I work for a newspaper company and we use InDesign to do our layouts.
Now when we are finished we simply copy and paste the text for each
story to notepad and save it. then we upload to the web. We are now
wanting to add a note in the Indesign layout with an email for the
story link to be emailed to when we extract it.

I want a way with little steps to make a txt document of the text in
indesign. (in the same folder as the file)
Then create an email with a preset message.
Extract the email address from notes to the "to" field of the email
i want to make it automatically add a line to the email with the path
of the txt file it just made.

ex
"email body blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah
http://www.mywebsite.com" then add in the txt file path
"/folder/filename.txt" where folder and filename are the save path of
the file created... any ideas?

additionally i was toying with the idea of a Form with separeate
functions.
email,paper,story#,cutline-text,storybody, fields with separate action
scripts.
1. to save storybody as filename = "story#.txt"
2. save cutline-text as filename ="story#.cutline"
3. Send mail to: "email" subject="to be determined" body="preset
letter" & add "/paper/" & "story#.txt"

if you think this would be easier.. i have no problem copy and pasting
into this form if it does the rest.. also i thought of excel with
formulas for text manipulation but im stuck at the action functions..
so if you know how to save a cell value as a .txt file or assemle an
email with this info then that could work too..

Please help..
JM