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tommyb81622856
Participant
September 23, 2023
Question

Odd bug with Data Merge reading CSV.

  • September 23, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 812 views

I had a job at work where I needed to image and print some wedding stationery -- stuff I do all the time.  I used 'Data Merge' for a variable piece.  It had information like "name", "seat", "table", etc., so I create a CSV with these header names.

 

But this CSV wouldn't import after using "Select Data Source."  No errors, nothing.  The CSV filename does show up in the "Links" panel, but the "Data Merge" panel doesn't populate.

 

It took me an hour to figure out that a column named "table" will not work.  "TABLE" will work.  But "table", all lowercase (no quotes), will fail.  I was able to replicate this behavior with two Windows machines and a Mac.

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    1 reply

    L
    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 23, 2023

    Hi @tommyb81622856 ,

    interesting to see. Thank you very much for your post!

    Could you share the CSV file with perhaps only one entry; could be faked data of course.

    I'd like to test that on my machine.

     

    What's the InDesign version where you see the issue?

     

    Regards,
    Uwe Laubender
    ( Adobe Community Expert )

    T
    tommyb81622856Author
    Participant
    September 23, 2023

    I've tried it on InDesign 18.5 and 18.4.  Attached is a dummy CSV file.

    L
    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2023

    Hi @tommyb81622856 ,

    I see your issue. Tested your CSV file with InDesign 2023 version 18.5 on macOS.

    The Data Merge was not able to load the CSV file. No error message when I tried this.

    When I changed "table" to "Table" in TextEdit the issue was gone.

     

    The exact same issue happend with a tab delimited text file.

    As soon as the head contained the word "table" the panel was not able to load the source.

    Attached two data merge sources. One using "table" in the head (not working), one with "Table" (working).

     

    I would report this bug at InDesign UserVoice:

    https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs

     

    Regards,
    Uwe Laubender
    ( Adobe Community Expert )

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