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![]() Use conditional statementsĬreate more sophisticated record templates that apply different formats to a field, based on its or another field’s value. Use variablesĬalculate and store information for later use in the prototype, or for use in later records. You can size the graphic to the picture frame or the frame to the graphic, using one of several sizing options. Import related graphics into picture frames anchored in the incoming text. Do sophisticated picture importing and sizing ![]() Use as many fields and records as is practical, with each being as long as needed. Sort and then export from your database application, spreadsheet applications (e.g., Excel), or download from the web or your corporate information systems, and then import the resulting data file with InData, fully formatted. Get results as either a beginner or an expertĭo simple jobs easily, and still tackle the toughest and most complex jobs with power. You can weave in static and dynamic text and pictures, include your fields in any order, or omit fields entirely. In your template text, use bracketed names to identify each incoming data field, e.g., name, address or description, and style each field with appropriate text and paragraph attributes. With InData, you can: Publish automatically using a “prototype” (template) for your records and if the gender indicates female, set the salutation to Ms. For example, you could check the field that contains gender information and if the content indicates male for a single record, you could set the salutation of your letter to Mr. Use this to check the content of a field and then perform an action. The most well-known examples of Boolean expressions are the and, or, and not operators. The real power lays in the support of Boolean expressions. InData does far more than just import text. The prototype is not a separate file, but rather exists as text within the InDesign publication. An InData prototype, which tells InData how the imported records are to be placed and formatted.A InDesign document, either designed from scratch or created by opening a template.Generally, these records are stored in an external file, but they may also be imported from the clipboard or from a text story on the InDesign pasteboard. A raw data file, containing the records to be imported and formatted using InData and InDesign, exported from a database or spreadsheet application, or prepared by hand using a word processing program.It is not a stand-alone program which must be run separately from InDesign, and no special additional files are required. InData runs from inside of InDesign, under its own menu, and imports and formats text into normal InDesign publications. InData operates as an Plug-in to InDesign, automatically becoming part of the InDesign publishing system once it is installed. InData accepts data in the major Macintosh and Windows data exchange file formats, enabling you to use it with textual data created in all major database and spreadsheet packages, or even with data created by hand in a word processor. ![]() InData automatically applies the format you specify to each element of information as it is imported from the original data source. It provides full automation of price lists, catalogs, directories, and even one-to-one marketing pieces using your customer data. While it’s true that InData can perform mail merges, very much like those within Microsoft Word, the term mail merge doesn’t even begin to tell the story of InData. It can also optionally add running headers and footers. InData for InDesign can set up a prototype, then you can point it at a data source (a plain text file that’s been exported), and it can make one long, flowing story, generating additional pages as necessary, containing all the records formatted according to your prototype. If you have data in a spreadsheet, data in a database (or just a list of a whole bunch of data that you need to format), how can you make it look good quickly? It might be a directory, or a catalog, but there are all kinds of reasons why you might want to be publishing your data.
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