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.
Within the type menu of
Adobe InDesign is the Text Variables feature. This allows users to insert a
special character that will display one of the following items:
A chapter number
A file-related date such
as the creation date, modification date or output date
Filename
Image Name (aka captions
setup)
Last Page Number
Running Header based on
either a used paragraph or character style
Custom static text
Unfortunately, there is an unwanted behaviour of the text variables – InDesign treats them as a single character rather than the actual content within the variable. This has a few unwanted consequences:
Long variables that would
normally break over several lines are squished into one line;
They cannot be formatted
using GREP or Nested styles, nor can specific words be manually selected for
formatting.
It’s an issue that is “in backlog” by the Adobe InDesign team to address, but that was first stated in 2017.
If the issue was resolved, it would have enabled my GREPGraph solution to be applied in the following InDesignSecrets article.
As it turns out, it is also affecting another solution that would make lives easier for anyone who has to create diaries and planners on a regular basis.
The brief:
A planner is created
by making a base template and then creating threaded text for the dates that
are represented only by numbers. This makes populating a diary from week to
week relatively easy…
…until the other material has to be populated, such as what month it is, what term it is, and what week it is. This is best illustrated in the first two minutes of a Youtube video by Rob Cubbon.
Incidentally in Rob’s video, he uses frame breaks between each record, but that isn’t required. Instead, adjust the paragraph style of the numbers by going to the Keep Options and from the Start Paragraph dropdown, select In Next Frame.
The technique:
Instead of populating
the text frames simply with numbers, what if the frames were populated with
more information that can be called upon by running header text variables, such
as the month?
I can make a list in
excel that contains the day of the week and the month in one column. This is
also done without a space intentionally for reasons that will become evident
soon.
I can then copy this text
to my InDesign file. However, note that the text overflows and isn’t correct –
that is because the flowing numbers need to have a character style that will
hide the text that we want to be visible elsewhere. To do this, I’ve created a character
style called hidden, and its properties are:
.1 point high;
1% wide;
No fill or stroke.
That’s fine, but
applying that manually to everything but the numbers will be a nuisance, so the
paragraph style for the numbers has to be modified using Nested Styles.
The nested style will apply a style of [None] to the digits as they need to be visible, but will intentionally hide the month.
So why I am I
intentionally hiding the month? Because I’m only interested in the information
it represents, and this can be called upon by a text variable. I will go to the
master page and insert a text variable for a running header showing me the
first result of hidden on the page.
The issue with the technique
That’s fine until I
get to a spread that contains two months. I’d rather both months be present
rather than the earlier month. For example, I’d like the headline to read
April/May instead of April. I can do this by returning to my master page, apply
my blinking text cursor to the text variable that is already there, type a
slash and then create a new text variable that is a running header looking for
hidden character style in the last instance.
Once I’ve inserted the
variable and returned to that spread, that now looks fine, but all others are
now affected.
I should be able to
make a GREP style that will look for a word, then a backslash, and the same
word it initially found. I’ll create a new text frame with some sample text to
see if it works. The GREP code I’ll use is this:
Apply style: Hidden
GREP: (.+?)\K\/\1
Looks like its working
in my demo, but as I check the document it isn’t… I’ll find a spread where I
know the months split.
But that should work. I saw it work on plain text, why isn’t it working on text variables? That’s because GREP styles and Nested Styles don’t work on text variables. If I want this technique to work, I’ll have to use a workaround.
The workarounds:
Use a script to convert the text variables to plain text. Marijan Tompa used to have such a product via the Adobe Exchange, but it has since been removed, and it is not mine to give away. Other scripts do exist on the Adobe InDesign forums, but they are not as flexible as Marijan’s original script. It also works only one way, and can’t convert the text back to variables.
Don’t attempt to use the GREP style to hide the duplicate month, but instead only add a Running Header for the first instance on a page and add the others manually by overriding the affected master pages;
Create the desired date in Excel using a formula.
The issue with the
first two solutions is that it prevents the solution from remaining live. The
last solution will work but requires in-depth knowledge of Excel and – for many
diaries – requires having an Excel file on stand-by for this purpose.
Ultimately, I’d love to see a fix for this issue as it would open up many possibilities. If you feel that this needs attention now rather than later, please cast your vote here.
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 recent forum post concerning adding page sizes to InDesign’s Document Setup highlighted two different ways to accomplish this task. This article will explain both methods, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method as while they both perform similar tasks, they are not the same and can complement each other.
First method: Saved Presets
Before beginning, it is worth noting that when making a new document in InDesign, users will be presented with one of two different interfaces. In the latest version of Creative Cloud, the default user interface looks like this:
There is also the Legacy interface that long-time InDesign users will be more familiar with:
To choose to use the Legacy user interface, go to the InDesign Preferences (Command+K for Mac, Control+K for Windows) and check the Use Legacy “New Document” Dialog checkbox on. Alternatively if the new default look is preferred, uncheck the dialog box.
Making a saved preset in the default “New Document” dialog
Go to the New Document
dialog box (Command+N for Mac, Control+N for Windows) to show the user
interface.
Once open, go to the
right hand side of the dialog box and enter the measurements, orientation and
other desired options.
To save the preset, click on the icon to the right of the Preset Details heading and a new prompt will appear to save the preset.
Once named and saved, the preset can now be accessed in the Saved portion of the user interface.
Be careful in this window as deleting a saved preset will remove it without prompting for a warning.
Making a saved preset in the Legacy dialog
Go to the New Document
dialog box (Command+N for Mac, Control+N for Windows) to show the user
interface.
Once open, enter the measurements, orientation and other desired options. To save the preset, click on the icon to the right of Document Preset dropdown and a prompt will appear to save the preset.
Once named and saved, the preset can now be accessed Document Preset dropdown of the user interface.
The preset can be deleted by clicking the trashcan in the top right corner of the dialog box, but unlike the default interface, a warning dialog is presented.
Managing saved presets
Regardless of the interface used to make the preset, they are managed by going to the File Menu, Document Presets, then Define. This will present a new dialog box:
From this dialog box,
it is possible to save presets so that they can be shared with others as a
.dcst file; load preset .dcst files that others have created, as well as make
new presets, edit or delete existing presets. Again, a warning will be
presented if a preset is to be deleted.
Note though that when
making a new preset or editing an existing preset that the Legacy dialog box is
used.
Second method: New Page Sizes.xml
This other method calls upon an XML file that InDesign references for custom-made sizes. On a Mac, it can be found here:
This file can be edited to add custom sizes. By default, the XML file looks like this:
The syntax to create a
new page size looks like this:
The <Name> tags refer to the name of the page size that the user will see in the New Document dialogs. The <Width> and <Height> tags refer to the measurements and these measurements are in points. Each page name, width and height are wrapped in their own <PageSize> tag.
For this example, I’ve taken in all A, B, C, D paper sizes as well as some imperial sizes and saved the XML file.
When I now open the default New Document interface, the new options now appear in the Print portion:
And here is what it
looks like in the Legacy user interface:
Distinctions between Document Presets and New Page Sizes.xml
The default user interface will allow users to add Document Titles to new documents and also allow users to see page sizes at a glance, as opposed to the Legacy interface where page size measurements are only visible once a preset or page size is selected from the dropdown.
Selecting Create Alternate Layout from the Pages panel will show a new dialog box that contains pages added via the New Page Sizes.xml file. These page sizes will be able to be selected from the dropdown, while page sizes made via the saved presets will be unavailable.
The New Page Sizes.xml will only add names of page sizes, widths and heights; while adding presetsstores more information such as total number of pages, page orientation, page size (including pages that can be accessed from the New Page Sizes.xml), amount of columns, margin dimensions, bleed and slug settings, and whether to have facing pages or primary text frames.
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