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Mac Indesign CS3 and Variable data.

J

Jecclr2003

Member
Another day, another new way to reinvent the wheel.

We have a job that just came in that's going to be a doozy. It's a 2 sided postcard with each side having the mailee's name and address as variable data. There's a problem, I haven't the slightest clue how to to do variable data!!!! (I'm prepress/designer, what the hell would I know about direct mailing?!?)

I see that CS3 has a plugin built in for data merge, but no clues how to use it or to make it do something of this magnitude. It's going to be a list of about 500 names, I don't know HOW the names are going to be pulled in yet though.

Help me maintain my position as "program guru" and temporary hero! I KNOw there's gotta be a way to make this happen, I'm just not smart enough to figure it out!
 
Hello -

I feel your pain, but learned how to do this the hard way

This is actually very easy

I can help you through it - if you want email me directly at [email protected]

Its done through the data merge Script in Indesign CS3

It has to be an excel spreadsheet though, then it gets exported to a txt file

then in indesign, you make a text box and tell it where to put each record, with the postcard design being on a master page.

Email me the file and I can help you out
 
Bah, it's boiling down to this issue being more of a HARDWARE issue than software.

Due to this being VARIABLE it's not going be printed on a conventional printing press, but a digital press. The issue comes from the fact that it's double sided and the thickness of said stock will be too much for the digital press to handle duplexing for.

It can be done, but we need a monster printer that's just way out of budgetary reasoning for as LITTLE of this type of thing as we do.

EDIT: I can think of ways to make it happen and WORK, but I can't overcome the limitations of the press and I don't think the customer would want to pay for all the billable hours I'd need to charge for it to happen
 
What kind of digital press is it???

You can run it through then manually duplex it.

Do you have imposition software???? We use preps here, and we can set up a sheetwise imposition, and it will have the correct cards back up the correct front

Do you have software for that???
 
excel to indesign

excel to indesign

bgardner said:
Hello -

I feel your pain, but learned how to do this the hard way

This is actually very easy

I can help you through it - if you want email me directly at [email protected]

Its done through the data merge Script in Indesign CS3

It has to be an excel spreadsheet though, then it gets exported to a txt file

then in indesign, you make a text box and tell it where to put each record, with the postcard design being on a master page.

Email me the file and I can help you out
Click to expand...

So, start with an excel SPREADSHEET not a workbook (worksheet) ...whatever...... ?
I want to number raffle tickets sequentially with a '00' prefix. But the prefix doesn't show up. Thanks
 
Yes, Make a spreadsheet with your numbers in excel, and Put the numbers in the way you want it, then save the spreadsheet as a csv file

That is what will get imported into Indesign
 
The first time I did a merge like this, I found the indesign help to be an excellent resource as well. Once it's laid out, it's a pretty simple process.
 
twitch5253 said:
So, start with an excel SPREADSHEET not a workbook (worksheet) ...whatever...... ?
I want to number raffle tickets sequentially with a '00' prefix. But the prefix doesn't show up. Thanks
Click to expand...

In order for the numbers to print w/ 00 in front of the others, you need to format the cells as "text". In Excel, Right click - format cells - in the number tab choose text. Done.
 
EskoArtwork has a plugin for Ai called Dynamic Content for Adobe® Illustrator® that may be of interest to you. Here is a link - Dynamic Content - EskoArtwork - to the webpage. Check out the 'movie' demo on the right side of the page. Notice the FREE TRIAL download available.
 
Twitch5253

If all you want to do is number tickets there is a simpler solution.m Download Easy Numbering 2.3 ($35). You can impose in application, create a pdf and then number them with lots of options. It creates a small pdf file compared to a data merge, and you don't have to create a data base for the numbers.
 
XMPie

XMPie

We do a lot of variable printing. We use XMPie, it will even impose for you so you can use 12x18 or what ever the largest sheet your digital press can run.
 
Indesign VD

Indesign VD

Once you get used to it, variable data in Indesign is a god send. You can use it to generate sales letters, customer followups, mass mailings for clients, just about anything you can think of. If your variable text needs to be perfectly in-line then you will need to use ID. If not, you could offset the master "blanks" and insert the text with an aftermarket program. We do this successfully on hundreds of thousands of sheets a month.

The problem with using ID directly is if your file is fairly complex your resulting job will be huge. You can get around this by doing a the jobs in batches.

The one thing to remember in creating your excel/csv file is your collumns need headers, so your csv file will look like this

first name, last name, street, city, state, zip
Ronald, McDonald, 101 Main St, Hilo, HI, 96720

this process sure beats a windmill for numbering or the need for a massive press with associative RIP software. :)
 
Numbering

Numbering

sure, there are other numbering software programs available but with mine you actually get to talk with a "real printer" (with over 30 years experience) that will walk you through the job and make sure that you get it out the door and make some money. that's the difference my friends.

QUALITYPRESSSOFTWARE.COM
 
Jecclr2003, data merge is the way to go for this job. If your digital press can run them single sided at the grammage you want then you can also do both sides manually. You do this by running all the odd pages first, flip, then send the evens. If you have a common front then you can send this separately.

For the data, youll need excel or neooffice. Open a new spreadsheet, delete sheets 2 and 3. Select all. Change the format to "text". This will honour whatever you type and not autocorrect numbers. In the first cell you type the name of the element that you wish to print, say "name". If you have the address in another location on your postcard, in the next cell to the right, type "address". Below these goes the actual data you wish to print; each address and name occupying its own cell. When all the data is in, save the file both as a spreadsheet and a csv file.

In indesign have all the art ready and have some dummy text for name and address how you want it to appear. Under Window > Automation > Data Merge, bring up the toolbar. From the side pullout select your data source: the csv file. With the name in indesign selected, double click the name in the data merge window. it will then look like this: <<name>>. Do the same for address. With the little preview ticked at the bottom you'll see how youre going. If the front is common to all cards, dont include this in the data document cos itll make it huge. Send the front through indesign with the same settings to avoid colour issues.

To create the 500 page doc, go to the top pull out, select "create merged document" and make them as single records. Let it run its course. If you have double spaces or other probs, use find and replace: this is the beauty of data merge over xmpie.

Away you go
 
Last edited:
I have to agree with the previous posters - VDP is not just for mailing houses and is a competitive advantage to have as a prepress operator and for a printer or other service provider. Many printers have in-house artwork creation - it is not just enough to offer pre-press, a printer may also offer artwork or design services too.

Two big "flavour of the month" aspects of current printing sales are "Variable Data Printing" and "Web2Print". If one does not have W2P, then VDP can be used to streamline artwork creation in certain cases.

A regular job may be creating business cards for a corporate client. It could take a minute to setup each card, using copy/paste from the clients source file into InDesign. However, using DataMerge one can create hundreds of cards in a couple of minutes.

DataMerge requires the client to have their database setup correctly. We give advice on how to do this, and quote on the work being done from a "print ready" database - with the caution that there will be extra charges for having to monkey with the database if it does not meet our "print ready requirements".

My shop does not aggressively market VDP services (it is listed as a service however we don't chase this work), however we still seem to get at least one of these jobs each week. It could be a mailing job - or it could also be producing name tags for a conference or other event. We generally use the good old numbering machine to do numbering, however some jobs we have done numbering via VDP in a single print pass on our Xerox copier (rather than using the numbering machine in a second print pass).

I had to teach myself VDP with Adobe software - there are many resources freely available to learn this task. In the current market, it is a must have skill IMHO.

Stephen Marsh
 
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data merge with no space

data merge with no space

Hey guys

Good thing I stumbled across this thread. I have a business card job with 250 names done in excel. So far data merge in Indesign is the way to go. But I have 1 issue. Some names have middle initials and most do not. I set up my data placements in ID with:

<<first name>>space<<middle>>space<<last>>.

This all works for the names with middle's but with the one's without I get 3 spaces, even when I use remove blank lines for empty fields. Anyone have a work around?

Thanks

p
 
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