data merge placeholder within placeholder

Question

Is it possible?

A little background: I work for a fundraising company and we use variable paragraphs in our letters and sometimes those paragraphs have variable ask amounts.

For instance a version for a lapsed donor doesnt have a ask amount, but the version for a regular donor has a different paragraph with a variable amount placeholder.

Trying to convert our production crew from laying out letters in microsoft word to using the layouts the design team did using indesign.

Joel Cherney · Accepted Answer

It wouldn't be hard to set up something like this in InData. I can think of some maybe-possible vanilla InDesign workarounds (using Conditional Text, maybe?), but InData is the right tool for the project.

John Mensinger · Answer

I suspect it's not possible. After a Data Merge field is set, it behaves like a single character, so you cannot subsequently click inside its brackets to nest another field within.

If it were my problem to solve, I'd consider using a unique placeholder for the variable amount (for instance, $##), that will be easy to hit with a quick find/change post-merge.

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