Hi Paul
Bliss, indeed.
In our College, we've created an automated course extract for web, prospectus and brochures, which at least works in principle. We use the XCRI Curriculum XML format for this (www.xcri.org), although there's also a later XCRI CAP format which may be a closer fit for this purpose.
The data is extracted from various databases and an InfoPath file of more descriptive (rich text, actually XHTML) sections.
The output which feeds our website's course pages (browse, search, A-to-Z) is published every morning (if it works and is validated) to:
http://www.adamsmithcollege.ac.uk/student/courses/xcri/curriculum.xml
XSLT style sheets then do the work of transforming this to the populate the individual pages.
The prospectus output, which I'm not sure our Marketing department actually uses for their printed prospectus, is extracted using part of the same 'pipeline' as the web one, but ends up as XHTML, which can then be opened in Word, saved as a Word document, and imported into Adobe InDesign CS 2.0 (I believe that's what Marketing currently have). This actually preserves the CSS styles added to the XHTML output.
Unfortunately for the success of this process, previous Marketing printed prospectuses have not used a continuous flow model in their document, so creating a template in your DTP package that can handle an entire input document is probably key here. It would be easier if InDesign could be set up to have a dynamically-linked import to the XCRI XML output, but this doesn't seem to be available in version CS2.
I have achieved better results importing into Adobe FrameMaker, but that's from the perspective of a developer and long-document publisher, not a graphic designer.
So, we're not quite there yet; I'd also be interested in the experiences of DTP professionals in the preparations of print prospectuses from XML output.
Tavis Reddick
Web Content and Architecture Developer
ICT Systems Development
ICT Department
Adam Smith College
telephone: +44 (0)1592 223313
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Browning
Sent: 23 May 2008 09:15
Subject: Web prospectus driving the printed prospectus?
I note that at http://www.dur.ac.uk/yourprospectus/create/
"Information provided through Your Prospectus is exactly the same as that provided in our printed prospectus. If you still require a printed prospectus, please fill out the order a prospectus form. Prospectuses are despatched on a weekly basis."
Which other institutions have reached this state of bliss?
I'm keen to know more about the recipes used.
Thanks to an earlier thread on this list that I found in the archive I know a bit about how Durham have done it (but you still risk a call Barbara!).
Many thanks in advance,
Paul
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