qgis-idml-parser

Export QGIS print layouts and atlases as native Adobe InDesign IDML — editable text, native shapes, linked images and maps, referenced fonts.

QGIS's PDF export is famously un-editable in Adobe apps: text arrives as per-letter fragments with subset fonts that Illustrator/InDesign report as missing (QGIS #48419 / #49979, open since 2022). This plugin skips the PDF/Qt-paint pipeline entirely: it walks the QgsLayout item tree and writes the IDML package directly — as if the document had been authored in InDesign.

QGIS item	IDML result
Label (font mode)	TextFrame + Story — real, editable text
Label (HTML mode)	styled runs via QTextDocument (per-fragment font / size / color / bold), CSS line-height → leading, hanging indents preserved
Label containing an HTML <table>	one native TextFrame per column, side by side at the exact column split
Shape (rect / ellipse / triangle)	native Rectangle / Oval / Polygon with PathGeometry; rounded corners as editable InDesign corner options; data-defined fill/stroke colors evaluated per atlas feature
Polygon / polyline item	native Polygon / GraphicLine
Picture	frame + Image/PDF + Link — file copied to <name> Links/
Map	rendered alone to a vector PDF, placed as a referenced Link
Legend, scale bar, tables, HTML frames, everything else	item region rendered to a transparent vector-PDF snippet, placed as a referenced Link
Groups	IDML <Group> hierarchy; item IDs become names in InDesign's layers panel
Atlas	one spread per feature (per page), all in one .idml
Transparency	symbol opacity → TransparencySetting, color alpha → fill/stroke transparency
Fonts	references, never embedded (IDML spec §6.1): correct typographic family/style + PostScript names read from the actual font files, plus copies in Document fonts/ next to the output

The output mirrors an InDesign File → Package:

report.idml
report Links/        ← maps & snippets as vector PDFs, images
Document fonts/      ← the used font files (InDesign auto-adopts these)

Open the .idml in InDesign (or Affinity Publisher 2+), Save As for a .indd. All Self ids are prefixed qx, so packages can be composed into bigger documents with SimpleIDML (prefix() / insert_idml()).

Install

1. Copy export_idml/ into your QGIS profile's plugin folder:
   • Windows QGIS 3: %APPDATA%\QGIS\QGIS3\profiles\default\python\plugins\export_idml
   • Windows QGIS 4: %APPDATA%\QGIS\QGIS4\profiles\default\python\plugins\export_idml
   • (or run deploy.ps1, which copies to both)
2. Restart QGIS.
3. Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins → Installed → enable Export IDML.

Works on QGIS 3.34+ (Qt5) and QGIS 4.x (Qt6) — all imports go through qgis.PyQt. No external Python dependencies (the font name-table parser is self-contained).

Use

Plugins → Export IDML → Export layout as IDML…

• pick the print layout,
• pick the output .idml,
• optionally check Export atlas (one spread per coverage feature),
• keep Copy used fonts checked,
• DPI only affects the map/snippet PDF rendering (300 default).

Keep the … Links/ and Document fonts/ folders next to the .idml — placed assets and fonts are references (that's the point: everything stays editable and swappable).

Scripted / headless

from export_idml.exporter import export_layout_to_idml

layout = QgsProject.instance().layoutManager().layoutByName("Steckbriefe")
result = export_layout_to_idml(layout, r"C:\out\report.idml",
                               dpi=300, copy_fonts=True, atlas=True)
print(result["spreads"], result["warnings"])

One bad item never aborts an export — it is skipped and reported in result["warnings"].

Design notes (why it looks like the QGIS layout)

• Positions are taken from QGraphicsItem.pos(), not pagePos() — pagePos() returns the reference point (which may be the centre or a corner) and silently shifts centred items.
• Fonts: Qt often reports legacy GDI family names ("Futura PT Book" + "Book" → InDesign would look for a non-existent "Futura PT Book Book"). The plugin parses the name tables of the installed font files (TTF/OTF/TTC, plus Adobe Fonts' CoreSync store) and canonicalizes to the typographic family/style InDesign expects, with the real PostScript name. Missing weights are aliased to the nearest installed one (Thin→Light, …).
• Frame sizes are law: if QGIS wrapped a text, the frame width arrives unchanged (AutoSizingType="HeightOnly"). Only labels whose measured natural width fits their frame may auto-size (HeightAndWidth + no line breaks, anchored at the alignment point) — this absorbs the 1–3 % width difference between Qt's and InDesign's composers that otherwise produces overset frames.
• Z-order: entities sort by z; a group sorts at its topmost child's z (QGIS renders group children interleaved by their own z — IDML groups are atomic).
• Link URIs are percent-encoded (Q&A, umlauts, spaces in paths are all legal on Windows and all break naive IDML).
• Paragraph breaks are <Br/> inside the paragraph's last CharacterStyleRange; soft line breaks are U+2028; soft hyphens (U+00AD, e.g. from pyphen-based QGIS expressions) pass through and InDesign treats them as discretionary hyphens.

Known limitations / fidelity gaps

See FIDELITY.md: all 36 audited findings are fixed as of 0.6.0, except three with no practical IDML equivalent (character highlight spans, font-file first-baseline metrics, dpi-dependent hairlines in placed PDFs) — those are documented and warned about where detectable. Remaining by-design simplifications:

• Labels inside map content are outlined/fragmented inside the placed map PDF (roadmap: native map labels via QgsLabelingResults).
• Legends/scale bars are placed PDFs, not native text (roadmap: rebuild from the legend model).
• Colors are RGB process colors (pure black maps to the K-only [Black] swatch); CMYK conversion is left to the print workflow.
• Gradient and pattern fills use their base color (symbol layers are otherwise exported layer-by-layer, dashes included).

Tests

& "C:\Program Files\QGIS 3.44.13\bin\python-qgis-ltr.bat" tests\standalone_test.py
& "C:\Program Files\QGIS 3.44.13\bin\python-qgis-ltr.bat" tests\atlas_test.py
& "C:\Program Files\QGIS 4.2.1\bin\python-qgis.bat"       tests\standalone_test.py
python tests\validate_idml.py out.idml   # structural validator, plain python

The smoke test covers every mapped item type plus regression cases: & in the output path, rotation, umlauts, paragraph-break placement. validate_idml.py checks zip layout (mimetype first, stored), XML well-formedness, designmap references, story/frame wiring and link resolution — no InDesign needed.

Repo layout

export_idml/
  __init__.py       plugin entry
  plugin.py         dialog + menu action
  exporter.py       orchestrator (pages, atlas, Links/, Document fonts/, z-order)
  mapping.py        QGIS item → IDML page item dispatch
  idml_package.py   IDML package model + zip writer (designmap, resources, stories)
  text_runs.py      QTextDocument → styled runs & tables (HTML labels)
  fonts.py          pure-python TTF/OTF/TTC name-table parser + font index
  geom.py           mm→pt, ItemTransform matrices, PathGeometry builders
tests/
  standalone_test.py  full item-type smoke test (runs under python-qgis)
  atlas_test.py       3-feature atlas test
  validate_idml.py    structural validator (plain python)
deploy.ps1            copy into QGIS3 + QGIS4 profiles

License

MIT