Indesign Datamerge creating copies

[agile_mist15540]

Hi, 

We have a user that seems to get some issues with Indesign Datamerge lately, when she is using the datamerge it creates several copies of the same data. We have tried using previous working datamerges as a test aswell as a reboot/indesign update. 

If she creates it as a PDF it works as expected but in the indesign document theres around 10-12 copies of the same data. Anyone that has the same issues?

Using Indesign 20.2

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Do you have the same effect on your machine? 

Can she downgrade to 20.1?

Looks like there might be some new bugs in 20.2? 

[agile_mist15540]

Hi the bug seems to be apparent down to indesign 2024. 

Worked when we installed latest verion of 19. Do we need to do any kind of registration of this bug somewhere? 

She can perform her workload in 2024 but need to recreate the templates and later convert all files so a bug fix would be preferred. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Hi the bug seems to be apparent down to indesign 2024.  

By @agile_mist15540

You mean 2025? 

Worked when we installed latest verion of 19. Do we need to do any kind of registration of this bug somewhere? 

She can perform her workload in 2024 but need to recreate the templates and later convert all files so a bug fix would be preferred. 

By @agile_mist15540

Just export as IDML from 2025 / v 20.x - and then open in 2024 / v 19.x

[agile_mist15540]

Forgot to add in the reply that we tried version 20.0 and the problem was still there before we downgraded to 2024. 

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @agile_mist15540,  

I appreciate you testing different versions and sharing your findings. Robert's suggestion about exporting as IDML is a good workaround for now. If possible, could you provide a packaged InDesign file, so I can test this on my end? Reference: https://adobe.ly/43rBNda
Also, a screenshot comparing the behavior in 2024 vs. 2025 would be really helpful.  

Additionally, could you try using the same CSV file in a fresh document created in InDesign 20.2 and see if the issue still happens? Let me know how it goes! Looking forward to your update.  

^

Abhishek

[agile_mist15540]

Hi tried using previous csv's in 2025, same issue. Added the files i got from the user after packaging. 

Dont have a screenshot available atm. the issue is pretty simple to explain lets say she wanna data merge the products and its products a,b,c that datamerge should fetc the result will be a,a,a,a,a,a,b,b,b,b,b,b,c,c,c,c,c each as several copies after the datamerge. 

She has been using previes but tried remaking the template from start and skip the preview step, sadly she experienced the same issues. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@agile_mist15540

Can you post CSV file?

[agile_mist15540]

Hi, added in text format and CSV format

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

@agile_mist15540 I downloaded your files and ran some tests in 2025 and CS6 using a range of 10 records. In both versions I got three copies (or more) of each record when merging multiple records per page.

I copied the template elements into a new file and re-ran the test in both versions and got the expected results of 1 copy of each of the ten records on the page.

This confirms the file corruption I described that is caused by using preview. You need to make a new template.

[Peter Spier]

Has she been using Data Merge's preview? That has historically caused this sort of error, and worse, it tends to irreparabley corrupt the template file so no matter what you do with that file going forward you get errors.

If preview has been used, I recommend rebuilding the template, then do the merge without using the preview, or Undo after preview and before running the merge.