Scaling Multilingual DTP by Automating Trados-Ready IDML Export from InDesign Books

 Why IDML is required before translation

If you work with Trados, you already know this:
InDesign .indd files cannot be processed directly. They must be converted to .idml first.

For a single document, that’s trivial.

Press Ctrl+E, choose IDML, and you’re done.

The problem starts when you receive an InDesign Book (.indb) instead of a single file.

Why InDesign Books turn this into a bottleneck

A Book file is just a container for multiple .indd files.

If a book contains 20 documents, you now have to repeat the same export process 20 times.



What used to take seconds becomes minutes — and in large multilingual projects, that happens for every language.

This is where a simple file format requirement quietly turns into a production bottleneck.

Why manual export does not scale

Once the number of files increases, a more dangerous problem appears: human error.

  • One file forgotten

  • One export skipped

  • One outdated IDML sent to translation

If you catch it early, you lose time.
If you notice it at delivery, you have a real problem.

This isn’t a matter of being careful.
It’s a structural issue: repetitive manual work breaks at scale.

The automation approach

The fix is straightforward:
Let InDesign do the repetitive work for you.

By using a script, you can export all open .indd files to .idml in one operation — consistently, repeatably, and without missing anything.


A simple example script

Here is a minimal version of the script I use in production.
It exports all open InDesign documents as IDML files into the same folders as the originals.

The full script file is attached to this post.
License: MIT. Use at your own risk.

Want the ready-to-use version?
Skip the copy-paste and download the script directly from Gumroad.
Download on Gumroad (Free) → 
function exportIDML()
{
    // Check if any documents are open
    if (app.documents.length == 0){
        alert("No documents to process");
        return;
    }
    
    // Confirmation dialog
    var result = confirm("Export all open documents as IDML files?\n\nIDML files will be saved in the same location as the original documents.");
    
    if (result == false) {
        alert("Process cancelled.");
        return;
    }
    
    var docObj = app.documents;
    var successCount = 0;
    var failCount = 0;
    
    // Process each document
    for(var z=0; z<docObj.length; z++) {
        
        // Skip unsaved documents
        if (docObj[z].saved == false) {
            alert(docObj[z].name + "\n\nThis document has not been saved.\nPlease save the file before processing.");
            failCount++;
            continue;
        }
        
        try {
            // Set object style default to "None"
            docObj[z].pageItemDefaults.appliedTextObjectStyle = docObj[z].objectStyles[0];
            
            // Get file path (save as .idml in the same location as original file)
            var originalPath = docObj[z].fullName.toString();
            var idmlPath = originalPath.replace(/\.indd$/i, ".idml");
            
            // Export as IDML file
            var exportFile = new File(idmlPath);
            docObj[z].exportFile(ExportFormat.indesignMarkup, exportFile, false);
            
            successCount++;
            
        } catch(e) {
            // Display error details
            alert(docObj[z].name + "\n\nExport failed.\n\nError details:\n" + e.message + "\nLine: " + e.line);
            failCount++;
        }
    }
    
    // Display process summary
    var summary = "Process completed.\n\n";
    summary += "Successful: " + successCount + " file(s)\n";
    if (failCount > 0) {
        summary += "Failed: " + failCount + " file(s)";
    }
    alert(summary);
}

// Run script
exportIDML();

This is intentionally simple.
It shows the core idea: remove humans from repetitive format-conversion tasks.

What this looks like in real production

In actual multilingual workflows, IDML export is only one step.

In practice, I run this as part of a larger automation package that also handles things like:

  • Updating linked artwork

  • Reloading paragraph and character styles

  • Reloading master pages

  • Normalizing document settings before translation

Those pieces belong in separate posts, but the principle is the same:
If a task must be done for every file and every language, it should not be done by hand.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our previous post on automating InDesign text overset:
→Scaling Multilingual DTP by Eliminating Manual InDesign Text Overset Fixes


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