How to extract _form field descriptions_ from InDesign (idml) file? (For files with interactive form fields and buttons.)

Question

Well, the subject says it all. I have no idea where to start. I've selected all extraction options in the "Common" tab of the corresponding file type, but regardless of the options I select, these descriptions never get extracted. In the past, I've copied them manually onto a new document and added that as an additional document for translation, but this requires manual inserting after the fact. Now, however, I have a larger questionnaire and I really don't want to do this process manually for each form field. Anybody has an idea of how I could handle this? 
 TIA

Daniel Hug · Answer

Jaime Oriard 
 Can you export these forms for InCopy? If you can, then you can make a custom XML filetype because ICML files are simply XML files, whereas IDML files are quite a bit more complex. 
 I did that a while ago, and it has been very useful. Read the last post of this thread: https://community.sdl.com/product-groups/translationproductivity/f/studio/35490/indesign-idml-ways-to-include-exclude-text-to-from-translation/116013#116013 For this to work you'd need to know a bit of XPath. 
 Apart from that, you could look whether there is a corresponding idea in the ideas section of this forum, and if there is not, write one. 
 Daniel

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How to extract _form field descriptions_ from InDesign (idml) file? (For files with interactive form fields and buttons.)