Exporting content for the web, Export content to dreamweaver – Adobe InDesign CS4 User Manual
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USING INDESIGN CS4
Working with documents
Exporting content for the web
To repurpose InDesign content for the web, you have several options:
Dreamweaver (XHTML)
Export a selection or the entire document to a basic, unformatted HTML document. You can
link to images on a server or create a separate folder for images. You can then use any HTML editor, such as Adobe
Dreamweaver®, to format the content for the web. See “
Copy and paste
Copy text or images from the InDesign document and paste it into your HTML editor.
Adobe PDF
Export a document to Adobe PDF and post the PDF on the web. The PDF can include interactive elements
such as movies, sound clips, buttons, and page transitions. See “
Flash (SWF)
Export to a SWF file that’s ready to be viewed immediately in Flash Player or on the web. A SWF file can
include buttons, hyperlinks, and page transitions such as wipe, dissolve, and page curl. See “
Flash (XFL)
Export to an XFL file that can be edited in Adobe Flash Professional. See “
Create XFL (Flash) files for the
Digital Editions
Export a document or book as a reflowable XHTML-based eBook that is compatible with the Adobe
Digital Editions reader software. See “
Export content for Digital Editions (eBook)
XML
For advanced repurposing workflows, export the content from InDesign in XML format, which you can then
import into an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver. See “
Export content to Dreamweaver
Exporting to XHTML is an easy way to get your InDesign contents into web-ready form. When you export contents
to XHTML, you can control how images are exported, but the formatting of text is not preserved. However, InDesign
preserves the names of paragraph, character, object, table, and cell styles applied to the exported contents by marking
the XHTML contents with CSS style classes of the same name. Using Adobe Dreamweaver or any CSS-capable HTML
editor, you can quickly apply formatting and layout to the contents.
What gets exported
InDesign exports all stories, linked and embedded graphics, SWF movie files, footnotes, text
variables (as text), bulleted and numbered lists, internal cross-references, and hyperlinks that jump to text or web
pages. Tables are also exported, but certain formatting, such as table and cell strokes, is not exported.
What doesn’t get exported
InDesign does not export objects you draw (such as rectangles, ovals, and polygons),
movie files (except for SWF), hyperlinks (except for links to web pages and links applied to text that jump to text
anchors in the same document), pasted objects (including pasted Illustrator images), text converted to outlines, XML
tags, books, bookmarks, SING glyphlets, page transitions, index markers, objects on the pasteboard that aren’t selected
and don’t touch the page, or master page items (unless they’re overridden or selected before export).
Reading order
InDesign determines the reading order of page objects by scanning left to right and top to bottom. In
some instances, especially in complex, multi-column documents, the design elements may not appear in the desired
reading order. Use Dreamweaver to rearrange and format the contents.
Before you export, you may want to influence the reading order by grouping related objects. Objects grouped in
InDesign are also grouped in XHTML.
1 If you’re not exporting the entire document, select the text frames, range of text, table cells, or graphics you want
to export.
2 Choose File
> Export For Dreamweaver.
3 Specify the name and location of the HTML document, and then click Save.
Updated 18 June 2009