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thomash92138415
thomash92138415
Participating Frequently
September 23, 2019
Question

Data Merging for Tech Pack: Importing Multiple Data Sets off of "Parent" Data

  • September 23, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 669 views

Hello InDesign community!
I have an interesting conumdrum and was curious if this type of data merging is even possible in InDesign or if I need some 3rd party plugin to do this.

I work for an apparel company that has over 2000 product SKU#. Imagine a giant Google Sheets / Excel Doc 2000 rows long with over 15 data columns of information for each row on the product.
Often certain elements of our products might change such as shirt color used or the type of fabric may change as well. I already have a product bible in both Excel and Google Sheets with all of pertinent information need to fill in to our tech packs. The problem is that right now I have to individually change each one. 
Here comes the question: 
Is there any way that I could data merge in InDesign so that by importing one cell of data (SKU#### in blue) Indesign would auto generate all the other information given in that row to all other fields (In Green)???
I have attached a visual example for reference. I would appreciate any helpful info you have on this! 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Kasyan Servetsky
Kasyan Servetsky
Legend
September 24, 2019

This can be done with scripting.

Script can read data either from a csv/txt file or directly from Excel. (Not sure about Google sheets, but a guy on the forum claimed it was possible).
You can create a template with master pages containing labeled text frames. The script can use them and/or look for specific formatting -- e.g. paragraph/character styles -- to fetch the nessasary text (only plain text: all formatinng will be lost) from an Excel spreadsheet into InDesign layout.

That's the approach that works for me.

— Kas

S
SJRiegel
Legend
September 23, 2019

This is beyond the scope of what Data Merge can do. There are several third-party catalog plug-ins (such as EasyCatalog) that might work for you.

    thomash92138415
    thomash92138415Author
    Participating Frequently
    September 23, 2019
    Thanks SJRiegel! Any other third party software products you recommend besides EasyCatalog that mesh with InDesign?
    S
    SJRiegel
    Legend
    September 23, 2019
    EasyCatalog is the only one I have used. I know there are others, but I don't know much about them.
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