Data merging woes

[robertg86356713]

I have a design file that has a few different variations that I'd like to data merge. The variations are basically some of the content is not required on some pages. What I wind up having to do is rearraging and deleting empty graphical boxes (that ordinarily hold text) once the file is merged, which is tedious and annoying. 

Today I tried something different. I data merged one document, then another with a different, layout sans those elements which are not required, then moved the pages into 1 document. 

This test didn't go as planned, because on the items that were moved to the new doc, you could see the data placeholders sitting over the text, like so: https://share.getcloudapp.com/wbu7W92p.

Ideally I wanted to be able to make changes to the master if I had to, but it seems like the master was disconnected or something, i don't know. 

Anyway, just wondering if there is a better way of doing this. 

Thanks.

[patMorita · Accepted solution]

Hi

If you are on macOS you can try MyDataMerge (https://mydatamerge.com). Its free with some limitations (you have to purchase it to remove them). You can easily configure to remove graphic frames on the merge if content is empty (or another condition matches).

You still would have the possibility to script that but then you have to code the whole merge. 

Alternatively add a placeholder to your datasource wherever you need the graphic frame to be removed. Then do a grep search and remove all frames (this is pretty easy with a script though).