Help with InDesign Data Merge with lots of names on one page

[Laborers Training5CC1]

I am creating a "digital plaque" that resembles some real ones for a school I work for.

I would like to figure out if it's possible to data merge in a way that will take an excel sheet and fill in people's names and "local".  I have about 10 years of graduates I would like to do!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Don't see a reason for DataMerge - just create linked TFs - you can use "grid" option when creating TFs - then import names to this new Story. 

If you need to have a different formatting for 1st and 2nd Paragraph on the plaques - you can either import data as a table, apply different ParaStyles to the columns then convert to text - or add something to both Cells in Excel - some unique "tags" - and then use Find&Change to apply ParaStyles - using those unique "tags". 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Agreed. Merge is to put variable text into preformatted documents. This is just a list, or table. Much easier to handle it as one text file with formatting to separate and place the names/titles.

[Joel Cherney]

I do stuff like this all the time with Data Merge - but only when it's easier than just placing the Excel file directly, or just saving raw text out of Excel and placing that in InDesign. If you need to make one template, and then someone comes along and says "Hey, can you make me the 2024 plaque? In, like, ninety seconds?" then Data Merge ,might be the right tool. Especially if you know they're coming back in 2025 with the same ninety-second turnaround. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Sure, DM is an option and for things like sign shops and organizations that do these plaques on a regular basis, it's probably the right approach. But I got the idea the OP has a one-shot project, and just importing the file into a text frame grid created with gridding.... seems quicker.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

"I have about 10 years of graduates I would like to do!" 

But i still think DataMerge is overkill... 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay, it's more of a batch process than I realized. The OP wording led me to believe it was still one plaque's worth. 🙂

I think DM would be a viable solution, especially if it will be an ongoing need for each year. A bit big-hammered, but no real argument against it once the templates are set up.