Unable to use Indesign data merge with facing pages and internal margins

[lauraferrari]

Hello all,
I need to insert several images in a layout with facing pages and a wider internal margin for the biding.
I have to paginate a musical score, one jpg image per page, each image takes up the whole page: as I need a wider internal margin for the biding, the layout obviously differs from odd and even pages. The boxes dimensions are identical for all the images but the boxes are positioned slightly to the right for the odd pages and to the left for the even pages.
It seems that data merge works only if the layout is consistent with the first page, ignoring the facing pages layout with wider internal margins (see attached).
Is there a workaround that allows me to insert automatically all the images in such layout with Indesign?
Any advice is welcome,

Laura

[SJRiegel]

I have not tried this recently, but I think if you set up your initial data merge template with equal left and right margins, (with your image frame fitting the margins exactly), you can then change the margins with Layout Adjustment enabled to re-postion all the art.

[SJRiegel]

Some screen shots of the process

 

 

[lauraferrari]

Hi, thank you very much for your prompt and kind reply
it's a little bit tricky but after several attempts it worked: I share the process I came up with thanks to your suggestion (adjusting the margins doesn't solve the problem)

1. create a facing pages layout, setting up the desired internal margins (no need to have equal left-right margins) and only one page to start with (otherwise Id will create double blank pages in the resulting merged document)
2. perform the steps for merging data: the resulting merged document will display the odd pages only (see attached)
3. go to File Menu > Document setup: uncheck and re-check the facing pages option: this will update the facing pages layout displaying odd and even pages correctly and maintaining the desired internal margins set previously

Hope this will be helpful for other people 🙂

[Majeedz]

Hello, I'm looking for a solution too but it seems like you ended up with asymmetrical pages? Notice how the wide margin is to the left side on both faces instead of being the same on the inside. Am I missing something?

[lauraferrari]

Hello, maybe you missed the third screenshot where you can see how both the odd/even internal margins are wide: the sheet music I had to insert are not identical and that could be misleading, but if you look at the purple guides the layout is perfectly symmetric (see attached).

Step 2 produces an asymmetrical layout displaying the odd pages only, then step 3 fixes everything. Try with your data merge files following the exact procedure I wrote and let me know if you can get it right

[rivercool78]

Chipping in here ... I think there was an importnat missing step 

1) Create New Document
1) Set Inside to bigger than Outside
2) Facing Pages Checked
3) Pages = 3
2) Open Window>Pages Panel
3) Notice the double paged A-Parent!
4) Delete Pages 2 & 3
5) Do your design work in the remaining page
6) Data Manager > Select a Data Source
7) Apply your data source properties to your page
8) Data Manager > Create Merged Document
9) You're new doc will be showing the odd pages only
10) With your new doc selected File > Document Setup
11) Toggle Facing pages on/off a couple of times (leave it on)
12) Check your inside margin is still bigger that outside
13) DONE !

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

How many pages will be in the final document?

How thick will be the paper? 

What kind of binding? 

White background all around?

Maybe you are trying too hard to solve the problem that doesn't exists?

... 

Looks like I've replied to a very old post 😞 but the solution could be still pretty simple 😉