🚀 go-pugleaf

Brian,
we do a lot of (FMP)database->ID and for the life of me I can't see why you'd want to move from separate field model to a single field model. I don't think any database product is going to balk at having a couple of extra fields - especially when the amount of data remains the same.

Having separate fields makes it soooo easy to style each fields' data. Now if you're concerned about having to import 3 separate fields into ID then worry not. We use FMPs calc fields to combine the data into a single field for export to a text file. We use our own special delimiters between the field data so it's very easy to parse the data into separate text frames when you get it into ID. I'm actually rewriting this into MySQL and it will be easy to do there as well.

The temp file theory is correct and is exactly how we do it. An 'import' script for ID opens the single text file, parses out the heading and writes it to a temp file, creates a frame in ID and then places and styles the text. Then it loops through and does the sub head, the caption and the body. We add a fair bit of complexity to the error checking but the gist of what you're thinking is correct.

We use custom formatting for word styles as well but that's another topic.

BTW, we're using Applescript.