Windchill SIM and InDesign

[ptc-1173607]

Dear all,

One of my customer wishes in a first step store his InDesign file in Windchill.

During this first step, we wil put in place the organization, lifecycle and workflow.

In a second step, he wants to use DITA (with Arbortext Editor and Publishing Engine) to manage the content of his documentation.

Who already have an experience with the couple Windchill / InDesign?

Thanks in advance for you feedback.

Best regards

Pascal

[rdiaz]

Hi Pascal,

Sounds like a pretty unique setup, as we haven't had any other clients with this, so I'm not surprised at the lack of response. First step you may want to try is a little testing to make sure that inDesign files are compatible with Editor. Theoretically, the XML should be no problem, I'm more curious about the additional files, such as stylesheets and such.

[JeffStevenson]

Hi Pascal,

We have some experience working with InDesign, Arbortext, and Windchill.

I'm not quite clear on what you are trying to achieve. It sounds like you want to store InDesign documents in WC and then publish them through PE? Is this correct? What is the format of the InDesign files? .indd? IDML?

Windchill can store any file type as a Document, but Arbortext won't support .indd files as this is unique to Adobe. If you want to move from InDesgin to Arbortext, IDML will be your best bet, but you'll need to do some specialized processing on the IDML before Arbortext can handle it.

[ptc-1173607]

Hi Jeff,,

Thanks for your feedback.

We used to manage XML and SGML document with Arbortext and Windchill.

For this use case, we want to store Indesign files in indd and/or IDMLformat inside Windchill and to use InDesign to edit the document.

We would like to know if somebody has already developped a connector between InDesign and Windchill to make checkin, checkout, link with graphics etc ?

About your idea on moving from InDesign to Arbortext, have you got experience on the specialized processing?

[JeffStevenson · Accepted solution]

Hi Pascal,

To my knowledge, no plug-in exists between Windchill and InDesign.

InDesign does offer a JavaScript API that may allow for such a plug-in to be created by using Info Engine calls or the WC API. This would be an entirely custom application since the user base for such a tool would be limited.

Regarding moving from InDesign to Arbortext, my company has done some work on building a bridge between InDesign and Arbortext. I'd be happy to discuss your use case with you to see if any value can be added with with bridging InDesign and Arbortext or a plug-in for InDesign and Windchill.

Feel free to private message me and we can setup a call.

[AndyHermanson]

We to are just looking at getting our InDesign docs into Windchill and potentially transitioning to Arbortext a couple of years down the road. Be interested to see what we could do.

[JeffStevenson]

Hi Andy,

Feel free to private message me, too. It sounds like you are looking at doing a full transition to Arbortext where Pascal was wanting to retain InDesign a bit.

-Jeff

[rdiaz]

Pascal,

Was the information Jeff provided what you were looking for, or could you elaborate on your business needs perhaps?

[cc-2]

Hello everyone,

I have finally managed to find a post related to InDesign and Windchill. My company as InDesign but use it as standalone (eg they copy paste screenshot of the 3D models).

I am in the process of evaluating solutions to improve the management of our Knowledge Work and PLM processes.

Ideally, I would like to move to Windchill (not that I have 8 years experience in implementing in another company) but that I know it will fulfil many of our requirement.

However we use Inventor at the moment (so we also consider PLM360) If we select Windchill, there will be new questions.

Do we keep Inventor or do we move to Creo (Inventor was selected in 2012 and only 6% of our CAD data are in inventor so for me moving to Creo is an option).

The other case I have to made is, InDesign vs Arbotext within Windchill.

While I appreciate Windchill will "digest" any uploaded file, depending on the format we lose all the benefits of integrated format.

I have struggle to find good presentation video about Arbotext vs InDesign. (PTC VAR I contacted do not seem to know much about Arbotext and its competitors). Actually is InDesign a competitive product of Arbotext or Arbotext light years ahead of InDesign.

Any help welcome.

Best regards

[RayStachowiak]

I think I am reading your request differently from the others. so here is my interpretation:

1. First you want to store InDesign files in Windchill (this is fine) and then manage versions and use workflow. True there is no direct interface now to automatically work on InDesign from Windchill, but you can check out the file and download. Then you work on it in local mode and then check in the file when you are done. This way you get versioning. I did not read in your note that you wanted to use InDesign with PE. We use this process for Illustrator files. Note on InDesign all files must be in the single file, this process does not support links to outside files, graphics, etc. This is why we do not store InDesign files in the system.

2. Arbortext uses XML to encode text with command that define the data. These commands (tags) are then used to drive styles that are created separately and drive the Arbortext publishing Engine to automatically make up pages without manual layout or intervention. If your pages can be logically defined and are of a consistent design page to page then Arbortext and PE batch composition may be the way to go. We used to use InDesign to manually layout our Instructor led in-house training materials. Once the data was authored in word, it was imported into InDesign and then manually layout and this process took many weeks. Now the material is authored in Arbortext and run though PE and it is done, one pagination run produces the instructor books with both instructor notes and student notes and then a second run, changing the book classification generates the student materials, no manual layout.

I do not know if this answers the question any better than the others, but this is our process and one way to look at the problem.

[SuzanneNapoleon]

Ray,

Just curious. You say it used to take many weeks to produce a set of instructor and student manuals. I'm wondering how long it takes now?

Thanks!

Suzanne

[cc-2]

Hi Ray,

not sure if you reply was intended to Pascal or me. Nonetheless, thanks for your message. This confirms what I thought. Arbotext by nature (or by design) is more powerful than Indesign and when coupled with Windchill it is superpassing any other similar sofware.

However, it seems that Arbotext is more technical to be used. Have you converted people from InDesign to Arbotext, what do they think ? Do we have such users who migrated on the forum. I would love to hear from them.

Suzanne, agree with you some figures will help to support the case

Have a nice day all.

Best regards

[RayStachowiak]

Hi again,

I will answer both Chris C and Suzanne's questions

1. Chris C, Arbortext is an XML/DITA editor. We are using DITA, and XML based specification with the Learning and Training specialization. The authors who wrote the materials in the past used Word and now use Arbortext. Arbortext is a structured editor so there is screen formatting to give the writer a feeling of the look and feel of his data. When and if he wants to see a preview there is the capability to run it through the composition engine and see how the material will look when paginated. The authors wrote in word, we had skilled Illustrators/graphic designers who made up these pages along with the preparation of new graphics and illustrations. The group lead has picked up the system quickly and expanded some templates we had designed for us to help make the base authoring of a DITA Topic or map creation easier. The writers never did make up the pages in the past they wrote the text and the graphic designers created each page. In the current process, the authors write the training materials, structure the book with a DITA map and Arbortext PE does the pagination process as a seamless batch computing process..

2. Now that the team has many topics created for lessons in our curriculum, developing a new class is a process of creating a new DITA map and including the modules that are required (like prerequisites of the class, classroom and facility orientation, etc. Many of our classes share common lessons and so these are assembled for each course. Depending on the complexity of the class, how much new or revised material is required a class can be developed or customized for a specialized class in anywhere from 2 days to a few weeks. One all the data is organized, production is a batch process and after review the class is ready. There really is no book construction like there was in the past. Previously, once the text was written in word, the illustration artists took 2-3 weeks in InDesign making pages. When we had to translate the book for a class in French or Spanish, the text was sent out for translation and then another 2-3 weeks spent laying output the specific language book in InDesign. Now when the translated text comes back from the translator we run the translated textbooks through PE creating the PDF books, and then usually it is complete and ready to go. This has freed our Graphic Designers to undertake additional graphic projects without having to add staff.

Hope this answers both of your questions.

[SuzanneNapoleon]

Note that with Arbortext's batch formatting process, an organization's style guidelines, corporate identity and branding rules, and legal requirements are "built into" the process, so documents are consistently formatted every time. Unlike interactive formatters, there is never a variation in logo size or the top margin or page number placement, etc., etc., from one document to the next.

[cc-2]

Hello

Thanks for all the info. Very informative and inspiring.

Best regards