Pagination, Price Update, and Update Enterprise

Table of Contents

1. What is Pagination?
2. What types of documents is Pagination used for?
3. How does Pagination work?
4. Price Update (Handmade Tagging)
5. Price Update Auto-detect
6. Update Enterprise

What is Pagination?

Pagination is the Turnkey Cloud Database Publishing Service for Adobe InDesign running 24/7. It allows you to automatically create documents in InDesign and PDF format that are populated with the information present on data files such as Excel, CSV, TXT, XML. The Customer sends their project files (InDesign, data files, and images) to the Pagination team and within 10-15 days, they can create their own documents by simply uploading their data file to Pagination. But how does it work?

To create an automatic pagination system, Pagination needs some files:

• The document template.
  It is usually designed by the Customer in InDesign format and sent to the Pagination team which is responsible for linking it to the data file.
• The data file. We usually talk about an export from management software (ERP), from e-commerce, or from other applications for product management (PIM, DAM). It must contain all the information that the Customer wants to insert into the document.
• Image files.
  The images can be uploaded to the Pagination Cloud or, if the URL link is present in the data file, they can be downloaded automatically from the Customer’s site.

Once the project setup is completed (10-15 working days), the Customer will be able to layout his documents as many times as he wants, when he wants and in total autonomy.

What types of documents is Pagination used for?

Pagination is useful for all those types of documents that have a high number of pages or that are created frequently and/or in different versions. We are talking about catalogs, price lists, technical datasheets, ad lists, etc.

How does Pagination work?

Pagination always recreates the document from the beginning, thus recreating the TOC and product pages each time on the basis of the item codes present in the data file. This means that whenever the product assortment changes or prices or other information are changed, Pagination can be used to quickly create the new document (we are talking about a fast average of 40 pages per minute).

This just described is Pagination’s “core” service which is really functional, fast, and innovative. If we really want to find a flaw, the service does not allow the customer to independently modify their InDesign template. What’s it like?

The reason is that the changes that can be made are many and very different from each other, from the addition of new fields in the data file to the change of product grouping rules up to a change of the layout (modification of the existing layout or addition of new layouts).

Since Pagination is a turnkey service, the customer must send the new InDesign template (containing the new changes) to the Pagination team and Pagination, after understanding the nature of these changes, will see whether to carry out the update for free or will send a new quote to the customer. At this point, Pagination will update and within a few days, the Customer will be able to use the service again with the updated template.

Pagination has also developed several other services that allow, however, in the face of a greater workload for the user, to change their InDesign template as many times as you want, without the risk of incurring an increase in the subscription fee. These services were created specifically for the creation and updating of particular types of documents such as menus and multilingual brochures or for the automatic updating of certain fields, such as the price. Let’s see them together in more detail.

Price Update (Handmade Tagging)

The first service I want to tell you about is the Price Update. You will have understood from the name that it is a service dedicated to updating prices. It is a useful service for all those documents, not very large in terms of pages or number of articles, which need to be created very often and which are often very different from each other from the graphic point of view.

Let’s take restaurant chain menus for example. These documents have precisely the characteristics just mentioned: they often change the layout and prices can be different for each point of sale.

How does it work?

1 – The Customer must tag their InDesign template or insert, instead of the product price, the item code in square brackets Eg [2987];
2 – The Customer uploads the InDesign file to Pagination;
3 – The Customer uploads the data file;
4 – Pagination automatically creates documents (in InDesign and PDF format) with the prices of the items for which it finds the code in the data file.

Price Update Auto-detect

The Price Update Auto-detect is very similar to the Price Update but was created to make updating prices even faster, where possible. In fact, it allows the updating of the price fields without the need to manually tag the InDesign document. However, not all documents allow you to use this service. In fact, it depends on the layout of the InDesign file, that is, on how the template has been graphically designed. Specifically, the Price Update Autodetect can only be used if there is a rule in the InDesign template to associate the data file with the graphic element. This rule must also remain unchanged throughout the document.
An example rule could be that all prices have the same paragraph style or that there are tables that show the item code in the same row. In this service, the InDesign file must always be named after the data file.

How does it work?

1 – The Customer creates an InDesign file;
2 – The Customer uploads it to Pagination;
3 – The Customer uploads the data file;
4 – Pagination automatically creates documents (in InDesign and PDF format) with the prices of the items for which it finds the code in the data file.

Update Enterprise

Update Enterprise is the name given to a group of services that allow you to automatically layout a document in different languages. It is also used in all those cases in which the main Pagination service cannot be used, or for those documents that do not have layouts that are repeated often. The customer can design the document as he wishes without any graphic constraint and change the layout at will.

The services that make up the Update Enterprise are:

• InDesign Tag Generator;
• Excel Generator;
• InDesign Update;
• Version Generator.

Let’s see how it works with this example. The customer has to create a brochure in different languages: English, German, French, and Spanish.

How does it work?

1 – The Customer creates an InDesign file in his native language, for example in Italian;
2 – The Customer uploads the InDesign file to Pagination;
3 – Pagination automatically creates a special Excel file (Excel Generator) and an InDesign tag file (InDesign Tag Generator);
4 – In the newly generated Excel file, the Customer adds the columns for the various languages ​​(EN, DE, FR, ES) and fills the cells with the translations;
5 – The Customer reloads the Excel on Pagination;
6 – Pagination automatically creates an InDesign file that contains, for each paragraph, the longest text among the various translations present in the data file (InDesign Update);
7 – At this point, the Customer can edit the InDesign file if there is overset text;
8 – Once the InDesign is ready, the Customer will upload it to Pagination;
9 – The Customer reloads the data file with the translations;
10 – Pagination automatically generates the different versions per language (Version Generator)

The Update Enterprise may be similar, for some, to the XML Import and Data Merge features already present in InDesign. In reality, there are substantial differences. Let’s see them together:

• You don’t have to tag the InDesign file. The tagging is done automatically by Pagination;
• You do not have to create a particular CSV file that is requested by the Data Merge function (here you can find our page on InDesign Data Merge);
• Using the XML Import feature, the XML file can be exported directly from InDesign;
• You can send the translators an Excel file that is very easy to fill out.