InDesign Conversion

Overview

This skill drives the InDesign pipeline end to end: it parses an exported IDML package or PDF into a normalized intermediate representation (IR), maps the styles and swatches to design tokens (a Tailwind preset, tokens.css, tokens.ts, and a Style Dictionary JSON), and generates typed React components with Storybook stories. It pairs with the indesign-to-react agent, which reviews the generation report and proposes follow-ups.

When to use

• A designer delivered an exported .idml or .pdf (the normal handoff) and you want a styled React starting point rather than rebuilding by hand.
• You need design tokens (colors, type scale, spacing) derived directly from the InDesign document.

Do not use it for live Figma/Canva designs (use those pipelines) or when you need pixel-perfect reconstruction — this produces a usable, token-driven scaffold for manual refinement.

Prerequisites

• An exported .idml (File → Export → InDesign Markup) or a PDF exported from InDesign. Source .indd files are not supported — export first.
• The @aurelius/pipeline package built (pnpm --filter @aurelius/pipeline build).
• For best fidelity, prefer IDML when available — it carries named paragraph/character styles and swatches that PDF lacks.

Expected outputs

Into <output> (default ./src/indesign):

• *.tsx — one typed component per spread, plus *.stories.tsx and an index.ts barrel.
• tokens/ — tokens.ts, tokens.css, tailwind.preset.ts, design-tokens.json.
• public/indesign/ — extracted images, referenced by the components.
• indesign-pipeline-report.md and indesign-pipeline-report.json — produced files, staged assets, unmapped frames, and accessibility TODOs.

Worked example

Using the committed fixture (tests/fixtures/indesign/sample.idml):

pnpm --filter @aurelius/pipeline build
node packages/pipeline/dist/pipeline-cli.js pipeline indesign \
  tests/fixtures/indesign/sample.idml \
  --target react --styling tailwind --output ./out/indesign

This writes out/indesign/Spread1.tsx (a <section> with an <h1> heading and an <img>), Spread1.stories.tsx, index.ts, the token files under out/indesign/tokens/, and the two reports. The report's Accessibility TODOs section will list the hero image's missing alt text — add it before shipping.

Then review and refine:

1. Open indesign-pipeline-report.md; address each TODO (alt text, unmapped frames, font fallbacks).
2. Confirm the Tailwind preset is wired into the host project's tailwind.config.ts (or, for CSS Modules, that tokens.css is imported).
3. Render a story in Storybook to confirm the component mounts.

Common gotchas

• CMYK → sRGB shifts. Print colors are converted to sRGB without ICC profiles; CMYK/Lab swatches may shift and out-of-gamut colors are clamped. Confirm brand colors against the design.
• Missing / non-embedded fonts. Print fonts are rarely web fonts; the mapper resolves families by name to a web stack (config/font-map.json). Confirm substitutions or supply a --font-map.
• Oversized print images. Exported images are often print-resolution. Optimize/resize the files in public/indesign/ for the web.
• Accessibility gaps. Every generated <img> has an empty alt; headings are inferred heuristically. Always do an accessibility pass.
• PDF reconstruction. PDFs have no named styles — text frames, columns, and style buckets are inferred from positions and font sizes. Expect to merge/split a few blocks by hand.

Related

• Agent: indesign-to-react.
• Docs: docs/pipelines/indesign.md, docs/pipeline/indesign-pdf-fidelity.md.