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• • August 24, 2010 at 5:04 am #56802
    Psydrop

    Member

    Hi,

    I'm having a bit of a weird situation here. I have an excel file with a lot of pages, tables etc etc. Now I need to place those tables into an indesign file and have them linked so when there are changes in the excel file, it will automatically update the indesign file.

    Ok so far so good, i know how to place an excel file into indesign and have it linked and all that but the problem is:

    – I don't need the whole excel document, just the different tables with the numbers. Is this possible to just have a part of your table linked?

    – My second problem is that in excel, i have lots of calculations for the generation of the numbers. When I place it into indesign the numbers are all wrong so i guess it has something to do with the calculations…

    So, what I need is actually: – parts of an excel document to link with my indesign document and just the numbers, not the functions.

    This isn't a very common problem I reckon, so anyone who can help me has my gratitude :)

    Thx!

  • August 24, 2010 at 6:56 am #56809
    Psydrop

    Member

    Someone? Going mental here :p

  • August 24, 2010 at 8:11 am #56810
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    A search of the site for “excel” quickly found this:

    https://creativepro.com/eas…..sheets.php

    I don't know what's wrong with the calculations. That should work fine. You may need to save your file as a different file format, such as xlsx?

    Note that dtptools.com also has a new plug-in called Active Tables that lets you do spreadsheet functions inside indesign! Wow!

  • August 24, 2010 at 1:14 pm #56811
    Psydrop

    Member

    Thanks! I'll defenitely try that!

    I think the problem with the calculations is the fact that i have one cell in excel that all the other cells use to calculate, but i don't need that one cell in indesign, so its not in the indesign document.

  • August 25, 2010 at 11:47 pm #56823
    Psydrop

    Member

    Ok so I managed to get only the part of what i need into indesign! thx :).

    The only thing is that i can't seem to place the part of the excel table i need into an empty existing table (with exception the first column and row) into indesign. Now i just place the part onto the indesign table so it overlaps, and then i fit it in properly.

    Maybe not the best solution but still.

    Another thing i noticed is that when i update the table, the formatting in indesign just vanishes. I already messed around with the smart styles plugin, which is nice but not really good for the layout of this huge table. So I guess i'll have to make some table,cell & character styles in Indesign, and just fix it every time it needs updating.

    I would love to see the import and layout settings improve in CS6!

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