Catalog Data Merge Plugins

If you are on Mac and look for something easy to use have a look at MyDataMerge (https://mydatamerge.com) Usable and affordable

In my day-to-day use of InDesign, I do not use any catalog plug-ins as we don't set up many catalogs... could be a catch 22 I suppose. I've only gone as far as the trial versions and even then I didn't have live jobs to test them on, so I'm afraid I'm not much help there.

Thanks, Colin. I'll look into the free trials. Have you used any? In your experience which was the most intuitive? I'm more of an indesign/illustrator person than an excel person, so I'm looking for something that'll be easier to work with.

There are five usual go-tos for catalog plug-ins:

• InData and InCatalog – emsoftware.com
• EasyCatalog – 65bit.com
• LiveMerge and Extreme – cacidi.com
• Designmerge – meadowsps.com
• Datalinker - teacupsoftware.com

Each retailer offers demo versions of their software for evaluation, so it's worth trying the trial versions to see if one application is a better fit over another.

Be aware though that any users who open a file that used the plug-in may receive a "missing plug-in" warning upon opening the file.