Auto spacing and arranging objects in large document

[oljerry]

Hello all,

I work for an art studio and was tasked with creating a document for works we have available for sale. This is a large document (a little over 30 pages) currently documenting around 30 pages and about 100 works of art, I've included a sample image below to show the layout. Images on the left and text on the right. The issue I'm having is this: since there is a constant flow of new works being created and works being sold and becoming unavailable i'm having to update this document on a nearly bi-weekly by hand and it's becoming incredibly tedious. For example: A painting is sold so I removed it from the document and then must slide every other work below it up to fill the gap. Is there a way to sort of "program" indesign or the document so that if I remove a painting, all of the ones below jump up a space to fill in the gap and reversely if I added a painting in between existing works could i have it automatically space the other existing objects to empty spaces, but maintaing the order and 3 paintings per page layout.

Thank you in advanced for any advice you can give me.

[brianp311]

Look into either Data Merge, or set up the document as a table where you can remove a single row, have all the frames connected, and everything would reflow. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This. It's a job for a well-managed table. I've done similar layouts many times using a table as the basic framework.

[Laubender]

Well yes.

If all your contents would flow in one text flow through text frames from page to page you would easily be able to remove items and add items everywhere in the flow. Consider every unit of image and text an anchored group of objects for example. Or a table row with two cells, a graphic cell and a text cell in a table that flows from page to page.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[SJRiegel]

There is an old script that I just tested, and it still works in InDesign 17.0. It uses Data Merge, and places the records anchored inline, so that you can remove them as needed. 

When you get ready to add, you would need to make a new merge of the added items, then copy and paste them into the text flow of your existing document.

https://creativepro.com/data-merge-into-inline-anchored-objects-so-they-flow-in-a-story/