InDesign Data Merge
January 24, 2010 ±
Perhaps you don’t know, perhaps you have always just used Microsoft Word for it – but you no longer have an excuse. Adobe InDesign does data merge (or ‘mail merge’ for all you Word users out there) and it seemed like a task and half to find a decent, straightforward, no-bull tutorial on the web for how to just use it – so here’s a basic step-by-step.
Layout your design
It’s pretty easy – just design your item (let’s say a name tag) like you would any other design. Put in some dummy text for now, no problems.
Create your data
You’ll need the information you’re going to use in a tab separated .txt file – you can do this by exporting it from Excel or Numbers. Put in column headings – InDesign needs them. Something tricky to note here, InDesign can Data Merge image files if you like – but their column heading needs to start with an @ symbol, and their content needs to be a relative path to the image file you’re going to merge. eg- “/images/variable-named-image-.jpg”.
Hook up your data
Pick your data file through the Automation -> Data Merge Panel -> Select Data Source link in InDesign. Then the panel will list out the values you can data merge – just drag these out into the appropriate text/image boxes in your file. And that’s it – you can preview values using the preview function on the Data Merge Panel, or just hit the Create Merged Document link and you’re done. Now that wasn’t so hard – and didn’t need a 10 page tutorial + video to explain.
Spelling Errors
December 14, 2009 ±
In the future, I predict we’ll end up with the majority of the population fitting into one of two categories:
1. People who can’t spell, but take the time to spell check and correct errors.
2. People who can’t spell and don’t care.
» Top and Tail
Functioning Form entry in regards to designing the big picture, and the small picture – not just one or the other. This is a great way of figure out UI design problems – start with what we’re trying to fix, sweat out some details and then worry about the rest later.
» Firefox 3.5 – Fan-bloody-tastic
Finally some more support for box-shadow and some HTML5 is coming along for the ride. Always love a new browser that doesn’t suck.
Free WiFi in Cafés… please.
June 21, 2009 ±
Really? I thought I was good – we had a deal, I came to your café, bought my coffee and even splashed out by getting something to eat too. So why oh why then dear café owner do you think I want to pay to use the internet too? I’m pretty sure you’re connected here anyway — you’ve got that old computer back there that you use to tweet while you’re waiting for customers. Just let me use your internet, seriously.
Archive this!
June 5, 2009 ±
Pro tip for all you web designers bloggers out there. If you’re going to start a blog, don’t show an Archives button until you know you’re going to have enough content to fill it. I’m not saying don’t allow for it in your design – but don’t think yourself so fantastic at blogging that you’ll have that homepage filled in a week. The only way your site could look more stale would be to put a Last updated message in the footer and an Under Construction sign in the Contact Us page.