Twixl Importer for Adobe InDesign

WHAT IT IS:

The Twixl Importer is a free plugin for Adobe InDesign that allows you to convert Adobe DPS Folio Overlay properties in a document to their Twixl Publisher counterparts.

1. Installation

The Twixl Importer plugin is installed automatically as part of the installation of the Twixl Publisher plug-in.

In Adobe InDesign, you should find the extension under "Window" in the submenu "Extensions".

2. How to use

Open the InDesign document containing the Adobe DPS Folio Overlays.
Now open the Twixl Importer plugin from the Extensions menu under Window.
In the main window of the plugin, click on the "Import DPS Overlays" button.
The plugin will now go through all items in the document and convert all Folio overlays to their Twixl Publisher equivalents. It will leave the document in an unsaved state once finished so that you can revert if something went wrong.

NOTE:

The original Folio overlays are retained and not altered in any way.

3. Which interactive information will be converted ?

WARNING:

Twixl Publisher does not support pinch & zoom in PDF exports of InDesign-based documents!

For InDesign-based documents, we are convinced that our software has enough tools to create pixel-perfect designs (combined with some pinch & zooming when needed in Scrollable Content, Images and Slide Shows).

After all, you want your readers to be able to read your content right away, without the need to pinch & zoom first!

3.1. Hyperlinks

navto:// hyperlinks are natively supported and don't need to be converted. Note that in Twixl's own tp-pagelink:// URL scheme, the first page starts at '1' - Adobe navto:// starts at '0' for the first page and uses a '#' instead of '/'.

3.2. Audio

Auto Play

3.3. Video

Auto Play
Play Full Screen
Stop on Last Frame

3.4. Slide show

Auto Play
Tap to Play/Pause
Interval
Delay
Swipe to Change Image
Stop at First and Last Image
Cross Fade
Cross Fade Speed

3.5. Web Content

URL (only http and https)
Transparent Background
Scale Content to Fit
Allow User Interaction

3.6. Scrollable Frame

Show Scroll Indicators

3.7. Image Sequence

Load Images
Play in Reverse

3.8. Panorama VR

WARNING:

You'll need to recreate your Panorama VR with an HTML-export as a result. See Panorama VR

3.9. Pan & Zoom

On & Off

3.10. Nested Interactivity

Certain types of nested interactivity that are not supported by Twixl Publisher will not be converted.

4. HTML resources

In Twixl Publisher, HTML resources used for embedded content in web viewers are placed in a folder called WebResources.

You can create this folder manually and place it at the same location of your InDesign book or document, but the plug-in will also create it automatically when you define a Web Viewer for the first time. Note that the contents should not be zipped, and should be placed there as is.

5. Automated batch conversion of DPS projects

The Twixl Importer plugin does not have an option to batch process the conversion of multiple documents.

However, you should be able to write a JavaScript that does this for a series of documents.

The script should look similar to:

// The following two lines are required for this script to work
#target "indesign"
#targetengine "STAGEMANAGER0"
// Open the document, make sure it can be referenced as app.activeDocument
var myDocument = app.open("<path to my document>");
app.activeDocument = myDocument;
TMImporter_AdobeDPSImporter.processDocument();

At the end of running this script, you will get a script alert saying "Import is done!".

If you want to run the script on many documents at once you can skip the alert by using the command below:

TMImporter_AdobeDPSImporter.processDocument(false);

Help

Documentation