![]() If you need to do so, feel free to use our specific scripts such as CSV2Table or InlineMerge. Tables, directories ?ĭatamerge is not intented to generate tables and directories. A few minutes and a PDF Export later, it’s done ! Datamerge fits well with Business Cards, mailing, letterheads. A few tags et voilà! In just seconds, you get all your 2500 entries. As you see, you have many options here and yet the question is still hanging out there : How to choose between XML Import and Datamerge ? BusinessCards, Mailing ?Ĭhoose Datamerge! It’s so easy to set. And if you are really into XML, feel free to use our CSV2XML script in our downloads section. Prefer the Tab Delimited Text File format, you will avoid may issues. If you are lucky, you will get a functional CSV file. Other clients only swear by Excel Tables overwhelmed with formulas, filters and so many fills that lead to randomly extractable CSV format.įorget the XML export from Excel. If your customer doesn’t have such tool and refuse to invest, forget XML. ![]() You get the output from a dedicated tool (SQL Database, FileMaker…). You must rely on you customer ability to provide a data file of a certain format. It’s all about your layout project, what you have to accomplish and how much you need to keep track of your data. I take this opportunity to speak further and hopefully provide elements of a response to make your final choice. There are little quirks that Avery templates alone won’t help you with (embossings, specialized die cuts, etc.).During an InDesign User Group Meeting in Paris, a spectator asked me this simple question : “How to choose between XML Import and Datamerge ?”. A vast topic I tried to cover in a short time. It’s all InDesign elements, ready for your handiwork. You can always customize after the merge. Then after merging, use Find and Replace to replace all your non-standard characters with line breaks.Īnd of course, don’t just trust the computer! Do a manual review of your document. If you need line breaks, use a non-standard character to replace all line breaks. InDesign does not process line breaks in Data Merge. This can cause overflow problems (use Auto Text Sizing). However, if you have stray graphics, that invisible container is going to be larger than your repeating object, preventing it from rendering correctly.Ĭheck your spreadsheet before hand for stray characters. It draws an invisible container and repeats across with your specifications. InDesign is assuming all the elements are going to be repeated. ![]() This goes hand in hand with the boxing advice. Create a separate document for repeating. Start with zeroed out values and increment slowly to adjustĪvoid stray graphics. Have one manually laid out document on screen as a reference ![]() If you want, you can place the box on a separate layer that you can toggle on/off.Įnsure your margins, column spacing, and row spacing are accurate. This helps with the layout and determine where overflow may be taking place. Place a box with a border and the exact size around your elements. if the final template is a name tag slide with 6 badges on a letter document, your document size should be letter-sized. Make sure you are working on the final document size to be printed. You can do this easily without affecting your existing document.Ĭreate a new document with the final document size to be printed. Have only one instance of the item that is going to be copied remaining on the page. However, I was running into an issue with multiple records not loading in. There are many tutorials on the web that explain the process ( this article by GCO Studios is great). One of the things I wanted to do was automatically import the data into InDesign with a CSV file. I was recently working with name tags from Avery Templates in InDesign.
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