FramedWeb (deprecated)

Intro

This product is not supported any more, and won’t be updated or bug-fixed. It is still available for download on an ‘as-is’ basis. Try the demo before purchasing.

FramedWeb helps you convert web pages into editable InDesign layouts. It works with Adobe InDesign CS3 and upwards.

You can give FramedWeb a URL, and it will attempt to build a corresponding InDesign layout. You can also copy-paste HTML text into a text frame and then use FramedWeb to convert it to formatted text.

FramedWeb is work in progress – the current version is 0.0.9, and there are still many things on our ‘to-do’ list. However, in its present shape it is already quite useful, so we decided to make it available to the general public. The price of version 1.0 will be US$79.00 per activation when it is released. But if you’re willing to give us some feedback, we’ll be selling the beta version for US$39.00 per activation.

You can try it out at no cost for 20 days, which should help you decide whether the current beta version can be useful for you.

Please let us know of anything that does not work properly, and do check the list of limitations!

Installing

Before you start installing, exit out of InDesign.

Please make sure you have a copy of the APID ToolAssistant plug-in installed. Make sure you install the proper plug-in for your version of InDesign since the plug-ins are mutually incompatible. The Windows CS5.x plug-ins also come with an additional folder with a parenthesised name which needs to be copied along.

If you already have an APID ToolAssistant plug-in installed (e.g. because you use one of our other plug-ins), make sure it is up-to-date.

You will be installing two separate, but related software products: FramedWeb and APID ToolAssistant. For continued use you only need to purchase a license for FramedWeb. It will continue to work even when the APID ToolAssistant demo expires.

i.e You do NOT need to purchase an additional license for APID ToolAssistant.

Copy the FramedWeb.spln into the same folder as the APID ToolAssistant plug-in (typically that will be the InDesign Plug-Ins folder). Don’t worry about the icon of the .spln file: it might not be a ‘regular’ icon, and that’s OK.

Usage

After installing, launch InDesign and open or create a document. Before you do so, the FramedWeb menu item won’t appear in the API menu.

If you created a new document instead of opening an existing one, make sure to save it somewhere on your hard disk before running FramedWeb. FramedWeb will create a folder DownloadedImages next to the .indd file, for storing downloaded copies of any referenced images. If a newly created document has not been saved at least once, FramedWeb won’t know where it should put the images.

Create or pick a text frame. In the frame, type the URL of a web page (e.g. https://www.rorohiko.com/framedweb). The URL has to be complete and should use the http: protocol. https: is not supported.

With the text frame selected, select the API – FramedWeb – Convert Web Content menu item. FramedWeb will attempt to access the web page, download it, and convert it to formatted text. By default, referenced images are retrieved from the web server and inserted into anchored frames.

How It Works

FramedWeb consists of an HTML parser and a CSS parser – it will attempt to parse the HTML text and CSS styles, and convert them to something vaguely similar in InDesign. The current version only interprets a limited subset of the CSS styles. Things like floating <div> and so on are not (yet) supported.

As FramedWeb evolves, we’ll be gradually extending the range of CSS styles that are interpreted and converted.

When the HTML references multiple CSS style sheets, some for print and some for screen output, FramedWeb will ‘pick’ the ones destined for print and ignore the ones destined for screen.

The very first time you run it after launching InDesign, FramedWeb will scan your fonts list – so the very first conversion you do will take longer than normal. Subsequent conversions won’t rescan the fonts list. But if you quit and restart InDesign, FramedWeb will rescan the fonts list the first time you use it.

Limitations

FramedWeb will not attempt to create a look-alike of the web page – its aim is mainly to retrieve the text and images, and retain the formatting. Over time, if there is sufficient demand, we’ll improve on the accuracy, but it will never look exactly the same as in a web browser.

FramedWeb does not act on many CSS styles.

https: is not supported. You can often work around this by using a web browser to access the page, then use the ‘View Source’ to access the underlying HTML. Copy-paste the HTML code into a text frame and run FramedWeb on the frame. The workaround is not perfect: referenced images will often also use the https: protocol and won’t be retrieved.

Please pass any publicly accessible URL to us ([email protected]) if you encounter something that does not work as expected – we’ve tried it on lots of web pages, but there will always be unexpected situations that FramedWeb does not yet know how to handle.

More info

For more detailed information on FramedWeb, go to:

https://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/manuals/framedweb-manual/