Data Merge and Text threading

[Trish]

I am working on a book for a private school. They want all the information about each child, such as name, address, phone, parents names...email address. My problem is that I got an excel file, used the data merge feature in Indesign CS4, however it placed each grouping (Each Person) in a text box by themselves. Is there an easy way to either link all of the text boxes together ( my problem is that some of the files have 6 lines and some have 8 lines ) So I need to get them all together and put a return in between each student.
Thanks in Advance.
Trish

[LoganBlade]

if each record is on a multiple line i am not sure how to fix. Each record should be on one line.
1 - kid name / parent name/ address one / email/ kid 2
2 - bill / Mary / 1 ball street / mar@b4print.com / jane

something like that.

[Trish]

It is fine in the excel doc, and Data Merge did great importing it. InDesign is my problem, I cannot find a simple way to import them into one text box. Every student is imported into their own text box. So to adjust, I have to click on one box at a time, I just can't globally select all and adjust leading or the font. If they were all the same amount of lines to each student, it would not be a problem...but some have 4 lines of copy and some have 8. Make sense?

[gnubler]

I'm not familiar with CS4 or Data Merge, but have you tried just importing the table (Excel file) into a text frame? Then you can edit the table within InDesign.

[LoganBlade]

Pod Cast on Itunes- The Indesigner episode 43.

I don't think you can do what you want so I would work on making a grid type layout.

Set up your first box with info from data merge. set it up as you want to make it appear. centered left margin all the text option then do the multiple page data merge. You can set more position in the second tab in this.
 

[Anu]

Try CS3 as it is very simple - Create a Text box - select the Variable and drag it into the box or just assign the cursor in the text box and double click on the variable . Have not tried CS4

[Randall]

The most productive way I've found to do this involves FileMaker Pro. First create your InDesign document and manually style one record with desired IDD style sheets for the formatting of the various elements in the record. Export this one record from IDD as Tagged Text, and save that file (you will come back to it later). Then Convert the Excel spreadsheet to an FMP database. Then write an FMP script that collects into a single new calculation field all the record fields in the order you want them (with each field in the script preceded by a text string equaling the names of your respective InDesign paragraph styles, within angle brackets, and followed by the code for a carriage return). Then sort the database. Then export the calculation field for the selected records to a text file and open it in TextEdit. Then go back to the file you exported earlier from IDD as tagged text, and study it. You will see that there's some header info preceding the record data. Copy this header info, and paste it at the top of the text file you exported from FileMaker, and save and close. Then import this modified file into IDD as a Tagged Text File. IDD will read the tags you created within the angle brackets and will automatically style each record as it comes in. The result will be a pre-formatted story that you can place and autoflow in your IDD document. You can lay out a 200-page directory in minutes this way, and if your data is clean in Excel/FileMaker, the info will be accurate and the formatting beautiful.

[beermonster]

can you not just create a style sheet (including fonts, colours, all that stuff) and apply to all text boxes?

[Tracy]

In data merge Can you use the content placement options?

[Tracy]

When you have a - field space field space field
and you have it set to remove blank fields how do you remove the uneeded space?
so if one of the fields isnt used you dont get an extra space.

[Joe]

When you have a - field space field space field
and you have it set to remove blank fields how do you remove the uneeded space?
so if one of the fields isnt used you dont get an extra space.

Maybe I'm not understanding but...if you have it set to remove blank fields and you have a field that isn't used (blank field) does it NOT remove it?

[Tracy]

it removes it but i still have the space so im getting a double space when it removes the field

[Joe]

Could you do a search and replace in the InDesign document to change a double space to a single space?

Check out GREP in the Find/Change dialog as shown in the attachment. It's a very powerful tool for doing some very specific search & replace options.

[Tracy]

 thats a good idea but they have a double space in certain areas
Im having the guy separate the excel files, I hope that works, this is not my area.
Ill let you know what happens.
Thanks Joe! your always here for me  :smiley:

[Joe]

I kind of figured that with the double spaces. I suppose it could be setup so a blank field converts to an underscore or something else not likely to be in the text and then search and replace that out.

Good luck Tracy, it isn't my area either. :laugh: