Script or Paragraph Style?

[joshuajamesdesigns]

I have an Excel Spreadsheet with Business Name, Phone, and Category.

Admittedly - I'm an InDesign noob - but I am picking things up quickly.

I want to format this info (over 600 entries) into an almost "phone book" like layout.

3 columns, Bold first line, tabs: with dotted Leader, regular typeface font phone number, next line category: italic.

Link so:

This Business Name ......... (555) 555-5555

Financial Services

I also need to adjust spacing between each (space after paragraph), kerning between Business Name and beginning of "..." (and after).

Paragraph Style isn't doing it....it's styling the whole entry as the first line.

Do I need to build a script?

Thank  you to anyone who takes the time to add some insight.

-Josh

[Johnwhite]

YES, something like this.

John

[S Hopkins]

Thought I would add one more option to the great suggestions above.

Inspired by the subject inquiry, my blog for this week presents a solution to a problem such as this. It starts by having the user save the Excel file as tab/return delimited text. Then within the InDesign document a nested paragraph style iis created. Finally,, with an insertion point active in the InDesign document, the user runs an AppleScript to open the tab/return delimited text file. The script then massages the text, and sets the text for the insertion point to the massaged text. Done. This may be a good example for a beginning scripter or even for someone who wants to know more about creating nested paragraph styles. Enjoy. You will find the blog at yourscriptdoctor.com/blogs.