I produce two large catalogs two times a year. Each book is full color and has roughly 2000 sku’s. I am trying to automate the copy process as much as possible with DataMerge. Here is my thought: I want to create an InDesign document that contains every copy block for the catalog. I then want to link each copy block, with Place and Link??, to multiple catalog documents (some products are in multiple sections of the catalog (repeat listings)). From there I would like to be able to have all of the document copy blocks update when the original Excel is modified.
I have gotten to the point where I can get InDesign to automatically typeset and format all of our copy from an Excel file with Data Merge. I’ve also figured out how to Place and Link the copy blocks into other InDesign documents, so that when type is modified in the original, it can be updated in other documents with just one click.
What I still can’t figure out is how to be able to update everything (the original data merged document, along with all of the links to the individual copy blocks in other documents) when the original Excel file is revised due to price changes. I can get the merged document to update, but then I lose the links to the copy blocks in the catalog itself.
Can this be done or am I wasting my time trying to save time????
.
