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replacing text with variable

Advisor ,
Feb 15, 2021 Feb 15, 2021

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scenario: many pages of plain text, arrived at by devious import from a format InDesign is not on speaking terms with … among other things the import has clobbered (perhaps 'flattened' is a more technical term) all the user variables from the original: we had one for product name and one for company name. I've got as far as working out how to define a new IDD variable, and can confidently insert them one by one.

question: how can I tell IDD to replace all occurrences of (say) Acme Widget with the variable $product?

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry if this is a basic question – the task has been dumped on me because I happen to have a CS licence.

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Community Expert , Feb 15, 2021 Feb 15, 2021

Hi @FieryPantone:

 

Funny seeing you over here! 😀

 

I would do the same thing in InDesign that I would do in FrameMaker—copy the variable to the clipboard and change by pasting.

 

Create the two variables that you need, and add them manually once. Then copy one variable to the clipboard use a Find/Change. The "by pasting" is tucked away in the InDesign interface—you have to know that is is there to use it. 

 

~Barb

 

grepnew.png

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Community Expert ,
Feb 15, 2021 Feb 15, 2021

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Which version of InDesign and OS?

Variables may mean a number of things in InDesign can you clarify?

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Advisor ,
Feb 16, 2021 Feb 16, 2021

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Thanks, Derek; I'll remember to provide more info next time. Just for completeness, it's IDD 15.1.3 on Windows 7.0 (corporate life-support in place) As for terminology, I was talking about text variables.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 15, 2021 Feb 15, 2021

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Hi @FieryPantone:

 

Funny seeing you over here! 😀

 

I would do the same thing in InDesign that I would do in FrameMaker—copy the variable to the clipboard and change by pasting.

 

Create the two variables that you need, and add them manually once. Then copy one variable to the clipboard use a Find/Change. The "by pasting" is tucked away in the InDesign interface—you have to know that is is there to use it. 

 

~Barb

 

grepnew.png

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Advisor ,
Feb 16, 2021 Feb 16, 2021

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Good morning, Barb! wow, a genuine All-Adobe Expert :-}

Thanks for the tip about where to find the IDD equivalent of  'change by pasting'. Problem solved, so now I can move on to the next one …

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