How to Create a Drop-Down Selection Box for Weekly Sports Fixtures in InDesign

[johni71584320]

Hi i dont think its possible but i wanted to ask, i do weekly graphics that include football/soccer fixtures and have to type the names out every week which takes a while as i cover quite a lot of leagues. i konw you can do drop down menu for use on a interactive pdf but is there anyway that a drop down box works within Indesign?

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[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @johni71584320,

Thanks for reaching out! I completely understand how time-consuming it can be to manually input football fixtures each week. While InDesign doesn't have a built-in drop-down feature for use directly within your working file, there is a workaround using Data Merge. You can create a CSV file with your list of teams and fixtures, and then merge this data into your document, which could save you time and effort.

You can follow these steps:

1. Create a spreadsheet with your fixture information (e.g., team names, dates) and save it as a CSV file.
2. In InDesign, go to Window > Utilities > Data Merge.
3. Select your CSV file and map it to text placeholders in your design.

Could you also let me know the version of InDesign you're using and the details of your operating system? 

Let me know if you need more guidance.

Thanks, 
Abhishek Rao

[johni71584320]

Thank you Abhishek,

indesign version - 19.5.0.84

operating software - Microsoft Windows 11 pro

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@johni71584320

Do you need just the names - or after selecting a name you want some extra information to be added as well - extra text or objects?

Or you can use Library to store your "templates". 

Or dedicated INDD file. 

[johni71584320]

@Robert at ID-Tasker No not really i just have a file for each league match and am curious to know if there is a quicker way of doing it than having to copy/paste each team into each text box every week

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Maybe variables? 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm assuming your list changes from week-to-week, otherwise you could just copy/paste the field in from the previous PDF form to the new PDF form. 

I think it would be easier to process the field in Acrobat. Create or modify the rest of the form as needed,, then update the list in Acrobat. 

Here is a video to push a copied list into a dropdown menu in Acrobat.

https://youtu.be/1GZr0THeiNw?si=cAgSvBA04e1_3o3z

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

It's not about forms in Interactive PDFs.

OP wants a functionality that will quickly insert old/repetitive texts. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Oh-- the way I read it was the OP wanted an option in ID but for a PDF. 

[johni71584320]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS no problem Dave im not sure there is a simple solution for my issue unfortunatley. thanks for everyones replies

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

im not sure there is a simple solution for my issue unfortunatley. 

By @johni71584320

There is - but not free - I've sent you message on priv.

[brian_p_dts]

If the fixtures are just the team names as their own text box, then you could select the box and run a script that gets a dropdown or listbox of the teams and populate the box with the selection. So in short, yes it's possible. Do you have basic familiarity with ID scripts?