Who makes idmly, and how it works.

Why I built it

I'm a designer. For years, every time an AI tool or a browser layout handed me something good, getting it into InDesign meant one thing: rebuilding it by hand. Box by box, font by font, hours per deliverable. I started calling it the tax.

The workarounds all lose something. Place the PDF and you get one locked picture. Run it through a PDF converter and the text comes back in fragments, in the wrong font. Paste the copy and restyle it and you are rebuilding again, just with a head start. None of them hand you the file a client can open and edit.

So I built the converter I wanted on my own desk. Drop in the HTML, get back a real .idml: text frames that reflow, paragraph styles with names, tables that are tables, charts you can recolour. The first version proved itself on a 32-page report, every page, correct fonts, native charts, no cleanup. idmly went on sale on 10 June 2026. The MCP server, which lets Claude Code, Cursor and Codex convert the HTML they wrote, followed on 30 September.

I'm one person. I write the engine, the site and the MCP server, I answer support, and I open every reported file in InDesign myself. That is why a bug report with the file attached is the most useful thing you can send me.

What idmly is, and what it is not

idmly is deterministic engineering. No machine-learning model reads your design, the same input gives the same output every time, and your file is deleted once the conversion is delivered. idmly is the bridge from an AI-made design to InDesign. It is not an AI tool, and it does not control a running copy of InDesign.

It is also not Adobe. idmly writes the .idml format, which Adobe publishes openly, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Adobe Inc. The same file opens in Affinity Publisher.

How the conversion works

Here is the whole chain, with nothing left out.

1. RenderYour file opens in a real headless Chromium browser on the conversion server. The engine waits for the page's fonts to load and for the layout to settle, exactly as your own browser would draw it.
2. MeasureEvery element's position, size, computed font, weight, colour, line height and stacking order is read off the rendered page. Nothing is estimated from the CSS. The engine never reads your stylesheet, only what the browser drew, which is why Tailwind, Bootstrap and plain CSS all convert the same way.
3. WriteA deterministic Python emitter turns those measurements into IDML: a text frame per block at its measured coordinates, paragraph and character styles rolled up from the computed styles and given names, tables as native InDesign tables, SVG and CSS charts redrawn as vector paths, CSS gradients as InDesign gradients, and images copied into a Links folder.
4. CheckThe engine reopens its own output, checks every frame against the measurement to within two pixels, and validates the package before it reaches you. Then your file is deleted.

Most of the work lives in details InDesign never explains. A font declared as an attribute binds silently to Minion Pro; it has to be an element. "Montserrat Medium" is not a family, it is Montserrat with the Medium style. An incomplete document preference makes InDesign invent 31 blank pages on open. Each of those was found by opening a file in InDesign, fixing the emitter, and writing the fix down so it never comes back.

Where it runs: the website on Vercel, the engine in a container on Railway, and the MCP server as an open-source npm package, idmly-mcp, under the MIT license. The full privacy detail is on the legal page.

How it gets better

Every bad conversion teaches the engine something, if I get to see it. The converter has a Report a bad convert button that sends me the file. I open it in InDesign, find the cause, fix the emitter, and log the fix so the same mistake cannot return. That loop is the product. If it breaks on something, tell me. That is how it gets better.

The facts, in one place

Product

idmly, an HTML to editable InDesign (.idml) converter. idmly.com

Maker

Kelly Fraser, designer and developer

Company

Nomadic Social CC, registered in South Africa

Live since

10 June 2026 (paid launch). MCP server since 30 September 2026.

Price

$49 once, lifetime. The first two pages of any file convert free. Pricing

Engine

Headless Chromium measurement plus a deterministic Python IDML emitter. No AI model in the loop.

Hosting

Website on Vercel, engine on Railway. Files are deleted after conversion.

Payments

Creem.io, merchant of record. 14-day fix-or-refund. Refund terms

Open source

idmly-mcp on GitHub and npm, MIT license

Listed on

Product Hunt

Contact

support@idmly.com, or the contact page

Adobe

idmly is not affiliated with or endorsed by Adobe Inc. InDesign is a trademark of Adobe Inc.