Export AEM rendition to Indesign for PDF

[rajivn76919298]

Hi All,

I am new to AEM and need your help in the problem faced by me. We have a requirement of user selecting certain  pages/renditions in AEM and export them to InDesign server for creating a consolidated PDF for the selected one.

I read many posts/ blogs on how InDesign document can be imported in InDesign server to convert them into pdf before exporting them to AEM. However there is no article on vice versa process when AEM page is exported to Indesign server for generating PDF. Please let me know if this is possible and share any link for the same.

Cheers

rajiv

[smacdonald2008]

Out of the box - the only doc that I know that is related to this use case is this topic in AEM docs: 

Integrating AEM Assets with InDesign Server

The docs states that two way communication is supported: 

enables the two-way communication between the InDesign Server and the AEM instance(s) in a cloud configuration.

However - i am unaware of any community article that has step by step instructions for this use case. 

If there is no out of the box way to do this - you may have to look at using the In Design Server API - as talked about here: 

(GETTING STARTED WITH THE ADOBE INDESIGN CS6 SERVER SDK

It has a Java SOAP API - and you can write a custom AEM service that uses this Java API to expose the functionality that you are looking for. 

[rajivn76919298]

Hi Smac,

Thanks a lot for your quick reply. I request others in the forum to respond. If my website need a pdf generation feature and if we have a InDesign server which has PDF generation capability, I think this should be possible out of box but there is nowhere written in AEM documentation except mention o two way communication between AEM and InDesign.

Can somebody please confirm based on your experience. Also please let me know as what file format is taken as based for AEM page to be converted into pdf by Indesign server.

[smacdonald2008]

If this is an out of the box feature - it should be in the AEM docs. I am not seeing that documented - which leads me to think it may not be used for PDF generation out of the box. . 

I also welcome other community members input on this use case. 

[smacdonald2008 · Accepted solution]

I spoke to our product In Design specialist. This is what he had to say about this use case (which states there is no ootb way - it would have to be developed): 

"Are you asking if it’s possible with just a configuration out of the box? No. You would need to write a handler to transform the page contents in the parsys to XML, then pass it on to InDesign Server for import into an ID template. Catalog Producer uses a similar set of workflows, but there isn’t an interface to match the ID template content with the page content. Is it rocket science? Nope. Someone would just need to build the workflow or component."

[rajivn76919298]

Thanks a lot to you and your friend. It helped a lot.

In your answer you talked about XML import into ID template in InDesign. I am new to InDesign. Can you please share some high level steps to be taken in InDesign to generate the pdf post XML been imported in InDesign.

One more point. I browsed AEM documentation and found an article on Catalog producer ( https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-1/administer/integration/catalog-producer.html). This article exactly talks about what I want. My need is to create page  template in InDesign, then import that in AEM interface and put values of components from AEM in InDesign through drag drop. This would lead to PDF generation in desired template and with desired content from AEM.

My query is how can I get "Catalog producer". Is it a separate product/module which is free or paid. Or is it something which is part of InDesign Server. If it is part of InDesign server, how its view gets integrated in AEM. I checked AEM documentation and found mention of Catalog producer in AEM 6.1 release notes but it is not there in my AEM installation. Am I missing something.

Please guide.

Cheers

Rajiv

[rajivn76919298]

Hi Smac,

I think, I asked a very lengthy question. Lets me rephrase it.

I got the first point of writing a handler to create XML out of a AEM page. Post this,  I need to know

1. whether the ID template that needs to be created is to be done by the same handler by calling some webservice exposed by InDesign server. Or do we need to call InDesign server Api.

2. What should be the template extension to be created in InDesign server(INDD, INDT etc).

3. What thing needs to be involked in InDesign server to convert template into pdf.

Hope this clarifies my question.

Cheer

Rajiv