Formatting a Town Street Directory and Resident Listing

[jd31686]

Hi All,

Hoping that some experts can help me out! I work at a small copy and print shop and we have been instructed to create and format a town street directory and resident listing from scratch. I have an excel spreadsheet document and zero templates. How the hell do I format something like this? I just can't see myself keystroking 11,000 lines of type. Is there some kind of excel converter program to make this ready for print?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You!
- JD

 

[airyk]

XMPie would help with this but I'm sure you don't want to buy it for the one job. I'm sure some others might know of some free or cheaper software.

 

[airyk]

See this thread as there might be some info there http://printplanet.com/forums/vdp-hardware-software-systems/22901-good-addressing-sorting-program

 

[TerryWyse]

InDesign data merge

InDesign data merge

You could use InDesign and it's Data Merge function...pretty straightforward if you've ever done mail merge before. You'll be saving the Excel doc as a CSV file, importing the CSV into InDesign and then setting up the Data Merge template. Biggest issue is usually setting up the headers in Excel, cleaning up the records and getting it sorted correctly so the import/merge goes smoothly.

Terry

 

[JayDA]

Honestly, back in the day I did a few of these just using Word, it's ugly...but it will work if you spend enough time with it.