🚀 go-pugleaf

Don't be ashamed, the whole XML stuff is pretty new and beyond everyday use to most of us around here including myself so you're actually ahead.

To repeat, we either may use XML as data source to build an independent document which need not even know about XML. This is the approach showing through from your initial posting.

Instead we should at least try how XML handling is originally meant by Adobe. As I said I don't have so much experience here myself but it could become a nice experiment.

To get started, you have to build a document with the desired structure - pages, frames, paragraph styles. Use any placeholder text or copy-paste from actual data.

Then you make yourself familiar with the XML features in the UI. There are help pages, I once tried to understand XML and tables and only had success following the help. Learn to create tags, to assign tags to actual text frames and other objects - e.g. paragraphs, tables. You will also build tag to style mappings.

Then - still on the UI - export XML from this document. This gives you an idea about the appropriate XML format. InDesign is not made to grock arbitrary XML, you have to structure your XML to its requirements. Try the round trip - modify data, and import the XML back into the document.

Adjust your outside scripts - PHP, XSLT or whatever, to create matching XML from whatever data source you have.

When you get that far or if you get stuck in between, post a link to your sample documents. Then lets revisit the whole thing for scripting - the smaller or larger tweaks such as date conversion, or some special formatting. There might be even ways to control formatting with special attributes or tags, let's see when we get there.