OK...VD (not the STD variety)

[pabney]

Grep styles are a lot like nested styles. I had to learn how to do them when I had a variable data letter and the customer wanted the address information in a certain font. Except they did not like the way the numbers looked. So all the numbers in the address had to be in a different font.

So, you set up as many character styles as you need. Change the font, size color, whatever. Then in your paragraph styles, you have a grep styles tab. You assign the needed character style based on the grep. So in this instance, assign the white character style to the tilde.

In this example the default paragraph style is wingdings. I then assigned the white char. style to the tilde and normal style to the grep \$.+ (which changes any dollar sign followed by any char. that fall at the end of the line) to use a readable font.

[DCurry]

GREP styles are pretty awesome. I use them with variable jobs with SmartStream Designer. Had one HUGE variable job making pricing signs for a store and GREP styles were used to superscript the dollar signs and cents, as well as make the decimal point in the price "disappear" by changing it to 1pt.  white type.

[Tracy]

I must learn this!! :laugh:

[David]

GREP is great, but the expressions are tough to remember for me.

[Joe]

GREP is great, but the expressions are tough to remember for me.

Especially as we get older. I can't even remember......well now I already forgot what I can't remember!

[pspdfppdfxhd]

You've probably forotten more than I know.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Grep styles are a lot like nested styles. I had to learn how to do them when I had a variable data letter and the customer wanted the address information in a certain font. Except they did not like the way the numbers looked. So all the numbers in the address had to be in a different font.

So, you set up as many character styles as you need. Change the font, size color, whatever. Then in your paragraph styles, you have a grep styles tab. You assign the needed character style based on the grep. So in this instance, assign the white character style to the tilde.

In this example the default paragraph style is wingdings. I then assigned the white char. style to the tilde and normal style to the grep \$.+ (which changes any dollar sign followed by any char. that fall at the end of the line) to use a readable font.

GREP expressions eh? I'll have to learn me some of that or ATTEMPT to.
 

[pspdfppdfxhd]

But is GREP changing all the data on the fly as you export the variable pdf data? This is the concept I am having a hard time getting my mind around.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Grep styles are a lot like nested styles. I had to learn how to do them when I had a variable data letter and the customer wanted the address information in a certain font. Except they did not like the way the numbers looked. So all the numbers in the address had to be in a different font.

So, you set up as many character styles as you need. Change the font, size color, whatever. Then in your paragraph styles, you have a grep styles tab. You assign the needed character style based on the grep. So in this instance, assign the white character style to the tilde.

In this example the default paragraph style is wingdings. I then assigned the white char. style to the tilde and normal style to the grep \$.+ (which changes any dollar sign followed by any char. that fall at the end of the line) to use a readable font.

GREP expressions eh? I'll have to learn me some of that or ATTEMPT to.
 

And in a past life (it seems) I was just a darkroom monkey. Now I am going to learn GREP.

Life is strange.

[pabney]

Sort of. Indesign merge builds the page using the variable data, applies any styling (including grep styles), text wrapping, etc. before the export.
But, this does not work like grep find and replace. You can not actually change the data, you can only format it. So you can not replace the ~ character with a space, but you can change its color, size, kerning, or anything else that can be done with Character Styles.

[Joe]

OK people...wake up! I have a variable data job to do. Print 447 addresses on preprinted Avery 5163 labels. 10 labels to a sheet. Can InDesign do variable data 10 up to a sheet? I have a .xlsx document for the addresses.

[David]

yes...

[Joe]

OK it is actually 446 addresses and doing like your image I either get a result of 446 pages with the same address on each page 10 times (if I create 10 separate text boxes before the data merge) or I get 446 pages with one address on each page (if I only have one text box on the page before data merge). What I need to end up with is 46 pages with 10 different addresses on each page.

[David]

set the page with one box that you link your data to and let the merger put them on the page like my example. In my screen capture you notice the numbers in the background, that is a 10,000 record excel file that I merged with just one text box on the page.

[David]

like this