Best way to create multiple versions of a restaurant menu

[OAKate]

I'm trying to automate creating a menu for a chain of restauarnts, roughly 180 different versions. Each version has the same menu items with different pricing. The information will be coming in via JotForm or Excel, haven't decided which is a better option. I'm leaning towards data merge, but am wondering if there is a better/more efficient way to do this. Does anyone have experience with something like this? I would love suggestions, as I can't seem to figure out how to get started. I currently have a template set up with a placeholder menu in a table format. Since the information will be streaming in over time, versus having everything at once, that seems to complicate the process, especially with a data merge...

[Geоrge]

You're need something like this - https://www.65bit.com/software/easycatalog/

[patMorita]

Is the menu itself all the same except the prices? So you basically can prepare the whole menu and just have the prices to be replaced for 180 records? Then this is an easy task.

If you have to generate the menu items depending on your data source dynamically then were talking about something more complicated.

Could you clarify?

[OAKate]

The menu itself has required items and optional items. The description of the items does not change from location to location, only the pricing. So yes, the pricing will need to be replaced for 180 different files and each location will need to indicate if they have the optional items and then provide pricing. Thank you for your inout, I hope this clarifies the scope of the project a bit.

[patMorita]

How do you know if an optional item is not needed? Missing price in data source?

So do you expect an optional item to be deleted if price is empty for a specific location?

[OAKate]

Yes, missing item in data source will indicate that an optional item needs to be deleted. We expect to manually delete unused optional items and adjust the layout as needed. 

[patMorita]

If you need/want to manually adjust 180 files thats an easy task that can be done with indesigns data merge out of the box.

You need additional scripts to get single indesign files though.

Alternatively you can try MyDataMerge if you're on macOS. Thats what we use. It can do all at once including deleting unused stuff. And the support is very helpful in setting up projects. 

[OAKate · Accepted solution]

This is perfect, thank you!

[brianp311]

You could link Excel data as tables in the InDesign documents. When the Excel data is updated, you can update the link information. 

https://redokun.com/blog/link-indesign-tables-to-excel-spreadsheets

[patMorita]

This way he won't get optional items deleted.

[OAKate]

I thought about this, as I love that feature, and I've been thinking through that process. The one concern would be every InD document updating the linked Excel file each time the Excel file is updated. I'm thinking the best way to prevent that is to unlink the table once the edits have been made? Or rename each Excel file to match individual InD documents? So each InD file would have a matching Excel file packaged with it? Is that how you would do it?

[Ricky25288538yunf]

I'm doing marketing of my client restaurant princess market. What  is the benefir of creating multiple version of restaurant menu?