Way to Import Formatted Excel Data into InDesign Template?

[Kethion]

Hi all.

Every month I receive some data that I format and then use to fill out an InDesign template. I was hoping I could speed up this process by importing the data into my template file, but I can't seem to find a method that works. I was thinking I could use a data merge so I tested it out but it appears as though I cannot place the data merge fields in advance, which renders that tactic useless. Is there any way I can "pre-assign" the data merge fields in my document and have the data merge work with them? If not, is there another way I can import my excel data into specific fields?

[BobLevine]

Place the ranges from Excel into your InDesign file using the file > place command. You’ll need to experiment with the options but generally, if this is to be linked, using unformatted tables along with table/cell styles works well but does require some upfront work.

[amaarora]

Hi,

Instead of data mege you can also explore XML autoflow in InDesign. Everytime you recieve a new data set all you would need to do is to reimport that excel(XML saved) back to InDesign. Your styles would remain as it is.

Lynda provides some great tutorials on XML in indesign.

Also read this reference post:

InDesign works wonderfully with XML and XSLT. You can export the data from Windows Excel only to XML, but only when you create an XML-compatible worksheet. Don't save the file as an XML spreadsheet, that file is useless in InDesign.

What I do is either create a schema file (xsd) for the data that you want to use and import that into Excel on Windows (Mac version doesn't support XML) Once the schema is imported you can create an XML worksheet based on this schema and then copy and paste the data from the non-XML worksheet into the XML sheet. Once the data is in the spreadsheet you can export to an XML file and import it into InDesign.

As mentioned above you can map XML tags to Paragraph and character styles and create dynamic layout directly in InDesign or by using an XSLT to structure the data before you import it.

MS Access allows you to export directly to XML. If you move your data to InDesign you can save the time needed to build the XML spreadsheet. Image references have to be built properly before you export to XML or build an XSLT that will do it on the fly as you import the data in to your layout.

The entire process is described in detail in the book A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML.

-Aman

[SJRiegel · Accepted solution]

If your data fields are the same each time, you can format the placed fields once, and then update the data source each month to use your new data. (InDesign will display a warning when you do this, but if your field names match, it will work fine)

[Kethion]

This is what I'm looking for, thank you! Did a test run and it appears to work fine for me, so I'll give it a shot the next time around.