Convert indesign output to html5

Question

I want to write a viewer that convert in-design output format to html5 format and all the user design in adobe indesign can display in browser but i do not know which output is suitable for me, i think i can retrieve all info about the adobe indesign in idml export,but the problem is parsing such XML and display the tags in html5 format,i want to know is it possible the simple way to convert the output format into html5? is it possible to download the adobe indesign SDK and use its method to this purpose?

Answer 1

You don't mention what version of InDesign you are using. CS5, CS5.5 and CS6 all allow you to export to HTML. The problem is that the HTML is version 4 and it create badly written CSS. What I like to do is to use XML to build my own HTML. Just create a set of HTML5 tags you want to use and then Map the existing Paragraph and Character styles to the XML tags.

When you're done you will have a basic content structure. Then I use the Structure pane to add different elements as needed. You can add Parents or children as you need to right there and then export to XML. When you save the file, just change its name to .HTML and edit the code to remove the one reference to "xml".

It takes a little time, but it is very doable.

Answer 2

Exporting to EPUB would result in XHTML 1.1. The Epub file that InDesign generates is a zip file, in which you will find a number of files. (At least) one of them is an XHTML file.

XHTML 1.1 would surely be an easier source to use than the idml, however you will have to make sure that the ePub export is good enough to start with (the pages won't come out exactly the same as in InDesign).

Would that be a solution?

EPub export is supported from InDesign CS4 (JavaScript based export option, outside the object model, as I understand it and a built-in export option, part of the object model, from CS5).

Answer 3

You can use in5 to export HTML5 (layout intact) from InDesign.

Full disclosure: I am the creator of in5.