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Hi all,
I am working on a product catalog for the company I work for. It came up that using Excel to merge data into INDD may be an easy way to drop the info into the catalog. However nothing I do seems to be working and its driving me crazy. I have read multiple forums, looked at all the Q & A here and tried many different fixes.
I am able to get info into INDD but it creates more pages in the document for each set of entries :
Sku, Name, Price.
I am running the test with 5 different products so it creates 5 pages total and I need it on one. (I have been using the multiple records per page setting) I can get the info to import but as stated above it actaully generates more pages I have also created enough text boxes in the document to accomodate the records but it just won't work.
I am fairly new to INDD and very new to Data Merge but I am so far not impressed 😕
Any help greatly appreciated and Thank you in advance!
barb
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Indesign's Data Merge alone will most likely not accomplish the end result that you are looking for. However with some additional resources, you can accomplish this.
First, a brief description of the 2 workflows.
A single record workflow is best suited to create business cards, with consistent data and consistent final size. You have 10 records, and can easily data merge into a single document with 10 pages.
A multiple record workflow can be used to take these 10 records and merge onto one document and one page, as long as the final size of each is consistent. Also keep in mind, none of the records will be connected or threaded.
Most likely the final size of your records will vary, and would need the flexibility to flow from page-to-page or column-to-column.
I will suggest one method, while other methods are available.
Use the single record workflow for the data merge. You will need to keep all text and image data within a master text frame. That means that images will need to be anchored. Once you create a merged document, use a third party plugin: TextStitch
This plugin will allow you to thread all individual records together, and then flow into multiple column/pages.
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Thank you! I have seen tutorials where what i am trying to accomplish have worked - just not for me! LOL Thank you for the suggestion and I will defnitely look into as it sounds like a good option!!
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In order to get multiple records per page you have to set up the frame into which you are merging at a size (and with specified spacing in the options) that will actually allow multiple frames to fit onto the page. My guess is thata if you are getting only one record per page your frame is too big.
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So it seems as though you are on to something with the text frame size - I did try a smaller text box and got it to work but then tried again on another page and couldnt reproduce the same result. It defintiely seems very finicky with frame sizing as I have had plenty of room on the page for all the info. I will be adding images at a later date so have space left for that. In my other trial it seemed to keep some of the data on the page and then again created additonal pages. So there is defnitely a trick to that which I havent quite mastered!
Thank you for the response - greatly appreciated!
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You need to check all the options in the multiple records section carefully as they interrelate.