Streamline Printing Process

[tobyb71827903]

Hi evertyone 

I am looking for guidance of a issue I am trying to improve

Everyday I run receipts, there are 30 odd 1 page receipts that are set up in individual word documents, on a normal day we are required to print anywhere between 100 and 3000 receipts. Currently we need to open up every receipt individually to print them through mail merge each connecting to a seperate .csv file. I want to improve this process.

Is there a way to set up an InDesign document where I can include all 30 receipts in one document, (maybe using msater pages), and then using mail merge connecting to one .csv file which contains a field that defines which recept that person should get

e.g. the file would have

Field 1                   Field 2                Field 3

Name                    Address              Receipt

Ms Sample           1 Sample St        Xmas20

Mr Sample            2 Sample St       Tax20

Therefore record one would receive receipt Xmas20 etc etc and I could print all in one go

Appreciate any help on this, if you would like more infromaiton please let me know

Have a great day

[tacoeater]

Hello tobyb71827903,

Currently we need to open up every receipt individually to print them through mail merge each connecting to a seperate .csv file.

Can you expand on this a little more?

So you open each word document? and what copy and paste into a csv? or is the csv what is generated?  if this is the case is the csv 1 per receipt?

[tobyb71827903]

Hi

Yes, of course, when we come to receipting we run an export from our database. So at the end of our day when the work is finished we export receipts which generates 30 separate .csv files, one relating to each receipt. These .csv files only include those people who require that receipt. So if on that day only one person’s requires receipt Xmas20 that .csv file will only contain that one record. This also prints a count of how many people should get each receipt for cross checking purposes. We then have to open up each word document one at a time, go through the regular steps that words prompts you for, before printing the documents.

Understandably this takes a fair amount of time with 30 different documents and word is prone to loosing connections.

Every month or two we have a new receipt so what is now 30 receipts will be say 40 by the end of the year and so on. We have the same issue across half a dozen projects so you can imagine the time that is spent each day printing the files.

In a perfect solution I would like to be able to just export one .csv file containing all records and using a flag print the appropriate receipt, that is contained in one document/file

Hope this clears things up

[tacoeater]

So just to clear this up. You can't export one csv? but infact have to export them all individually? Which is why this current process is so painful?

So if could could combine the CSVs in an automated process this would save you a lot of time? Or if indesign could combine all the CSVs in one document that would also save you a lot of time?

[tobyb71827903]

We certainly can export 1 .csv, thats easy. We only export them individually at the moment as the receipts are all seperate files

The part that takes the time is having seperate word documents, this is the aspect I want to improve and I thought InDesign may have that ability to have all receipts in one file

[tacoeater]

Oh i think i get it now.

You want to have based on your mock fields up top a different receipt output base on that field

ie

Field 1Field 2 Field 3

Name Address Receipt

Ms Sample 1 Sample St Xmas20

Mr Sample 2 Sample St Tax20

[tobyb71827903]

Yes, thats it

[tacoeater]

This is doable with a script. Doing a quick search I can't find any that does this out of the box and coding one from scratch would take a bit of time.

What I do reocmmend is having a look at https://meadowsps.com/designmerge-pro/ Ive recommended this to a client before any they were pretty happy with the results. Send them a quick email and ask for a trial or a demo if you are interested.

If you're not instrested in this then I would recommend staring a new post asking for help or scripts that can use master pages or have modified content based on differnt content in fields. Someone will have spent the time creating something that they might share.

[tobyb71827903]

Thanks for taking the time to respond

I might take your advise re scripts

I feel like this should be achievable without too much difficulty, so with stick with finding a solution first

[Jens Trost]

Hi @tobyb71827903 
I'm not sure I understand your problem correctly... what exactly isn't working for you with the InDesign data merge function?

At the end of the day create a merged document, where you can place multiple instances on one page (see "Merge records" in the user guide).

 

[tobyb71827903]

Hi Jens Trost

The InDesign merge is working, I have an understanding of how this works. However, I want to see if the merge can do more advanced work

To be honest I am not sure how to clarify the issue more than I have already

As you can see in the image below I have two master templates set up, I then want to connect to the data via data merge and using Column C below, I want to print the documents where if receipt = 'Xmas20' use master 'Xmas-master' and if receipt = "Tax20" use master 'Tax-master' as the content 

[brianp311]

Hide the document master information on a hidden layer on the page, with a text frame called "master-info". I assume these are all single-page entries for the merge.

After executing the merge, the general idea for a script is: 

var pages = app.documents[0].pages;

for (var i = 0; i < pages.length; i++) {

    pages[i].appliedMaster = app.documents[0].masterSpreads.itemByName(pages[i].textFrames.itemByName("master-info").contents);

}

[tobyb71827903]

Hi brianp311

Thanks for taking the time to respond

Yes they are all single page entries, I will look into what you have suggested, to add something like 

If <<Receipt>> is "Xmas20" then Xmas (refering to ethe hidden layer)

thanks 

[tacoeater]

pages[i].appliedMaster = app.documents[0].masterSpreads.itemByName(pages[i].textFrames.itemByName("master-info").contents);

@tobyb71827903If you look at the code provide want you are wanting is sort of technically done.

pages[i].textFrames.itemByName("master-info").contents

Having a text box named (this can be done through layers) master-info and putting in that field <<Receipt>>. Then having the masterpages the same name as the Receipt fields should swap.

[tobyb71827903]

Thanks

As you can tell I am a novice in this area. I will read up over the weekend to understand this more, and get it working, thanks

[tacoeater]

Its ok, I had to look at it a few times to work out what he had coded. It's actually quite a good approach.

[brianp311]

If the master page is named something differently than what is in the cell, you can do an if check:

if (...contents == "Xmas20") { 

    ... appliedMaster = ...("B-Xmas-Master");

}

Sorry, on mobile.