Back in November 2007, I wrote a post about using InDesign to craft visuals for website layouts. Since that posting, I have noted that a lot of traffic coming to my blog arrives from searches for ‘building websites using InDesign’ and related topics. On the back of all that traffic, I decided to look into the matter: can you really build a website using only InDesign?
The simple answer is no. At least not in InDesign CS2.
After many hours of research, and the Adobe InDesign CS2 Bible by Galen Gruman as my witness, I can definitively say that creating web pages directly from InDesign just isn’t possible. Gruman backs me up on this on page 688 of his Bible. Gruman writes that you could export XML from InDesign for import into Adobe GoLive. I’ve not tried that myself, but I can only imagine that coding horrors that might result.
But is it possible in CS3? That I don’t know as I only have CS2.
No, you can’t export it out to html, but who exports a Photoshop or an illustrator file directly out? But by exporting the PSD to photoshop, you can slice it up there and then use Dreameaver to create it. Which is the same process for creating any site with Photoshop or illustrator.
@ Jonathan,
Thanks for your comment. There is a more advanced conversation on this topic on another of my posts:
http://www.liamdempsey.com/using-indesign-to-create-website-layouts/