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Help with huge medical directory project …

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    • #57596
      gamouning
      Member

      Hello,

      I have been assigned a project which requires me to generate a large medical directory. There will be more 800+ entries for this directory which includes photos and biographies for each doctor. This project also requires a Table of Contents and a couple of customized indices.

      Since the data is saved as an Excel spreadsheet it would seem data merge would be the most effective way to proceed. However, according to this forum the generic Indesign Data Merge is quite limited. Naturally, I have no resources to purchase an add-on product like InData from Em Software, Teacup Software’s DataLinker or Cacidi’s LiveMerge. In theory, I plan to use Microsoft Word to do the mail merge portion and assign styles which can be imported into InDesign.

      One of my main concerns is how to define the styles such that they can incorporate the toc and indices. The other is how to import the 800+ photos.

      Obviously, I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to attack this project. Any InDesign templates and assistance you can provide to make this process easier will be greatly appreciated.

      Kind regards,
      Greg

    • #57610
      Roland
      Member

      Unless each entry consists of a lot of data I wouldn't worry about 800+ entries to data merge inside InDesign. I've done 1000+, admittedly plain text only, mulit-column entries without a single hiccup. Should it turn out to be too much for InDesign to handle, it might still work if you cut the job into two or three pieces.
      Personally I'd rather do it all inside InDesign, but I'm no good with Word so I'm definitely biased.

      I use Index Brutal to create indexes based on the keywords the client wants in there. It does its job remarkably well, and the cost of $0 makes it more than worth it.

    • #57613
      gamouning
      Member

      Good morning Roland,

      Thanks, I appreciate your reply and indices reference. I'll take a look at the Index Brutal Script. It sounds like something I will need for this project.

      There are about 10 to 12 fields that will be used for this merge. The biography is likely to be the biggest challenge as it will contain approximately 200 to 400 characters.

      How do you manage a continuous list of records on a page with the InDesign Merge feature? With Microsoft Word I used the Directory or Catalog option for Mail Merge.

      -Greg

    • #57621
      Roland
      Member

      In the merge options you can set the merge to put multiple records per page. Just keep in mind the frames don't automatically scale, and as such you could end up with overset text or lots of empty space depending on how you set up the 'template' frame and the word count of the records.

    • #57840
      gamouning
      Member

      Hello,

      I am back with my results. After several attempts I still have no success with merging my medical directory data into InDesign. I have tried to use both CSV and Tab-Delimited files and the data does not merge correctly. I guess the best way to describe what happenis is to give you an example. I have the following information in my address field:

      Tompkins Memorial Pavilion
      789 Howard Avenue
      3rd Floor
      New Haven, CT 06519

      Once the merge is completed the result are as follows:

      Tompkins Memorial Pavilion

      It looks like only the first line displays for any records which contains multiple lines.

      Your suggestions to correct this behavior would be greatly appreciated.

      -Greg

    • #57846
      gamouning
      Member

      BTW, I should let you know that I am using InDesign CS3 on a PC. If absolutely necessary, I can do this on a Mac with CS4 and/or CS5.

    • #57871
      Roland
      Member

      I've been swamped with work, but I'll see if I can get this figured out once I get home in about 90 minutes. It must be possible and shouldn't require switching to a mac ;)

    • #57875
      gamouning
      Member

      Hi Roland,

      Thanks for your reply. I understand being swamp. I really appreciate your help. I'm trying to get a proof to my client later this afternoon. This little hiccup is forcing me to attempt the data merge using different methods.

      Kind regards,
      Greg

    • #57882
      Roland
      Member

      Well it seems moving to a CS5 machine won't help as it gives the same results there. Ideally you'd have the data inside Excel so it has one line (no line breaks) per field: Name, Function, Address, Address 2, ZIP, etc. etc. but since that's not the case we need to look at alternative methods.

      I don't have Office here at home, but OpenOffice Calc lets me export to CSV files. They contain the data correctly, but with every line break inside the field as a character, at least when viewed inside Notepad. It should be possible to do a Find/Replace on that line break character to replace it with a character you won't normally see used (like the | ) or a combination of characters (like <|> ) which you can then re-replace after the merge. Just make sure there's enough room for every line inside the text frame before you start merging.

      I'm no good with Office applications so maybe I'm missing something very obvious, like a method to break the data into columns… In any case I do hope you'll manage to get somewhere with this.

    • #57883
      gamouning
      Member

      Hi Roland,

      Thanks. Unfortunately, chaning line breaks in my excel spreadsheet to some other character would cause more overhead and cleanup than I can afford at this time. My current work around is to use the Mail Merge features of Microsoft Word and then import that into InDesign.

      For the most part, this is working for me well. The problem I am currently experiencing has to do with removing empty Inline graphics. Hopefully, I'll have a solution to this little hiccup soon.

      With much appreciation,
      Greg

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