*** From the Archives ***
This article is from December 22, 2006, and is no longer current.
Great Article on InDesign’s Data Merge
Peter wrote:
I am working on a building signage project, and one of the challenge is to layout hundreds of room identification signs at the same size, but all the room numbers / room names and pictograms are different, and we need to keep them at precisely the same position. We have an Excel database of all the information, but are just wondering if there is a faster way to do this kind of layout in either Indesign or Illustrator.
What you’re talking about is database publishing: Taking data from a database or spreadsheet and making it pretty in InDesign. There are lots of options for doing database publishing, but one of the simplest (and certainly least expensive if you already own InDesign CS2) is Data Merge, which comes with the program (see Window > Automation > Data Merge).
I’m not going to give you a lesson on how to use datamerge here because someone else has done a great job of it already. Rufus Deuchler wrote it for InDesign Magazine, but it’s posted free for you at CreativePro.com. If you like what you see there, please consider becoming a subscriber to the magazine.
However, Data Merge doesn’t do everything you might want. For example, you can’t build intelligence or rules into the process, such as “if this session is listed as being in the “Foible Room” put such-and-such icon next to it. You can do that easily with a plug-in such as InData from Em Software. There are also even more robust solutions that let you have live links between InDesign and a database such as Teacup Software’s DataLinker or Cacidi’s LiveMerge.
As you can see, there’s a wide range of solutions when it comes to publishing database and spreadsheet material!
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Thanks Dave. I will take a close look at all the plugins and then figure out which one to pick.
Woodwing is also a very good product for this. I’ve seen their demo and it rocks!
https://woodwing.com/en/node/2
I wonder if indesign cs3 wll have some improved data merge. Seems to be requested frequently on the adobe boards. Some of these plugins are very pricey.
There is also a tutorial by Terry White on the Sep/Oct 2005 issue of Layers magazine. I used it to automate the workflow when creating business cards.
Other links here at InDesignSecrets re: data merge:
Steve Werner’s 3-part series on Handling Data
Michael Murphy’s Video tutorial for Data Merge
Please send InDesignSecrets.
You may find this tutorial helpful as well. Having a lot of questions / feedback from our customers we tried to put all the information into one tutorial: https://www.bestindesigntemplates.com/indesign-data-merge
Here is a helpful video tutorial for indesign CS6 single record data merging that you may find helpful too.
https://youtu.be/AB754s6zB8A
Good day, I came across your tutorial a while back, and it surely helped a lot, Now I stumbled onto something else I have no Idea how to solve. Let me explain the situation..
The layout is for digital publishing, which means that alternative layouts are being used. Now in the past it was very easy just to update the content using the data merge panel, but now when I do that, having an alternative layout with the same content, In design crashes. So I am assuming I’m just not doing it right, or it is just not possible to update the alternative layout? Do you think there is another way I can do this? The data on the digital layout should be updated once a week, so there is just no way of doing the layout over every time for portrait and landscape(e-book).