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Merge from Tab Delimited or other Formats
I am thinking of switching from Quark to InDesign just to keep the whole Adobe workflow happening.
Is it possible to set up a system to merge tab delimited, or Filemaker or Excel info into an InDesign layout?
Essentially I have a series of Eight Cards on a page. I have a data base of Trivia Questions in Filemaker. I’d like to automate the insertion of Questions on these cards and then answers on the reverse side of the cards , kinda like Trivial Pursuit cards.
I have five thousand Questions and Five Thousand answers so automating would certainly save me time.
Is something like this possible? Thanks
TAK
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2 Replies
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Sure it is possible, but also easy to do. You simply do your layout the way you want it. Put in “dummy” info so you can format it (colors, fonts, etc..). Once it is beautiful, you select “Window>Automation>Data Merge”. This will bring up a new palette. Here you select the data source. (I’ve only used Excel and txt tab delimited data, so not sure about the FileMaker compatibility) After the source data is loaded, the headers will show in the palette. Simply highlight your “dummy” data and then double click the corresponding header name. It will place the text “<
>” in that position. Once all the data is placed, you click on the check box in the palette labeled “Preview”. This will show your the first page of your doc, and you can use the arrows in the palette to see the other pages. If it is to your liking, you then select “Create Merged Document” from the palette. This will make a completely new document with all the pages (however many were in your source data) laid out nicely. It really does take 10 times longer to explain it, than to actually do it. It is quite easy. I do this quite often for short run numbering such as raffle tickets or invoices.
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Thanks… I am about to make the switch and start taking the Lynda.com tutorials…
TAK
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