Since 2016, Colecandoo has provided the free version of the Data Merge to Single Records script for Adobe InDesign – a script that allows single records to be exported from Data Merge with unique filenames available from the Data Merge database itself. This improves Adobe InDesign’s default – naming each file Untitled-N and is only available for InDesign files, not PDFs.
On that note, the PRO version of this script is now available!
This script improves upon the free original by:
Exporting to various additional file formats, such as interactive PDF, EPS, PNG, JPG, direct to print, or PDF via InDesign first;
Add a primary key to either the start or the end of a filename;
When exporting to certain file formats – the ability to run a user-selected additional script before the export.
The original Data Merge to Single Records script offered by Colecandoo remains free and can be downloaded from the scripts page.
At the time of
writing, there are three multi-page/artboard file formats that Adobe InDesign
can import when placing a file via the File/Place function. These formats are:
PDF
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
(While it is possible to create many artboards in Adobe Photoshop, it is not possible to import a specific Photoshop artboard into Adobe InDesign… – at the time of writing that is – but that is another article!)
When placing one of these three formats, it is possible to control several import functions using the show import dialog box, such as:
Which page (or pages) to
import;
How the pages should be
cropped;
Whether or not to place
the pages with a transparent background; and
What layers to show and
their visibility;
However, when importing these file types as variable images during a data merge, these options are unavailable and replaced with the following:
Only the first absolute page of the file is imported (not always the page numbered 1 as the first page can also be – for example – in roman numerals or start at a page other than one); and
Page cropping, transparency and layer visibility is determined by the same variables as the last file of that type to be placed into the artwork.
For now, there is no
workaround to control the latter issues during a data merge, other than to be
familiar with this behaviour and plan the merge accordingly. There is a
workaround for importing pages beyond the first page of a PDF file… but not
an Illustrator or InDesign file.
Workaround: Split the PDF
The term “workaround”
is used loosely in this context. Unfortunately, the solution is to break the
PDFs into single page records. This can be done within Acrobat using the split button
from the organise pages panel.
This feature also
allows multiple files to be split at once.
By default, the resulting files will maintain the same filename with the addition of _Partx prior to the filename, with x representing the absolute page number.
Otherwise, I’ve prepared an action that you can download here that will save the PDFs to the Documents folder of the machine running the action.
(Yes, I’m also aware that there are quite literally hundreds of websites out there that will split multi-page PDFs to single PDFs for free. However, the methods outlined above will do so without involving a third party).
The next part of the workaround involves the data itself, and I’ll be using Microsoft Excel to create formulas to make the numbering for the resulting pages. All variable images being referenced will also be in the same folder as the data file, meaning only the filename is required and not the full path and the filename.
For data where the page number is
known
Add a column to the
database that references the absolute PDF page number that needs to be
imported.
Absolute vs Section numbers abridged:
Absolute numbers refers to a page number based on the total count of pages in the document, while section numbers refers to the page number that was applied using page numbering in the application that made the PDF.
For example, take a PDF that contains 20 pages with the first six pages being in roman numerals, and the remainder being in decimal numbers. These two different styles of numbering are section numbers, while absolute page numbers refer to the total count of pages. To reference page iv of the PDF, the absolute page number to reference is 4. To reference page 5 of the PDF, the absolute page number reference is 11.
In this example, the A
column represents the PDF to reference, the B column represents the absolute page
number, and C represents the result. To obtain this result, the following
formula can be used:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,".PDF","_Part"&B2&".pdf")
This formula will look at filename reference and substitute the .PDF portion of the filename for _Partx.pdf, where x represents the figure in the B column. Using this formula, only filenames with the PDF extension will be affected, while filenames in other formats will be unaffected.
For data where the page reference
needs to increment by one more than the row above
The same formula can be used for the naming, but another formula is used to determine if the page reference should increase if the same base file is being referenced in the row directly above.
In this example, the N column represents the PDF to reference, the O column represents the absolute page number, and P represents the result. A 24 page file NS91912 is being merged and needs to have the page reference incremented by one so that the filenames are NS91912_Part1.pdf to NS91912_Part24.pdf. The following formula can be used to change the page reference:
=IF(N2=N1,O1+1,1)
This formula will look
at the filename and determine that if the filename is different to the row
above, put the number 1 in the cell, BUT if the filename is the same as the row
above, take the page value from the cell above and add 1 to it into this cell.
In a perfect world
Again, this is a workaround – it will only work for PDFs and requires some upfront work to prepare. Ideally, if I had my way and could implement some improvements, I’d like to see:
Not just the ability to
choose a specific page, but choose the correct trim box and layers as well. For
example, a file reference such as myFile.pdf;1,trim;Layer1,Layer2 where 1
represents the absolute page number, trim represents what trim box to use, and
Layer1,Layer2 represent the layers I would like to appear (or leave the layer
bit blank if all layers should be visible).
The ability to perform a
similar task for incoming INDD, AI or PSD files.
A feature of Acrobat DC that can be quite handy is the prepare form feature. It allows a scan (or a document with no form-field elements) to have form-field elements applied to it, so long as the formatting of the artwork follows the practices listed in this document.
However, there is an improvement that I feel could be made to this feature, but may have been missed by the Acrobat team, and that is date fields. Take the following example:
Now run the Prepare Form feature of Adobe Acrobat DC Professional:
The signature is picked up OK, but the date field is just a text field.
After doing a little digging online, I found that changing the name of the Date field to something like Date_af_date (the importance being the _af_date text) and this will change it to a date field;
But it doesn’t truly act like a date field. If I close out of preview mode and tab to the text field, it behaves like a regular text field.
It isn’t until the format category is changed to date that the field behaves
like a date field with a date picker.
So that’s fine to edit one field, but if there are lots of date fields to edit, or this is a regular task, it can be time consuming. Ultimately, I’d like Acrobat’s prepare form feature to detect the date fields just like other fields like text inputs and signature fields are auto detected.
Until that happens, I’ve created an Acrobat action that will run not just the prepare form feature, but also a javascript that will find any of the resulting fields that have the word Date (case-sensitive) in them and make them selectable date fields. That action can be downloaded here.
To change the date format, open up the Acrobat action
and change the following line in the script:
The number in brackets can be changed from 5 to a value between 0-13 that
represents a format as shown below:
In the meantime, if you would like the Acrobat team to update the prepare form feature so that date fields are automatically detected, I’ve added it to the Acrobat Uservoice wishlist.
As a prepress operator, a great deal of my time is spent making sure that artwork supplied by clients will print without any prepress issues. Given that most client-supplied files are PDFs, a great deal of my time is spent in Adobe Acrobat checking the files using the print production tools and an invaluable plug-in called Enfocus Pitstop Professional.
While I’ve given the Adobe Acrobat team plenty of grief over my last few blog posts, I do have to sing their praises over a rather massive feature that – for me at least – has gone unnoticed since its inception in Acrobat 7 – preflight droplets.
What is a droplet?
A droplet acts as a “hot folder” that – once a PDF is dragged onto it – will run a preflight profile on that PDF.
This works for one or many PDFs. I first learned of this feature from this Jean-Claude Tremblay’s post to an InDesignSecrets article about using the preflight feature to convert a file to outlines, rather than using InDesign-based methods. That said, the droplets feature has been available since at least 2007!
Making a droplet is simple. While in the print production panel of Adobe Acrobat, click the preflight button, and in the new dialog box, select Create Droplet… from the Options button.
The next dialog box will ask what preflight profile to use, where success/failed PDFs should be processed to, and if a summary PDF needs to be created of each file.
Many of the built-in preflight profiles either force compliance to one of the PDF/X standards, or analyse a PDF and report the errors that were encountered. However, it is the custom fixup portion that may interest readers in a production role. To see where this can be found, click the Edit Profiles… selection from the Options button of the preflight dialog box.
Underneath the warnings and standards compliance, there is a section titled custom fixups.
In this panel is a plethora of changes that Acrobat can make to an entire document to fix common preflight issues such as:
Faux blacks
White overprint, or other colours that should knockout instead of overprint
Black instead of Registration
Remove trim marks and take back to 3mm bleed
Make pantone spot color names consistent
In addition, it is possible to make your own custom fixups rather than use the built-in ones. Click the add button to add your own fixup.
It is also possible to drill down even further in the editing by clicking additional edit buttons.
This allows for further variables to be made.
Usually, many of these changes would be done using Enfocus Pitstop Professional’s action lists or global changes, but with the creation of an appropriate preflight droplet, not only can they be done without the Enfocus Pitstop Professional plug-in, they can also be done without opening the PDF.
Wouldn’t use it as a catch-all
It would be great to have one preflight that will catch all scenarios and fix the PDFs so that all that needs to be done is make sure the content is right and that the art is fit for its purpose… but because there are so many edge-cases that I deal with, it is more appropriate to make a “catch-most” preflight for common errors such as the ones mentioned earlier.
It can be confusing
With so many options to choose from, it can also be very confusing and – at times – frustrating, especially when some custom fixups contradict each other with no way of being able to sort out what one should go first.
Some of the commands are also not so intuitive. One instruction that I wanted to use – that was to make any object that wasn’t 100% black to knock out – wasn’t where I thought it would be.
It took hours of trial and error to realise that the color range to select was Gray Object (black below 96%) is set to overprint… but who would know with the other options that appear to make more sense?
It’s not a magic bullet
That’s not to imply that the Enfocus Pitstop Professional plug-in isn’t necessary – it is an absolute must for prepress operators. Preflight droplets complement the Enfocus plug-in, saving hours of time manually scanning a PDF looking for “the usual suspects” and allow PDFs in a workflow to be “normalised” for colour profile, trim/bleed size, appropriate overprints and knockouts as required, etc.
There are some fixups that work better using the Enfocus Pitstop plug-in, such as the generate bleed action. When run as a custom fixup via Acrobat preflight, it only adds bleeds to rendered art, and usually by scaling it. The Enfocus pitstop plug-in is more versatile in that it will apply to both vector and raster images, and bleed off appropriate edges only.
Importantly, the preflight fixups won’t be able to make content-related changes, such as fixing typographical errors or moving artwork away from a trim-edge… these changes have to be made with manual intervention using the Enfocus tools.
Lastly, preflight droplets are not a substitute for a skilled prepress operator examining a file, given that droplets cannot:
Ensure that artwork will fold correctly or be suitable for their intended purpose;
Confirm that the artwork is the correct version supplied by the client;
Understand the context of the content such as spelling, grammar or “design features”.
