Adjust a single item across all pages of a document

Report · Dec 13, 2022

Hi all,

I'm data merging various info into 100's of pages. The data merge always does this annoying thing where it shifts everything even if you tell it not to. I can't counter the shift in the data merge window because it doesn't go below 0 and that's what I need.

SO, solved that by locking everything in the template before doing the data merge and found a script to unlock EVERYTHING on all pages so I can do the edits needed after mrging without unlocking every single page.

BUT I needed a variable height text box, so I set up a style to auto size the text box based on how much text there is and have it always aligned centrally on the bottom edge of the page.

If I lock this before the data merge, it doesn't resize so all the pages had overset text. If I don't lock it, it shifts 3mm to the right and 3mm down on every page. The "Align to Page" script only does 1 page at a time and the "Adjust Page items" script adjust EVERYTHING on all pages, including, it seems, locked objects.

Any ideas? I found some other scripts in other discussions but they weren't doing what I needed them to either 😕

Thanks!

Report · Jan 12, 2023

"I'm data merging various info into 100's of pages. The data merge always does this annoying thing where it shifts everything even if you tell it not to."

Hi @yay89 ,

that's the point where we should start to solve your issue.

Could you make a sample InDesign template document for data merge available?

Plus a little data source file and a few screenshots where you are showing the setup of your merge?

I think there is an explanation for the shifting of items in the result document.

And I'm optimistic that we could do something about it.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )