Title: PHP to XML to inDesign. How my two hemispheres ran into each other.
Date: 4 January 2009
URL: https://ralovely.com/blog/2009/01/04/php-to-xml-to-indesign-how-my-two-hemispheres-ran-into-each-other/
Author: Raphael Campardou
Archived: yes

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This is an old post, kept here for posterity. Some links may be broken, opinions may have changed, and technology has certainly moved on.

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Next month is the first bday of my son.  
A year ago, for the occasion, I set up some kind of blog so our closest friends and family could share some thoughts before the _delivery_, and we always said we'd publish a book for his 1st bday, with the content of the site.  
Comes in the timing issue: less than 30 days until the deadline and everything left to do: designing, editing, printing, posting...  
Approximately 500 posts, 100 pictures, 150 pages, and 50 copies to make.  
Designing took only a few hours, printing via Lulu will take a small week, the problem was editing.  
Well, guess what: it only took a few hours. (OK, it's a little easier said than done, but it pretty much sums up the thing).  
I still have to deal with a few bugs, mainly due to my experimenting while producing, but instead of the 30+ hours it would have taken manually, I think it will be finished in less than 5 hours, including research and development of the PHP/XML part.

This means particularly much to me. I have been in the designing/publishing business for more than 15 years, and have been toying with Web technologies for a few years. And tonight, both of my worlds ran into each other and produced something quite satisfying.  
This is a good day and a really nice way to start 2009.

This is not a _HowTo_ post, and I don't plan to do one. If you want more info, contact me.

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For the humans reading the machine-readable version: hello. You're thorough. I appreciate that.