Exporting from Excel, importing to InDesign document

[caring_play2031]

A pretty vague title I know. Here are the details of what I want to achieve...

I'm creating a catalogue for a book chain. I have the layout of the catalogue set up in InDesign including linked text boxes from page 1 to the end. I also have data for each book in an Excel spreadsheet (title, author, price, description).

I would like to export those 4 fields from the Excel document, and then import them into ID, with each of the 4 fields appearing on their own line, and adopting the unique paragraph style (already set-up in the ID template) that each field requires.

An example of the Excel data I want to export...

Title	Author	Price	Description
TITLE 1	Author 1	$34.99	Description will go here
TITLE 2	Author 2	$9.99	Description will go here
TITLE 3	Author 3	$27.99	Description will go here

An example of how I want the data to look upon importing it into InDesign...

As you can see, the title, author etc. has adopted the desired paragraph style after it has been imported.

I used to a similar thing in Quark XPress 10+ years ago but am a bit out of the loop, and I'm not finding Google searches to be very helpful, or only provide a portion of what I need. My guess is that the Excel data needs to be exported to a txt file with formatting (XML?) that ID understands and then imported.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Joel Cherney]

Your guess is pretty much right on the money. The tool in InDesign is called "Data Merge" and it lets you take a CSV file exported from Excel and imported into InDesign. It only accepts a few formats - when you "Select Data Source" in the Data Merge panel, there's a little "Import Options" box, which will tell you all of the formats that Data Merge will accept. I think that your only choices are comma-delimited straight ASCII, tab-delimited Unicode, and I think one comma-delimited Japanese encoding. You also have to specify whether your CSV is Mac-encoded or Windows-encoded. But if you can export your file successfully from Excel, it's not hard to build the layout you describe with Data Merge.

... assuming, that is, that there's nothing fancier in your layout than exactly what you described. Anything fancier usually requires a third-party tool, such as a catalog plugin like EasyCatalog or InCatalog. 

You could also do this layout with XML import, which would add a little bit of formatting flexibility at the cost of some severe restrictions on your imports, but it's totally doable if Data Merge doesn't work for you. 

[caring_play2031]

Thanks for your help. You've steered me in a better direction than I was on.

There is more to the layout (images etc.) but I'll worry about that when I can do the above.

Thanks again. I might be back for more questions.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@caring_play2031

You should start "worrying" about extra elements right now - as they might be imported automatically as well.

You could also import your tables without using DataMerge - place or copy&paste your table into InDesign - as a table - then apply separate ParaStyles to columns - then just convert table to text. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I've gotten a little rusty with Data Merge since I always got frustrated with its limitations.

Does it import data into a single text flow or is it still one set of data per placeholder (with multiple placeholders on the pages). Also, does Data Merge allow flexible placeholders--in this example for different size descriptions)?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I would use Em Software's InData. They used to make the identical plugin XData for Quark.

There are other database plugins, such as Teacup Software and 64bit, but this is the one I use most often.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Another vote for Em Software's InData. I use it to create an annual 160-page corporate directory in less than 20 minutes. The "hardest" part is setting up the "template" the imported data will use, and of course making sure the Excel file is as clean as possible, but once you get that down, it's so fast.

Yes, these plugins can be a bit pricey, but mine paid for itself immediately.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

But for now - OP has only 4x columns with simple text... 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Tru dat. A bit overkill perhaps for their workflow.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Here is a way you can do it cheaply and get flowing text. It's not that difficult as it looks.

In Excel, add columns in front of each data category. Add the code <ParaStyle:StyleName> with the style name matching your InDesign style names. Use Excel's autofill to fill up each row of data.

Save as either tab-delimited or comma separated (csv). I used CSV in this example.

Open the file in Word, clean up with Replace, and replace your field names with <ASCI-WIN> or <ASCI-MAC> depending on your platform.

Your text should look like this:

Save as a text file. Be sure to keep the .txt extension on a Mac.

Import into InDesign (with preexisting styles matching the names you used in Excel).

Of course, you can format the paragraph styles any way you wish.

I've attache the InDesign Tagged Text PDF. It's old but hasn't changed in ages.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Yeah, one more way - but isn't it overkill?

Unless OP will have way more text only data. 

And there is one problem - Tagged Text doesn't support importing images.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Not really. It only takes a few minutes to do. The reason I discussed this method was because the OP mentioned they did something similar in Quark. Quark had both XData and X-tags. 

The OP hasnt mentioned or displayed images at all. Obviously I would not have suggested this method if there were numerous images. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Not really. It only takes a few minutes to do. The reason I discussed this method was because the OP mentioned they did something similar in Quark. Quark had both XData and X-tags. 

Importing Table, applying styles, converting to text - is way quicker.

The OP hasnt mentioned or displayed images at all. Obviously I would not have suggested this method if there were numerous images. 

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/exporting-from-excel-importing-to-indesign-docum...

[Joel Cherney]

In the OP's reply to my original suggestion of Data Merge, they mentioned that there were also "images etc." So I imagine that there will be images to include with the merge, eventually, once the OP is ready to include them in the workflow. 

There are lots of great suggestions in this thread. I've never owned a license for InData myself, but I've used it a few times, and it's extraordinarily powerful. It does have a steeper learning curve than does Data Merge, though. Happens all the time that I'm helping someone with a catalog/mailmerge/other dynamic data project, and we're happily approaching a milestone using native Data Merge tools, and the client says "Okay, now I want to implement thus-and-so logic at this stage of the merge" whereupon I get to emit a long sigh and say, "Have you by any chance looked at InData?"

And I have some serious appreciation for using Excel to generate tag-format input files to import into ID, although I'm personally more one to use CONCATENATE within Excel, as opposed to post-export cleanup in Word. Either way, it's a great trick, one that I plan to use in the future. 

All that being said, it seems to me that Data Merge is the best match so far to the parameters put forth by the OP. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Sorry, I missed the OP's reply. Hazards of reading on my phone!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

@Joel Cherney Could you answer my earlier question about Data Merge? (The one that starts "I've gotten a little rusty..." .) I'm not a big Data Merge user (I use InData) and curious if its improved at all. 

[Joel Cherney]

Now it's my turn to have not seen something because I've reading on my phone!  My apologies. 

...

I don't think it's changed since you last used it, is my guess. It won't let you merge into e.g. a long threaded story, so it's just still one set of value placeholders per frame. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "flexible placeholders" but the OP's example (with varying lengths of description) would work just fine. That is, unless they said something like "and now, I want the font size of the description to be reduced if the description is more than five lines long" which is my cue to suggest InData.

But no, like many InDesign features, it hasn't seen any dev attention in many years. I think that multi-record layouts were the last thing to be added, and that was at least fifteen years ago, as that's roughly how long ago it changed my business-card-translation workflow. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Thank you. I used to own it when it was an add-on plugin to PageMaker. Hasn't changed much...

[caring_play2031]

X-tags! That is how I used to do it in Quark! i.e. I would export a csv file from Access with all the tags included, and then import that file into Quark and make whatever minor adjustments were necessary.

I had InDesign's equivalent to that in mind when I made my original post. Thanks David. I will read over the PDF you provided.

I'll also fiddle around with Data Merge to see what I prefer.

[Joel Cherney]

Ok, ok, I guess David gets the badge "Reading the OP's Mind." Useful skill, that.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Here is a VERY OLD tutorial I put together for FileMaker to PageMaker. The process is similar to Access to InDesign, just with different tags. 

Let me know if you need any other info.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Ah, this takes me back!