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InDesign Product Catalog Flow

New Here ,
Dec 29, 2020 Dec 29, 2020

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Each year I revise a 500+ page catalog in InDesign. Each product includes text (on 2 different layers) and an image per product. Each product is separated by a horizontal rule. Is there a way to group all of these components together per product (possibly in a container of some sort) and have them automatically flow from column to column and page to page?

 

In the image - one product is surrounded by a green box. The yellow arrows represent the flow functionality I am looking for. Is there any way to automate this? Even with a plugin?


I will remove products throughout the year which results in blank spaces/gaps. If when I remove a product it would automatically reflow, it would shorten my process significantly. I also add products in throughout the year which means I have to automatically move each product to make room.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 29, 2020 Dec 29, 2020

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Technically, this could be done.

 

But tragically, not with your catalog constructed as it is today.

 

Your current catalog is constructed from 500 pages of discrete, unrelated elements. The discrete elements are differently sized, and further complicated by being on different layers. If you want to be able to edit and revise it as one, flowing unit ... you're going to first have to reconstruct it as one flowing unit.

 

There are a couple of ways to do that: manually, by styling text and tables placed into one massive text thread running through your entire, 500+ page catalog, then placing the graphics inline with the text so the product blocks and images move together. Or even better — for a number of reasons besides this purpose, by creating a number of smaller, discrete InDesign documents and linking them together using InDesign book functions. The last link is especially important, as working with one 500+ page InDesign document is fraught with peril.

 

The other is to reconstruct it with an advanced automation utility purposed to automate catalog production with InDesign. Easy Catalog, InStudio and and InCatalog are three widely-regarded plug-ins for automating catalog production with InDesign. The price points for these solutions aren't cheap, but you can judge whether they are inexpensive to you compared to your current InDesign workflow.

 

I have no doubt that creating and revising your current catalog is a Royal Pain of a job. There are a number of things you need to consider and account for before this massive project bites you. Badly. This last link is Google search results for preparing, producing and revising a catalog with InDesign. Not to be negative, but from what you've described your current InDesign catalog appears to be a time bomb waiting to go off. As it stands now, if it does go off the carnage will be incredible. And it could happen at any time.

 

Climbing off my soapbox, there's a lot to discuss about your options here. You can always contact anyone in these forums by sending a private message. I'll concede that I do this for a living, but like most professionals here I wouldn't charge anything to go over this with you in detail and help you consider your options. But you need to do that with someone who specializes at this. And quickly. Because you're on the verge of a World of Hurt.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Randy

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New Here ,
Dec 29, 2020 Dec 29, 2020

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Hi Randy,

The 500 pages is in fact broken down into multiple InDesign files. I have worked with EasyCatalog in the past. I do hope to implement this in the future as the tool is invaluable; however, that does not provide a solution to my question regarding flowing products one after another. I inherited this robust and poorly constructed catalog a few years ago and continue to clean it up, making it better formatted and more organized (which included assigning paragraph and character styles for each of the 9,000 products.) So not to worry, I am not afraid to put in the hours needed to continue to improve it. With all of that said and providing a better insight to the whole project, maybe we can now all take a big sigh of relief and just disregard the Google link to create a catalog in InDesign.

 

There is a method to the madness with having the prices on a different layer. We print 2 versions: 1 with pricing and 1 without.  In the past, we've just turned the layer off prior to exporting it. Now that I am thinking about it - if they were in fact on the same layer, in the same text box, I could turn the color to 'paper'/white and it would have the same effect as turning off the layer. Unless someone sees a possible issue with that solution...

 

Anyways, back to my initial inquiry about automatic flow. It sounds like the only option currently offered would be to anchor the images with a large continual textbox (per InDesign file). I did see this as an option in my initial research, and I'll have to test this method to see if it would be a feasible solution. Initially I think it would be best to keep each product a separate block. All of the product information is in one text box per product, therefore, the separate elements are text, image, price text horizontal rule which you may be able to better see in the image below.

 

 product.png

 

If any other solutions come to mind, please let me know. Thank you,

Trish

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Community Expert ,
Dec 29, 2020 Dec 29, 2020

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Cool. I'm glad you have things in hand. You'd be amazed at how many folks come around here in really dire straits.

 

With all the preparations and determination you've offered, this shouldn't be a big deal for you at all. If you're willing to put the effort into redoing it once, this should be easy for you to accomplish.

 

Setting it up yourself, you can do a lot of the stuff that EasyCatalog can accomplish easily by hand. And since you've already got it broken down into your book setup, all you'd need to do is set up a two-column template. And if you don't have a page numbering/folio setup like your example, it'll be even easier. Just start with the smallest document for your testing/formatting, then apply the lessons learned to the rest, document by document.

 

I'm going to go on the assumption that each product description/price table is its own discrete block of text you place in your InDesign documents. If there's word processing copy for the product descriptions already, this'll be much easier. Easier still if the line with the product number and the price is included in the same position  If there's not — or over time they've been lost, you'll have to copy/paste from the old document into a new word processing file. Place a single return and a tab after each listing, which will later be replaced by your separating horizontal rule. Either way, you're going to have to copy the individual product descriptions and paste them into one long line of product descriptions for each document.

 

When you produce the entire catalog, it'll help a lot if the database folks can generate these single long word processing files to generate each document for you. Life will be much easier, and you can automate a lot of what you'd otherwise have to do manually through the document-long text files. But for experiments, it's easier to assemble this yourself. Get your Paragraph Styles down cold — big bonus points if you're formatting the product number/pricing line using Nested Styles. If not, check out this link and it'll automate this part of the job for you forevermore. Create a duplicate paragraph style for that line using a color of [None] for the version where that disappears.

 

Now you need to create a custom style for the separating rules. Pay close attention to your preferred spacing before/after the rules because it'll not only be important for alignment between items, when you set it as a paragraph style it lets you precisely control the line's Keep Options to set how columns and pages break to your specifications.

 

If you're willing to simplify the product unit layout — no irregular text wraps, standardized and specified layouts for your inline graphics — it'll make things a lot easier. For every custom thing you do, you're going to have to do that manually. Every automated thing, after you work out the design and specifications, will either happen by itself or require less individual attention when you have to manually modify the file.

 

There are lots of things you can do with inline graphics when you produce a catalog or directory. The link I provided earlier is a good one, but far from the only one. Don't be afraid to learn about automating and fine-tuning inline graphics from sources other than Adobe, because unfortunately Adobe documentation is really weak in that area. If you can work with your database folks to produce copy with <data tags> you can make a lot of this happen automatically when you place the text files. If you're in an environment where you have to re-create the catalog regularly, working with your database folks can make producing this automatically a snap. Essentially, that's what plug-ins like EasyCatalog do anyway, and you can produce it in-house. If you're going to be cutting/adding individual products yourself, it can still be much easier to build it from one document-long thread of text than to assemble it by product by product. The same rules you create to produce the first run will make it just as easy to align/delete/insert individual products when you modify it.

 

Your commitment to recreate the catalog to take full advantage makes this possible. The first time may likely take just as long, or sometimes even a little longer, but reproducing it will be so much quicker and easier that you'll quickly save the company time and money and yourself a bunch of aggravation.

 

Good luck,

 

Randy

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