Sorry for the late reply. Have you resolved this problem already? If not, would you be able to send me your CSV and INDD files so I can look at the set-up?

It sounds like the think you need to do is create an Object Style for those image frames that has Frame Fitting Options applied (probably Fill Frame Proportionally, aligning from the top left), and apply that to the frames that Data Merge will use to place your merged images.

In my experience, however, Data Merge isn’t smart enough to both place the image and apply that fitting option. You’ll have to do that on a second pass using Find/Change’s Object-based search-and-replace capabilities. Even though it’s an extra step, having assigned that Object Style to the placeholder frames will help you out a lot, because you can limit your search to only frames using that style. This will avoid changing frames you don’t want changed.

After doing your merge, open Find/Change, click the Object Tab and, in the Find Object Format settings, choose the Object Style you created for those placeholders to limit your search to those frames only. In the Change Object Format settings, choose that same Object Style again (just to be safe), and also go to the Frame Fitting Options settings and re-establish the options that were originally built into the style. This will force the fitting to be re-applied when you execute the Find/Change operation. Test it out on one or two frames first before hitting Change All…just in case.

Good luck! I hope this solves the problem for you.

Thanks for a very instructive video.

I have one specific problem regarding Datamerge – in this case in InDesign CS3.

I’m setting up a manual with different technical symbols, which i insert in an imageframe. The other information from the spreadsheet is some text (symbol no., description etc.) which i put in textframes. So it’s put up in a row like this (symbol ID, symbol/image, description, keywords. The data is then repeated downwards when i do the merge (like rows in a table)

The datamerge comes out perfect, except for one thing. I want the imageframes containing the symbols, to automaticly fit the height of the inserted images – but only the height. The width of the imageframes should be fixed so that they all have the same width.

I don’t have that option in Content placement options.
Is there any way to fix this one little issue?

Thanks in regard

/Søren

PS:(I hope my english is understandable)

What I typically do in Excel is create two additional columns, then paste the common path for my image files into the first cell at the top of one of those columns. Then I click and drag on the lower-right corner of that cell and drag down the column to populate all cells in that column with the file path.

In the other column, I take advantage of Excel’s concatenation feature to combine the file path with the unique file names. So, if for example, your file path is in column C and your file names are in column D (assuming that each starts in row 2 because you need a header row for the data merge), what you’d put in that blank column to combine the two is: =CONCATENATE(C2,D2)

You should see the result once you hit enter. The cell should now contain the contents of cell C2, immediately followed by the contents of cell D2. If you click and hold on the lower right corner of that cell, then drag down the column, it will combine C3 and D3, C4 and D4, C5 and D5, and so on all the way down. That’s the column you should put the @photos header on in Excel so InDesign recognizes it as image references.

Don’t worry about the other two columns being in the Excel file you eventually use in InDesign. They’ll be available in InDesign’s Data Merge panel, but you don’t need to use them in your document.

Is there anyway to use data merging on a double sided document? I’m creating 300 business cards and need to have “variables” on each side of the card. I’m using the Multiple record layout for the fronts and it’s working perfectly, but, I need the backs to match up on a separate page in the same document.

Thanks for all your help!

I have a question regarding collecting data in an excel doc. I have a bunch of images (nested in a folder structure) that I want to get into the excel doc so I can do the data merge. Is there an easy way to capture all the image file paths all at once to paste into excel? I’m using OSX and guess this could be done in terminal but not sure just how. Any thoughts?

——————————————————

An important update to the InCopy and InDesign products has been released today!
To install the update, choose Help > Updates from any Adobe CS4 application, or navigate to the Adobe Updater and launch it:
Mac: /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Utilities/Updater6/Adobe Updater.app
Win: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6\Adobe_Updater.exe

You can also download the updates from Adobe.com at the following locations:
InCopy Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=30&platform=Macintosh
InCopy Win: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=30&platform=WIndows
InDesign Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=31&platform=Macintosh
InDesign Win: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=31&platform=WIndows

Release notes are here: http://www.adobe.com/go/id6_readme_en

I am facing the same issue. Since InDesign wont do it (at least any way that I can find), why not re-order the actual data? In my case, I am printing 4-up response cards with dynamic data on both sides, so while my “front” side is ordered 1-2-3-4 going from right to left on two rows, my other side simply has to have record 1 become 2, 2->1, 3->4, 4->3. The formula here ends up being add one to the unique ID of odd records, and subtract one from the same value of even numbered records, and reorder.

Just remember to backup an original copy of the data in case of mistakes, the front side data must have an autonumbered sequential ID field (so you can alter it in the “back” side data file). If you get creative with copy and pasting Excel formulas, this becomes a much less daunting task than it seems and improves the functionality of InDesign exponentially (in my opinion).

Just an idea, and I hope it works for you!