline whereas VD has the colored background with the white text.

In order to display this properly in QXP or APub, one would need to know, firstly that this text is suppose to a background of a certain color and size--what this highlighted text is suppose to look like--and secondly, replicate it using their respective methods for this effect. This highlighted text is used three places in the brochure using different color each time. But all QXP and APub display is white text with a white underline versus the brochure using yellow, red and green highlight via the underline property.

As with QXP, VD properly displays the shadow PDF used. I've hidden the image that sits on top of this PDF shadow to demonstrate that VD and QXP, neither having a document DPI (as ID also) the shadow is full size whereas APub shrinks it due to the use of having a document DPI.

VD also handled the overridden space after and the line spacing for the headline at the top of the column versus APub and QXP requiring adjusting the height of the text box for the heading to display.

As regards the font issue, APub would need for the fonts to be installed. QXP requires a slightly font folder naming, so I copied the Documents folder and renamed the copy Fonts. However, both ID and QXP can use a master fonts folder place where these document specific fonts are available for the application to use for any publication without the need to install them.

While not shown, the first page of this brochure has a map as a graphic. APub properly used the map image box's run-around property, pushing a column's text over to its right side. VD and QXP requires wrap-around image boxes to be higher in the layer order it is suppose to affect. This map in VD/QXP needed moved to the Tex layer and above the text in the layer order for the text wrap to work. In addition, I had to play with the run-around properties in VD. Once moved, the values were reset to zero so those values needed re-entered.

In short, there were differing issues in all three applications. However, I believe with this particular publication, VD handled it best. If I was more bored, I would have hunted down some of my other test publications that showed where APub was near perfect and QXP/VD fell short, or specific publications where QXP was the best versus APub/VD.

Viva Designer:

QuarkXPress:

Affinity Publisher: