Hi there guys, how are you?
I’ve been a fan of this site since a long time and now I have a demand to accomplish that I think I will find the answer ultimately here.
I’ve been using Indesign for the past 5 years but the whole script and automation scene is new for me, and I think it would be the only way to solve this problem so I would kindly ask for you guys help.
I’ve got a demand that it is:
-> We have a main advertisement capaingn layouted in different “key” sizes, for example 3 different shop window sizes (which are wide, square and vertical proportions), 2 banners (which are 2 different sizes), a wider format that is above 5 meters long for width by almost 2 meters of height and a super tall format.
-> This “key” sizes files consists of a PSD or a TIFF link for the background and the whole text information is in Indesign.
-> The main objective for this job is: there are going to be more than 90 different formats (document sizes, dimensions) for these 7 “key” sizes to be turned in into. Some of this sizes are very similar, for example, 5 centimeters wider and 3 centimentes taller but some of the sizes have bigger differences.
I was researching the internet for scripts and I don’t know much about programming languages but for what I saw, if you make the correct rule when building some sort of data table in excel, you can make Indesign perform according to those defined rules.
But, the vast majority of scripts I found about were for content updating in predefined catalog style layouts or publications in which the size of the document would not change.
The ideal scenario for me is: building an excel table with all different document sizes and formats (for example a column with all width x height sizes) and through a script, making Indesign automatically layout the arts into the sizes I need (for example using the Liquid Layout scale rule). Also, I would need for this script or automation process to generate the Packages for each art and a PDF for internal visualization.
The important thing also is that this automation must generate 1 file (Package + PDF) per new document sizes and not make all the different sizes in the same file.
As this needs to be done in the matter of 2 days, I’m trying to look for some automation.
Do you guys know if this is possible? For what I learned quickly looking in the internet, there is plenty of possibilities as long as you dominate the scripting language and Data Merge table building in Excel. But I must find more info in order to get clues for what I’m suppose to program or to reach if there is something already done for this situation.
Guys, thank you very much for your attention, I’m really looking forward to the answers!
Raphael.
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