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Transfer File and Metadata together in single task

Bill Klish

MediaBin 4.5.3
InDesign Plug-in 4.1.6.1

I am trying to do something that I think is pretty basic. I upload a file into MediaBin using the InDesign plug-in into a source files folder that has restrictive permissions (everyone has no access, owners have full access). What I want to happen is to output a PDF file to a folder that all users have access to. Along with the PDF I want to transfer all of the custom metadata that has been assigned to the InDesign file (copyright notice, usage restrictions, language, etc.).

I have setup the deployment agent to push any indesign file out to a temp folder structure on the mediabin server using a task that has the PDF encoder and outputs the PDF rendition of the file. I then have a hot folder setup to push the PDF file into MediaBin into the correct location using the standard Insert UnModified task. This is all working correctly.

What I need is to somehow get the metadata out (using XML encoder primitive I think) and then have the XML decoder primitive take the output and apply the metadata to the asset. Unfortunately this doesn't work. I can export the Metadata correctly into an xml file using a task that just has the XML encoder primitive. I then try to insert the xml file using a task with the xml decoder primitive and I am told that there is a name conflict, so I choose to rename to another name and then get:


test8.xml could not be added: ERROR: Job {3C472EDE-5016-4685-84A9-0494829E567E} Setting parameters in primitive XML Decoder. RC = File format unsupported by decoder. 
[/codel]

Can this be made to work?  I feel like this is a pretty basic thing.

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Bill Klish

Is this not something as basic as I think it is?

new_report_6.rptdesign

Migrateduser

Can you attach the following to this issue:
InDesign file, the exported xml file, the retrieval task used to create the PDF version of the InDesign file, the insertion task used to reinsert the PDF into MediaBin, and export all of your custom metadata definitions. We can attempt to duplicate your issue. If a problem is discovered, you may be ask to open a case with Interwoven Product Support.

lyman

Hi. To be clear, the XML decoder is intended solely for inputing standalone XML-exported files. However ther eis another primitive, the XML metadata adder, which takes the output from the XML encoder in metadata-only mode.

It is a bit complicated to use as it was mainly designed to be used by the Syndication Manager, because instead of naming the file, it requires adding the contents of the metadata XML file to the primitive as one long string parameter.

Not certain I have the use case completely understood but feel free to discuss :-).

Thanks,

Lyman Hurd

Bill Klish

Here goes for a more detailed explanation of the use case.

There is a business requirement that no user should be able to download or see any InDesign source files. Instead users should be able to just browse PDF renditions of the files and select things they like. This is a library of completed assets that have been done for marketing campaigns, etc. where someone would say, I like what you did for France's product launch, I want to use the same layout, but change the following images....

To accomplish this, what we have setup is a completed asset source and completed asset folder inside of MediaBin, with identical sub folders under both for each asset type (email, web, etc.). The thought was to use the deployment agent to push any modified files out to a file system (setup with the exact same folder structure) and then setup hot folder rules for each and every sub folder. Currently the deployment agent is just pushing out assets using the out of the box PDF creation retrieval task. It works with some issues (coming in another thread) dropping the pdfs out and inserting them into MediaBin via the hot folders. The only thing missing is that the PDFs have none of the custom metadata attached to them.

So, do I need to update my task to have more than just the PDF encoder primitive for this to work, or do I need to have an additional task defined as well, and then have 2 tasks executed on the hot folder side?

lyman

Okay, I am afraid this runs afoul of a product limitation. I am afraid that at the moment we do not "push" metadata into PDF files as our current libraries do not support that operation.

However, any metadata that was present in the InDesign at the time of ingestion should in theory be addable to the PDF rendition (the PDFg is actually created by the plug-in) and if the XMP metadata is not getting propagated to the PDF we can at least investigate why not.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd

Bill Klish

So, outside of the pdf encoder, I can't have another task that exports the custom metadata definition from the InDesign file and transfer it to the PDF using the XML decoder task?

Bill Klish

Are we perhaps over engineering this situation? Is there an easier way that we can restrict access to PDF versions of source documents, preventing the download of the original document that I am missing here? You can't restrict tasks by repository location or else that could be an option.

lyman

Sorry for the delay. Literally just got back from vacation.

Is the metadata you want in the PDF purely something added in InDesign, or are you trying to edit the metadata in MediaBin and merge that metadata? In the former case we can see if it can be implemented as a function purely of the plug-in. The latter case would be more problematic as we do not currently merge metadata into PDF's.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd

Bill Klish

No that is not what I am asking.

I am saying that I want to have the InDesign file uploaded into MediaBin. A user applies custom meta tags to the InDesign asset within MediaBin via the client/web client. Then I want to export a PDF version of the InDesign file to another area within the MediaBin repository that has all of the custom metadata applied to the PDF that was applied to the InDesign file.

So, in essence, I need a task that extracts custom metadata from InDesign, creates a PDF and then applies the custom metadata to that PDF asset.

lyman

Thanks for clarifying. In practice the PDF extracted from an InDesign file is computed completely by the plug-in and merely stored in MediaBin until needed. Therefore I have added this to the list of feature requests for future iterations of the plug-in.

Cheers,

Lyman Hurd