The Congressional Budget Office asked me to design a system that would allow them to use their existing InDesign workflow as a “sole source” publishing system. The goal was to author content once in Adobe InDesign, and then publish with a single click to print-ready PDF as well as reflowable HTML output.

I created a custom script for Adobe InDesign that allows the graphic designers at CBO to design their print content in InDesign as they have always done. Then, they run a script that converts the document to HTML that is ready to automatically ingest into their Drupal-based CMS and post on their Web site. This system allows them to publish to PDF and mobile-friendly HTML simultaneously from the same InDesign source files.

You can view lots of examples of both PDF files and HTML output here.

I’m thrilled with your work. You’ve built…an astonishingly useful system.
— J.S.

Page 1 of the print PDF version of a report.
A screenshot of the HTML output produced by the script
The mobile-friendly, responsive HTML produced by the script.