🚀 go-pugleaf

Rusty, 

As far as I can tell there's no way to get around CSS layers in InDesign HTML output. It doesn't matter whether the layout is simple or complex; it uses CSS either way. I find this unacceptable for the same reason you do so I've been using XML for HTML output.  

Try this: 

Apply XML tags to your laid out document using appropriate HTML-like tag names. When you export the XML you'll get something that looks a lot like HTML but needs some post-processing to be valid. If this is a repeatable process you could use something like Perl to postprocess the HTML. 

This sort of process requires some investment in time to set up, but once you've automated it the workflow can be pretty efficient. 

I think (hope!) Adobe will be enhancing the XML plug-in to make this easier in the future. 

Phil Redman