Industry: Industrial Weighing & Measurement | Company Size: 10,001+ employees | Headquarters: Switzerland
Challenge: Technical catalog with dense tables, market-specific pricing, and shared accessories | Solution: Pagination Cloud for automated catalog generation
When Technical Catalogs Become Too Complex to Manage
In industrial weighing and measurement, catalogs must be precise and readable. But as product tables grow and regional editions multiply, manual InDesign production becomes a cycle of fixes and rework.
A long-standing Pagination customer set a clear objective: automate technical catalog production and make it truly repeatable across annual updates and multiple markets. The requirement was straightforward:
- Structured data in
- Layout rules applied
- Editable InDesign files out (plus final PDFs)
All while the editorial team kept full control for review and fine-tuning.
Why Manual Workflows Break Down in Technical Publishing
In catalogs like these, the pain points are predictable and they come back at every update cycle:
- Dense technical tables with variable content: standard InDesign data merge cannot guarantee consistent results when column counts and content lengths change from product to product.
- Locale-specific separators: different markets require different decimal and thousand separators: “1.780” vs. “1,780”. Wrong separators in the load file produce broken output or silent errors. Pagination handles this through regional separator configuration, so the same data renders correctly for each edition.
- Shared accessories: the same components appear across product lines and must stay consistent in name, type, and price across editions, markets, and years.
- Regional editions rules: different markets need different column ordering in tables (a UK catalog may order columns differently than a French one), the option to show or hide prices entirely, and customized front covers by year and market.
- Product images and waterfall sets: images must be fetched via URL and placed automatically, including waterfall images for specific product families, without gaps or quality loss.
Each update required manual intervention. Consistency depended on human checks and scalability was limited to what the team could verify page by page.
The Approach: Industrial Catalog Automation, Built to Repeat
The objective was not “partial automation”, it was fully repeatable production.
| Core component | Function |
|---|---|
| Adaptive column width optimization | Scripted space calculation for readable, balanced tables |
| Tabular data normalization | Parsing compound fields and generating columns only where needed |
| Relational accessory lookup | Consistent reuse of accessory names, types, and pricing across product lines and editions |
| Images via URL | Automatic download, import, and placement in the layout, including images alongside tables |
| Regional layout controls | Market-specific column ordering, separator formatting, and price visibility rules |
| Dynamic cover generation | Automatic cover creation for each target year and market |
From Product Data to Print-Ready Industrial Catalogs
Product information originates from the company’s PIM environment, initially bases on Hybris and SAP Customer Experience (CX), including SAP Product Content Management (PCM), and later transitioned to SAP Product Content HUB. The PIM system is managed by a dedicated team that includes a PIM Architect and a Global PIM Manager. Pagination connects to this data through structured Excel load files, keeping catalog generation aligned with the single source of truth.
This separation of responsibilities was intentional: the data team owns the load file structure and quality, while the design team owns the InDesign templates and layout rules. The workflow stays clean: no one needs to “fix” content manually inside InDesign just to make production work.
From there, every edition follows the same structured release process:
- Data integration and quality checks: validations and normalizations applied to incoming data;
- Hierarchy and relationship mapping: parent/child structures, product variant sorting, options, and shared accessories are mapped through stable identifiers in the load file;
- Table generation: layout rules applied with column width optimization and regional column ordering where needed;
- Asset download and placement: product images are stored within the company’s SAP Java Server VM environment, then fetched via URL and automatically integrated, including waterfall image sets for specific material numbers;
- Final output: editable InDesign file and PDF, ready for review and distribution;
The team can now generate new regional editions (e.g., EUR, UK Industrial, French) on demand by changing the input load file configuration, without rebuilding layouts from scratch.
A Partnership That Keeps Evolving
The collaboration has been active for over four years, from the initial deployment through continuous expansion:
- Annual multi-market production: new catalog editions across regional markets, each with its own formatting, column ordering, and price display rules.
- Growing feature set: From core catalog generation to shared accessories consistency, waterfall image handling, table and column controls, separator configuration, price visibility toggling, and multi-variant cover management.
- Stable team integration: stakeholders across PIM architecture, technical solutions, and program management, with Pagination portal access maintained as personnel evolve.
- Dedicated environment on AWS: a dedicated cloud environment with controlled access and individual user accounts, updated as team members change roles.
- Contract renewal: the company extended its agreement beyond the initial term, confirming sustained value from the automation.
Could This Work for Your Technical Catalog?
If you manage documents with dense tables, product configurations, and country variants, Pagination can quickly assess feasibility starting from:
- Your InDesign document;
- Data files;
- A reference PDF.
