The title says it all. I need to be able to convert .Indd files to Pdf Files through command line. I have found one solution that suggested I can simple run Indesign Scripts using command line, but they must be .JSX and the only indd to pdf script i found is .jsxbin and can not be de-compiled. If someone could explain a better way to do this that would be great. the purpose is to batch convert Indd to Pdf on a server running windows server 2008 with indesign server installed.
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The link @JcFx mentions in his comment should indeed be a good starting point, but caution is probably in order.
The most important caution probably is performance; if you need to do this with InDesign Server, likely you want to convert more than just one PDF. Keep in mind that InDesign Server can take a while to load completely (to state it mildly) and that launching it for every PDF might very well not live up to your performance expectations.
That is why most of the approaches you’ll find will launch InDesign Server, leave it running and then do the actual communication through something like SOAP or through an InDesign Server plug-in.
I know of two commercial products that have such an implementation: Enfocus Switch (www.enfocus.com) and axaio MadeToPrint (www.axaio.com – I’m affiliated with this company). In the former case I believe scripts are being pushed to InDesign Server; in the latter case MadeToPrint uses an InDesign Server plug-in.
Besides how to launch and communicate with InDesign Server there are a number of other things you might already be aware of. Such as making sure the InDesign file you are opening is checked for missing links and fonts and that for example images in the InDesign file are updated before you output to PDF.
I don’t know what the parameters of your projects are, but I do know it’s not trivial to get such a process running stable and performant. If you have the possibility to use tools that already implemented such an automation, I personally would look into that.