InDesign Data Merge Tutorial

Let’s start by preparing the data source. You need to prepare a spreadsheet (CSV or TXT) following the exact specifications of Data Merge for InDesign. Click here if you want to use a simple spreadsheet (Excel, CSV, XML or export from your business application).

Open a blank spreadsheet and use the first row to define your fields. Be sure to write the field names correctly. Add a field for every column and never duplicate a field name.

Image fields should be defined with the @ symbol prefix (e.g. @Image). The @ symbol is a special character in Excel, so add an apostrophe before it if you’re presented with an error (e.g. ‘@Image). The apostrophe will force the cell’s entire content to be considered as text.

When all of the fields have been defined, the next step is to populate the table with your records. Take care to make all image paths match your file system, for example.

On a Windows system – C:\Users\UserName\My Documents\Image.psd
On a Mac system – Macintosh HD:Users:UserName:MyDocuments:Image.psd

The populated table should next be exported as either a comma-delimited file (.csv) or a tab-delimited file (.txt). The Data Merge function won’t work with .xls/.xlsx or alternatives! Perform the export in Excel by using File > Save As.

By exporting the data source as a .csv file, you’ll have to choose the encoding. If you’re using Libre Office, we suggest choosing Unicode UTF-16 encoding to display special characters correctly.

Now close your spreadsheet and open InDesign.

1.1 Converting .xls into .csv/.txt

Conversion of .xls/.csv or .txt files can be quite complex. An Excel add-in can help you in this task.

Now it’s time to set up the Data Merge InDesign panel. Open your InDesign document and the Data Merge panel via Window > Utilities > Data Merge > Select Data Source. In the new window, choose your .csv or .txt file and click Open.

Optional: You can change the data source import options. To do this, check the “Show Import Options” box (shown below).

Now, click “OK” and take a look at the new dialog box that appears:

The window already shows the right settings based on your data source properties. Remember, you can change these options in this box to match your situation:

• Delimiter – Choose “Comma” if you saved your data source as a .csv file. Choose “Tab” if you saved your data source as a .txt file.
• Encoding – Choose whether the file uses “ASCII” or “Unicode” encoding. Pay attention to the choice of the encoding. If you open a file that uses ASCII encoding with Unicode, the Data Merge panel won’t be populated with any fields. If you open a file that uses Unicode encoding with ASCII, the file will be imported, but some of its characters may not appear correctly.
• Platform – Choose “PC” if you’re working on a PC. Choose “Mac” if you’re working on a Mac.
• Preserve Spaces in Data Source – Check this box if you want to keep all extra spaces within your fields.

Click on “OK” once you’re finished. The Data Merge panel will now fill with all of the fields from your source file:

InDesign has identified two field types in our catalog example: text () and image ().

Now it’s time to map each field within your desired layout. Each of your data source records will follow this mapping during the subsequent automatic pagination process.

Text fields are inserted by creating a Text Frame, selecting that frame and then clicking on the selected text field in the Data Merge panel.

Image fields are inserted by creating a box with the Rectangle Frame tool (R), selecting that box and then clicking on the selected image field in the Data Merge panel.

You can also insert the fields in the layout by choosing the field in the Data Merge Panel and dragging it into the chosen frame.

Fields that are successfully mapped will appear surrounded by << and >> symbols. Numbers will also appear next to each field in the Data Merge panel. These numbers reference the page number on which each field is mapped.

If you want to insert a field in a text of your layout, you just have to place the cursor inside the text in the desired position and insert the field using one of the above methods. The field will be inserted where the cursor is positioned.
If you don’t place the cursor, the field will be queued with the rest of the contents of the box.

Continue to add all of your fields and customize the layout to meet your needs. Our example catalog uses a simple style: a large image at the top, a text frame with the price, and then a list of all of the other fields.

> We used only one product template because with Data Merge InDesign is possible to automate only one product layout. If you want instead to use multiple product templates, discover how to do it using Pagination cloud database publishing service. Click here to know more.

Finally, we’ll create the merged document. Begin the final step by clicking on ‘Create Merged Document’ within the Data Merge panel. All three tabs in this dialog box – Records, Multiple Record Layout and Options – require our attention.

Records: This is where we choose whether to have one record or multiple records on each page.

For our example catalog we’ll opt to merge ‘All Records’ and have ‘Multiple Records’ per document page.

We’ll also choose to generate an overset text report and set up an alert for missing images. These options can help us to identify issues that may occur during the document creation process.

Multiple Record Layout: This is where we establish how the records will be laid out during the merging process.

The Data Merge tool works in accordance with page margins. This means that a record that’s too big to fit within a page’s margins will be automatically placed on the next page.

Records can be paginated using one of two directions: ‘Rows First’ or ‘Columns First’. Rows First merges records left to right and then top to bottom, while Columns First merges records top to bottom and then left to right. The following image shows Rows First on the left and Columns First on the right:

The distance between each record is defined by the two spacing options: ‘Between Columns’ and ‘Between Rows’. Setting both options to 0 will cause the records to appear attached in the final result.

For our example catalog we’ll choose a ‘Rows First’ arrangement and 1mm of space between both the columns and rows.

Options: This is where we configure a few remaining choices.

There are five options for placing images during the merge:

• Fit Images Proportionally – Fit the image inside the Rectangle Frame tool box and maintain its proportions.
• Fit Images to Frames – Fit the image width and height to the Rectangle Frame tool box width and height; proportions will not be kept.
• Fit Frames to Images – Import the image with its original size and fit the frame to this size.
• Preserve Frame and Image Sizes – Import the image with its original size but do not fit the frame to this size.
• Fill Frame Proportionally – Increase image size proportionally until it has filled the entire frame.

Each option is shown in the following image:

Select ‘Fit Images Proportionately’ for our catalog. Also, select ‘Center in Frame’ and ‘Link Images’.

Now click on ‘OK’. A new document will be created and all of the records will have been merged! If the document you want to automate is more complex, for example you need to group different SKUs under the same parent product or you want to break the categories/chapters automatically, discover Pagination, the turnkey cloud database publishing solution.

Data Merge Limitation
A product layout is the element that you are going to repeat inside the page. With standard Data Merge InDesign, it’s not possible using multiple layouts for your products, mixed in the same document. You can only use one type of product style per page.

Pagination Solution
With Pagination, you can assign different layouts to different kinds of products. Click here to download the project files (InDesign + PDF + Excel) of the document you see in the image below.

Data Merge Limitation
You cannot merge multiple data rows inside the same product layout. Your document is merged with one design for each record. This is a major obstacle, as most documents group together products with minor differences. This is a very common occurrence in many documents.

Pagination Solution
With Pagination, it is easy to group together similar products and describe shared features, like name, description, and image, in the upper part of the product style, and to explain the differences in easy-to-read tables.

Data Merge Limitation
InDesign Data Merge cannot automatically create a print-ready document, adding static or dynamic pages in the same workflow. You have to manually close and export the document.

Pagination Solution
With Pagination, you can create in one command finished, ready-to-print documents, which include:

• Cover pages
• Tables of contents/indexes
• Introduction pages
• Section separators
• ADV images
• Any other static pages in the selected position

Data Merge Limitation
With Data Merge InDesign, you cannot choose to change text formatting of selected parts of a field. You can merely change the entire field formatting, and this is often prone to something called “style contagion,” where adjacent paragraphs or text styles override each other.

Pagination Solution
Using HTML tags in your data to emphasize a single word or phrase.

Data Merge Limitation
Data Merge cannot create or edit header, footer, or thumb indexes.

Pagination Solution
With Pagination, you can easily assign a part of your data (such as groups or notes) to show on page headers or footers.

Ex.1 – Header and footer update

Ex.2 – Chapter color

Ex.3 – Thumb Index

Data Merge Limitation
With Data Merge InDesign, it is difficult to break a document’s elements when needed.

Pagination Solution
With Pagination, you can assign specific rules to insert breaks when your data changes: breaks, page breaks, and document breaks.

Data Merge Limitation
When you create a document using Data Merge, you cannot export linked graphics with a package command.

Pagination Solution
Documents created with Pagination are easy to share and use for collaboration. Linked graphics are located in a folder inside the package file, or you can choose to export to an IDML format.

Data Merge Limitation
InDesign Data Merge process times rapidly grow when you manage large datasets instead of small datasets.

Pagination Solution
Pagination’s process times proportionately grow independently of the data amount, and you can split the creation of large documents in multiple parallel instances.

Data Merge Limitation
Only .csv and .txt files can be imported.

Pagination Solution
Pagination supports several data source formats (in addition to .csv and .txt), such as:

• Excel
• XML
• SQL
• ODBC Drivers Connection
• And a number of business applications (SAP, AS400, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.)